Gosche Mark: Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Gosche Mark: Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It would be useful if the member who just resumed her seat Paula Bennett had a look at the Supplementary Order Paper and understood it before she got up and tried to speak about it. It is pretty simple stuff. It actually requires somebody who wants to make a request for flexible working arrangements to have been employed during the 6 months immediately preceding the request. I did not hear the member mention that little fact at all. I just think that maybe the members on that side of the Chamber are very flexible. We know that some of the National members like Mr Blumsky had had enough within 6 months of working in the National caucus. Mr Blumsky requested flexible working arrangements so that he did not have to come to work any more! I thought that National would be supporting this Supplementary Order Paper because it allows flexible working arrangements for its own members. National allows all sorts of flexibility for people who are supposed to be paid by the taxpayer to come to work. 
What we are saying with this simple amendment in respect of people who need flexible working hours—and people came to the select committee and explained the reasons for it—is that there needs to be some sort of set of rules for employers. It is not unreasonable in my view for a period of 6 months to be met by a worker before he or she makes that request. As that member who has just sat down said the employee will have negotiated his or her terms and conditions at the beginning when he or she took the job on. We know that in some cases there is a power imbalance and that people who are keen to get a job will agree to anything. If those people then find their circumstances have changed in the next 6 months they have a right to approach their employers and put in a request for flexible working arrangements. 
Employers as we know in other parts of this bill have all sorts of factors they can take into account as to whether that working arrangement suits them. Now how could anybody in their right mind argue against this Supplementary Order Paper? How could those people over there in the National Party who pretend to want to represent the interests of business and employers as if any of them know anything about it oppose this amendment? It is actually—from my reading—a sensible position supported by employers. They want this sort of provision so that they know there is some period of time from when they took on the worker—a 6-month period—when the original terms and conditions of employment are intact. So I look forward to National members being sensible for once in debating legislation of this sort and saying: “Well that’s a sensible move. We can support that SOP because it does set some criteria that employers will welcome and workers will respect and that will make this a very workable piece of legislation.” 
I suppose on the other side of the Chamber members have such a fit of pique against any sorts of rights for workers that they have to get up and oppose things just for the sake of it even when they have not bothered to read what the legislation means. Clearly with Kate Wilkinson who has a law degree absent National has gone for fifth best in Paula Bennett and she does not bother to read the Supplementary Order Paper before she gets up and speaks. 
Paula Bennett 
: Oh don’t tell rubbish! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: She behaved like that on the select committee and fortunately she got shifted somewhere else because her talents in terms of industrial relations were sorely lacking. She pretended that she knew something about this. Apparently she was in the “recruitment game” out there—I do not know what that means. 
Paula Bennett 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I am delighted to be talked about. It absolutely thrills me. But whether I was on the select committee and what I did prior to coming into Parliament is a longer story than the 3 minutes that that speaker has left so I would prefer that he actually stuck to debating the Supplementary Order Paper. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member knows that is not a point of order. 
Paula Bennett 
: Point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I warn the member not to contest my ruling. That was not a point of order it was a debating point. 
Paula Bennett 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: You are not contesting my ruling? 
Paula Bennett 
: No I am not. I ask that the speaker stick to clause 7 of the bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: First of all we are debating new clause 8 and we have been for the last 10 minutes. The speaker was speaking to new clause 8. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Madam Chairman— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: She’s one of their brighter members! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Yes that is right—one of the brighter ones. It is a simple fact that new clause 8 which is what I understand we are discussing at this point in this debate deals with these issues around the 6-month period. I want to know from the next National speaker why that party opposes it because it just does not make any sense to anybody on this side of the Chamber as to why it would do so. We look forward to somebody with intelligence on the National side of the Chamber saying why it is opposed to this particular Supplementary Order Paper.