Locke Keith: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Locke Keith: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16047] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I have the opposite view from that of my colleague Richard Prebble in that I think this is an accommodation to those employers who want to restrict sick leave. Under the bill prior to this amendment 5 days’ sick leave is laid out and an employee can have the first couple of days without providing a medical certificate. This provision allows the employer to demand a medical certificate for the first 2 days and it needs to be requested only on vague “reasonable” grounds. This provision will actually have the net effect of making employees sicker. That is the reality and I have experienced that in the past in different jobs. 
When people are required by their employer to provide a medical certificate for the first day they are sick they only get sicker because they have to struggle to go out. I am a case in point. When I start feeling a bit sick I try to rest. I try to stay in bed for a while hoping my immune system will come into effect and overcome the oncoming disease and hoping not to be out of circulation for more than a few hours or a day. If I had to struggle out in the cold to see the doctor I would get sicker. If people have to go out in the cold catch a bus—a lot of poor people do not have their own transport and have to wait for a bus—get to the doctor’s surgery wait for an hour for the doctor and then struggle home again that just makes them a lot sicker in circumstances where they would be better off staying at home. That is the very damaging part of this whole business and there is no need for it. 
There has been a lot of discussion about people taking lots of sick leave. There are only 5 days’ sick leave in the legislation and the employer can already demand a medical certificate for the third and subsequent day. Of course the agreement between the union and the employer may involve more sick days—indefinite as Richard Prebble has just mentioned or 10 days or 8 days or whatever—but this amendment applies only to the first 2 days to allow the present provision to remain and it would not lead to any great problems in our society. It would not make people more sick in the way that this amendment will. There are all the other issues about whether the employer will bear reasonable costs relating to the employee getting a medical certificate. That still presents a lot of potential unnecessary argument between the employer and the employee about what are reasonable costs whether it involves the full medical fee or part of it whether the appointment was for the particular sickness or other matters the prescription cost the cost of travel to the doctor or whatever. One could get into innumerable arguments that we would not really want to get into. Those arguments could be avoided by allowing the present provision to remain without the requirement for a medical certificate. 
I also think that giving that leeway is a question of respect—the respect of the employer for the worker. What are reasonable grounds? Is the legislation saying that just because someone has been off for a couple of Mondays and off on the next Monday then definitely that is reasonable grounds? I do not think one has to get into that. Sure if an employee has a longer sick period—10 days perhaps in terms of an agreement between the worker and the employer—and the employee is off for a series of Mondays sure. Even now employers can refuse to pay the sick pay if they clearly see that the worker is not sick and if they have evidence. If a worker phones up sick and then the employer sees him on the TV that night playing a rugby game during the day that he said he was too sick to get out of bed then the employer would not have to by law pay the sick pay anyhow. So there is no particular problem there. It does not avoid the situation that Richard Prebble just referred to of the employer phoning up and expressing concern. That can still be done. But that employer does not have a right to instruct an employee. If the employee describes to the employer that he or she has spots which would be serious enough to go to the doctor then a good employer could recommend that the employee go to the doctor. But this legislation means that there is not a requirement for the employee to go to the doctor if told to by the employer. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.