Kedgley Sue: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Hours) Amendment Bill — Consideration of Interim Report of Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Hours) Amendment Bill — Consideration of Interim Report of Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2740] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Sue Kedgley is there a matter you wish to raise? 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I wish to respond very briefly to some of the comments that have been made. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thought it was an unlimited debate. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No. There is no right of reply as such but of course you may seek leave. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I seek leave to respond very very briefly to some of the comments that have been made. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I thank members for giving me leave to speak very briefly. I know there are some other very important members’ bills that we are keen to debate. 
I want to thank members who have participated in the debate. I particularly thank Chris Tremain Darien Fenton Sue Moroney Mark Gosche and Hone Harawira for their thoughtful contributions. I believe that in our heart of hearts we all know that the need for flexible working hours is a hugely important issue. In our heart of hearts we know that the “work work work” culture with its excessively long working-hours that we have here in New Zealand—it is well documented—is causing incredible stress and is probably partly responsible for the levels of violence and many other things in our society. 
It is interesting that the National Party is happy to put more and more people in jail and to build more prisons but not to do something as simple as support a very modest piece of legislation—one of the least prescriptive pieces of legislation ever to come before this Parliament—to ensure that people with children have a right to request flexible working hours and to reduce the stress in their lives. Hone Harawira spoke eloquently of the “work work work” stresses and what that is doing to families in New Zealand. 
So I think that in our heart of hearts we know this is a huge social issue. We know we need to do something about it but what is needed is political will. The problem is that particularly the major political parties in this House hate to do anything to get offside with business so they are terrified to introduce legislation that some businesses oppose. In fact the odd thing is that businesses in England where this legislation has been introduced have overwhelmingly supported it. It is quite extraordinary that National members keep going on about Big Brother bureaucracy dictating legislation and so on and so forth as though this is something that has to be imposed on employers. 
I remind members again of some of the surveys that have found overwhelming support by businesses in the United Kingdom for this legislation. In the 2 years the UK has had the legislation it has been found that it has not resulted in increased compliance costs. I have mentioned that. There has been no increase in compliance costs in the United Kingdom. Members can fly off on their next Speaker’s tour and see for themselves but they will not find that there have been increased compliance costs in the United Kingdom. Nor have people in the UK found any problems with this right. In fact they found huge benefits for employers. I will give members a couple of points from the surveys: managers of flexible workers rated them as out-performing their traditional full-time colleagues; employers who offer flexibility achieve a rate of more than 90 percent of women returning from maternity leave; 90 percent of employers with flexible working practices think they are cost-effective; 39 percent say that the performance of people with flexible working practices outstrips that of their competitors; there is increased goodwill increased productivity lower turnover rates reductions in staff sickness—shall I go on and on? Where is the problem for business? 
The point is that businesses in the United Kingdom went on and on as have some of the businesses here saying: “Oh no we hate this legislation. It will result in increased compliance costs.” In fact it has done no such thing. What it has done is increase by 20 percent the uptake in flexible working practices in the United Kingdom. More than a million employees have made the request to work flexibly and in 90 percent of cases they have been accommodated and it has worked out well. Some Opposition members have gone on and on asking what would happen with this and what would happen with that. Well they can turn the request down—it is in the legislation. 
Employers have five grounds on which they can turn down a request and I have already said that I am happy to expand those grounds. I am happy to have another criterion—that of increased compliance costs—for turning down a request. Do members know why I am so happy? Because in the UK there has never been—I think it happened in 1 percent of cases—any grounds for turning a request down. But if members want to put that in the legislation they can go for it. There is no problem for businesses; it is a win-win. The UK Minister said it has been an outstanding success and it has provided a safety net of legislation. 
One would think that this family-friendly piece of legislation would get cross-party support in particular from those parties that say they are family-friendly and want to support families. One would have thought that this minimal tiny little bit—the right to request flexible working hours if one had children—would be supported especially by members of the National Party and I think they would if they read the research and realised the overwhelming benefits. 
My final point is that yes of course I agree with New Zealand First and with Mark Gosche that we should extend it to all people who are looking after others—for example those who have elderly dependants—and ideally we would like to extend it to employees in general. We are very happy to make amendments as Darien Fenton mentioned to deal with some of the issues that were raised during the select committee process. 
Motion agreed to.