Peck Mark: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Peck Mark: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16265] 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 Let me say to the members opposite that farmers when they get into a bit of strife threaten not to put the rams out but they do put the rams out and do members know why they put the rams out? Because their neighbours will. I have had dealings with the hospitality industry for some considerable time and I know very well that as soon as one hotel opens they all will open—on Christmas Day and on any statutory holiday. When their competitors are open they will be open and they will employ staff and they will pay them and in Queenstown right now they are paying them a premium because they need them. 
So I say to members opposite that they should stop their bleating. They are 13 points behind in the polls and here they are having a go at poor old United Future. What is the net gain of their undermining United Future? It is 2 percent. Maurice Williamson understands numbers; he knows how dumb that is. We are the guys those members should be attacking—not the United Future members. They are not National’s problem. United Future will not be the Government. We are the Government and if National members cannot take stripes off us they will never take stripes off anybody. I find the Opposition’s dealings with this particular bill to be quite extraordinary. 
The only member in the House who was happy at the conclusion of Rodney Hide’s speech as Michael Cullen was speaking was Stephen Franks. Stephen Franks had a grin all over his face when Rodney Hide was getting done because Stephen Franks knew that his time is not up yet. He has not quite joined National yet and he still has an opportunity to be ACT leader. 
I want to say one thing about this bill that is really important. I was in Australia quite recently and I talked to quite a number of members of Parliament there. I talked to Liberal members of Parliament National Party members of Parliament Independent members of Parliament—and very few Labor members of Parliament because they were all out door-knocking in the election campaign that was going on. I told them that a debate was going on in New Zealand on the Holidays Act. They asked what the debate was about and I told them that we wanted to give workers 4 weeks’ paid leave from 2007 and that the National Party over here was saying that was outrageous. They asked what planet those members were on. People over there have had 4 weeks’ annual leave for 30 years. They asked why we punished our workers so much. Even the National Party and the Liberal Party in Australia know that one should not punish workers like that. 
Leave is very important to people who work their guts out for the boss. And that is what workers do. Workers do not go to work and shirk. I worked in a pie factory on one occasion. It was great work and hard. The people there worked hard. I worked in a supermarket lumping sacks of spuds around. I was so fit—it was great. Workers work hard and they need time off. Even members opposite need time off. They probably need time off now to start door-knocking. [ 
Interruption 
] They do get 4 weeks. 
I suppose that we should not be too surprised that National opposes this measure because it is going back to its old philosophy and its old philosophy is that it would sell Christmas. The National Party would sell Christmas. Don Brash will take a holiday—he will take your holiday. He will not take Mr Speaker’s holiday; he will take the workers’ holiday. Mr Speaker will always get a holiday; we will make sure of that. National would take the workers’ holidays and that is outrageous in the extreme. 
This bill is a good bill. I am a little bit sorry that at the end of the day the Greens could not find their way clear to support it. This bill is a good bill that tidies up some areas of concern in the legislation. I suppose that if we have come to a point where both ACT and the Greens disagree with the bill we have got it right.