Bennett David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Bennett David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:5129] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I thank Mark Blumsky for that excellent speech. Today is a very disappointing day. A political party called New Zealand First campaigns year after year on keeping people honest on standing up for individual rights and on being there for all New Zealanders—and what has it done today? When it had the chance it just dumped the small-business man. New Zealand First members dumped the people who supported them and they supported the Government in order to keep the baubles of power—so that its members could stay in the Cook Islands and sit on spiders. Well that is not good enough for New Zealanders. We want to have a country that represents all New Zealanders. We want a Government that is actually prepared to make the hard calls—a Government that will move with the issues and with the people. 
When we were in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee the issue of vulnerable workers was raised quite genuinely. There is an issue out there and that issue will not be solved by legislation that is universal. There are two things that this legislation will not do and those members opposite will destroy the vision and passion of ordinary New Zealanders—those people out there who set up a business to clean as a family unit who employ fewer than 10 employees and who want to transfer their business through. This bill kills them. They are stung by harsh legislation that puts far too many restrictions on them and their business capabilities. That is shocking. It is shameful and there is only one word for it. It begins with “h”. 
Secondly this legislation indicates the intention of Labour and New Zealand First to keep the people under their little thumbs—to keep them under control. They know better than the people—that is their message. Labour and New Zealand First say that they know what is best for ordinary New Zealanders and that 60 of them can make a decision for 4 million people. They know because they think they have this God-given right to tell everyone what they think. This is what they think and that is what New Zealand First has been doing just for the baubles of power. It has become part of the union movement now. It is part of the union movement; it is the Labour Government. 
I refer now to some of the issues and numbers given to us in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and heavens above to think that this question might have been asked by Peter Brown! He might actually have asked in the select committee how many small employers there were. The answer was that for 1417 sole traders there were zero employees. There were 737 businesses employing one to five employees and 153 businesses employing six to nine employees. That gives a total of 890 businesses that employ between one and nine employees or a total of 2307 businesses employing fewer than 10 people. The sole traders are not even in the legislation. 
If we look at the number of employees we see that for businesses employing zero to nine employees there are 2860 employees. That is for 2307 businesses. But there are 16180 employees for the other 451 businesses that employ more than 10 employees and those 16180 people are the people this legislation is for. They are the real vulnerable workers. 
The other 2000 people are people in small businesses who are trying to make a go of it. What then does the Government do? It just goes and shafts them. And what does New Zealand First do? It supports the Government in shafting them. What did we have to do? We put up an amendment that would have given the opportunity for the political parties in this Chamber to stand up for what is right to stand up for New Zealanders to stand up for those working people who are vulnerable employees and to stand up for those hard-working New Zealanders who want to start their own businesses. What happened? Those parties denied it. They said no to it and moved on. 
This legislation would have supported 16000 New Zealanders but 2000 have been denied that support through New Zealand First’s inaction. We had the numbers here today. We could have got that amendment through. The parties around this Chamber all listened apart from New Zealand First. Why did it not listen? That is my question to that party.