Soper Lesley: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Soper Lesley: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13339] 
LESLEY SOPER (Labour) 
: 
 That was apparently the National Party’s best weapon for opposing the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Bill. Paula Bennett a young woman is actually opposing this bill. Sadly Paula Bennett may have supported this bill when she was a member of the Alliance Party. What a pity her principles have changed. What a pity the best she can do is come into this House and say that the members of the coalition for flexible work—and I shall name some of them: Parents Centres New Zealand the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Grey Power the National Council of Women of New Zealand the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and many other unions—do not know their own minds or know what is best for them and their workers. What a pity! 
This is a great bill. It is good for women. It is good for men. It is good for workers. It is good for families. It is good for employers. It would have delivered for my father who gave up his last job—a job he loved—to look after my mother who was semi-paralysed by a stroke. It would have worked for me years later when I looked after that same elderly father and juggled a full-time job. It would have worked for many other carers I met during those years who struggled with either giving up jobs or somehow working a few paid hours here and there. It would have worked for all those people. 
Members of the coalition for flexible work who came and said that this bill is a great bill and is necessary and who supported Sue Kedgley and the select committee as we went through the work of making this bill even better than when it started knew exactly what it was talking about. 
What I find really sad tonight is the so-called philosophical principled attitude of the National Party to this very very good bill. The National Party philosophy and principle tonight is the same old sound and fury—signifying nothing—that I have heard in this House for months. It is the same old insubstantial jumping from cloud to cloud and the same old hollow vessel catcalls across this Chamber. 
The National Party is the party with a leader who has actually been heard to say that flexible labour markets are the way to go but then somehow manages to flip-flop and lead the National Party into a flip-flop opposing this very important flexible working arrangements legislation. How do they live with themselves? Why do they oppose the bill? They oppose it because their mates—the Business Roundtable the Employers and Manufacturers Association and Business New Zealand—have told them to oppose it. It is not because they believe in opposing it and not because people like Paula Bennett actually believe in what they have said tonight but because their mates have told them to oppose it because it actually does something for workers. 
Let me tell the other side of this House that not only does the bill do something for workers but it does something very significant for families and for employers. I tell members on the other side of the House that what the bill does for employers is widen the recruitment pool keep experienced people in employment reduce absenteeism and make a culture in which it is more likely that staff will remain with a company. What is bad about that? 
This is a very good bill. But no members on the other side are doing exactly what they did with paid parental leave Working for Families and raising the minimum wage. They oppose the bill because philosophically all they can do is oppose anything that might be good for the workplaces of New Zealand. They do not want good employment legislation to come out. National wants to try to get back into power so that it can restore the Employment Contracts Act and bring in a 90-day probation bill. It is not interested in good workplace legislation in this country. It is not interested in what is good about this bill. It has not even considered that this bill delivers on work-life balance. Do National members even know what work-life balance means? 
They appear not to have even read this bill which quite clearly states that workers can make a request for flexible working arrangements. There are also a number of very lengthy grounds as to why an employer may refuse a request. There are things like an inability to reorganise work an inability to recruit additional staff a detrimental impact on quality and a detrimental impact on performance—and the list goes on. 
This is a very light-handed piece of legislation. It provides employees with an ability to request something that improves workplace relationships in this country. But do the National Party members care about that? No. What they seem to care about is what they came to this House with: their philosophical approach as a previous speaker called it. It is the same philosophical approach that meant opposing paid parental leave and opposing raising the minimum wage. They seem to think that anything that might be good for the workers of this country and for the families of this country is bad and therefore they will oppose it no matter what. 
It appears to me that members on that side of the House who were on the same select committee as I was listening to the submissions on this bill did not take in anything whatsoever of what they were told by any submitters who came to us. The submitters talked about the bill being employer friendly employee friendly and family friendly and about the bill being good legislation. But no it appears that all that the members on the other side could see was that somehow they had to oppose the legislation because philosophically and on first principles it is bad to have something that is family friendly employee friendly and employer friendly. 
They also seem somehow to have got away from their belief in what Mr Cameron the leader of the UK Conservative Party had to say. Mr Cameron said that his ambition is to make the right to ask for flexible working hours available to as many people as possible. He says that he understands that having flexible working hours reduces absenteeism and means that staff are more likely to remain with a company. He seems to understand all that. Mr Key seems to follow Mr Cameron’s lead constantly but on this particular issue suddenly the Tory party on the other side of the House has some sort of philosophical first-principles objection to this very good family-friendly employer-friendly and employee-friendly legislation. 
I say to the members on the other side that this is very good legislation. Sue Kedgley is to be complimented on the fact that she has brought this bill to the House and that she was willing to take an extremely lengthy period of time and to bend over backwards to have a piece of legislation now going through its final stages in the House that is even better than the bill she began with. It is an excellent bill. It is the sort of bill that in many years’ time when many of us look back at our years in Government we will say we were very proud to have been a part of passing in the House today. 
This bill delivers to New Zealanders. If the National Party thinks there is a single worker or a single woman out there whom they have impressed tonight or with any of their other speeches opposing this bill then they will learn otherwise. New Zealanders see this bill as the very good family-friendly employer-friendly and employee-friendly legislation that it is. New Zealanders are proud of its being passed. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.