Collins Judith: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7318] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I rise to speak against this bill and Supplementary Order Paper 107 and to speak in relation to the commencement and the purpose of the bill. I take up the cudgels on behalf of people in the public service who are doing their job too well. If they do their job too well if they get people off the dole if they get people away from being beneficiaries they are liable to find themselves restructured out of a job and on the dole themselves. That is what this Minister of Sate Services is all about. 
Under Supplementary Order Paper 107 subclause (1) of the commencement provision which has been spoken about so eloquently by speakers from this side of the Chamber provides that sections 6 to 11(1) as they relate to the Department of Work and Income and the Department of Social Welfare are now deemed to have come into force on 1 October 2001. That is a disgrace. It is 2 years too late. It is retrospective legislation. 
The Supplementary Order Paper which we were given yesterday is longer than the bill itself. One of the reasons that this is so shocking is that this bill went to a select committee and the Supplementary Order Paper did not yet the substantial part of the legislation is in the Supplementary Order Paper. That is a disgrace. We note that the New Zealand Public Service Association gave submissions on the bill on behalf of its members. But what about all the thousands and thousands of individual members of that association who would have loved to give submissions on this bill but who really could not because they know what happens to any public servant who says “No” to this Government? That is a shame. 
This bill is all about retrospectively trying to tidy up the Government’s mess in relation to Christine Rankin who was too jolly good at her job. Now I see that the Government is trying to do it to the Department for Courts and the Ministry of Justice. How many other Supplementary Order Papers will we have slotted in today? How many other departments are going to be done away with or is this a way of getting a rid of a Minister? The Department for Courts and the Ministry of Justice have two different Ministers. Why are those departments being merged? Is it because the Prime Minister has lost confidence in one of those particular Ministers or is it because she has lost confidence in both? Certainly this Parliament has lost confidence in both as has the public of New Zealand. How many others will be included here? 
This bill is all about giving powers to the Government that it wants to take away from the private sector. It wants to make technical redundancies in the public service just that—technical with no capability of their being paid out no capability of any due process. Yet in relation to the private sector there is talk about getting rid of any possibility of the same sort of protection for employers. The Government wants to do away with it to get rid of any technical redundancy provisions. That would make private sector employers far more responsible than this Government will ever be for its workers who happen to be public servants. This bill is bad for public servants. It is bad for the chief executives. It is bad for New Zealand and it is bad for employment generally because it has two different standards: one for the Government and one for private employers who have mortgages on their homes and whose businesses are on the line every day that they are at work. Those are the people who create most of the jobs in the country and who keep the country going yet they are getting a tougher standard applied to them than what the Government gives to itself. 
This Government bullies its chief executives and in fact bullies its own members—as we saw today in the House with Dianne Yates—to try to keep them in line. This Government is a disgrace. As Dr Newman said this bill is something that Trevor Mallard should be absolutely ashamed of. It is an acknowledgement that he cannot organise his own departments without having to fire chief executives in some way or other. He is too frightened of treating those chief executives with decency and restraint as a good employer would so he wants this Committee to get rid of those chief executives by law.