Sowry Roger: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Sowry Roger: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:614;Page:10530] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 Part 2 of this holidays legislation was the part that attracted the most submissions. I shall put aside the 4 weeks’ leave provision that has been put in it because that was a separate bill and I want to talk about it separately. Suffice to say that bill was not really taken seriously by the vast majority of the submitters. They basically said they were opposed to it they took the Prime Minister at her word that it would not be introduced in this term and they moved on to talk about the substantive legislation. I guess one could say “More fool them!” because the Prime Minister broke her promise broke her word to business and turned round and introduced that legislation. The 4 weeks’ leave provision would not be in this bill if the Prime Minister had kept her promise but she did not. She said one thing before the election and did another thing straight after the election. 
Hon David Carter 
: The “Maharey principle”. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: It might be the “Maharey principle”; in fact Mr Maharey was involved with it because he said the same as the Prime Minister did and he broke his promise as well. I know that business is feeling particularly aggrieved with the Prime Minister who can so blatantly say one thing before an election then do something completely opposite after the election. I think that is probably a behavioural trait that we will see a lot more of from this Prime Minister. 
 This part of the bill contains a couple of clauses though that were particularly opposed by submitters. They are the clauses around sick leave. The bill as introduced required that somebody taking sick leave would not have to produce a medical certificate until he or she had been away from work for 5 days. Apart from a couple of trade unions and the Labour members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee who seemed to think that provision was all right all of the submitters opposed it. They said that allowing 5 days’ sick leave before an employer could ask for a medical certificate was an absolute nonsense. 
I am glad that in the end the Minister of Labour saw fit to change that. The Labour members on the select committee were in no mood to change it at all but they had word from on high—the Minister negotiated that it would be changed from 5 days down to 3 days—and as Labour members meekly do they voted for what Cabinet had decided. It makes one wonder actually what the purpose of the whole select committee process is if the Minister sits in the splendid isolation of her office decides these things and imposes them on the Labour members who were supposedly listening to submitters. 
That aside the legislation is better than it was in that the period is now 3 days but that is not good enough. In National’s view the period of time in clause 61 “Proof of sickness or injury” should be 1 day. An employer should be able to ask members of staff to provide proof of sickness when they are away on sick leave if he or she needs to do so. 
We heard from employer after employer who told us that they generally do not do that. Generally someone takes a day off and that is fine; the employee rings in sick the employer accepts that the employee is sick and that is it. But—and we heard it from employer after employer—for some staff there can be a “Mondayisation” of sick leave. They just happen to get sick on a Monday. There is a pattern and the employers want to check out that pattern by requiring a notice of sick leave. I think that is a legitimate thing for employers to do. They should not have Mondays—or for that matter Fridays—wrecked by a small minority of staff who always want to take their sick leave in a way that creates a long weekend. We had people saying that all the time. Representatives of Tranz Rail made that point very strongly to us and Tegel Foods was another business that made that point very strongly to us. Representatives of both those businesses talked about the problems that are created in a manufacturing line or in a service industry like the rail network if a group of employees just decide they can always take Monday off and no one will ever be able to ask them for proof of illness or injury. It is not that they just will not be asked for proof; by law they will not be able to be asked for that proof. 
One has to ask oneself why anyone would want to create a law like that. What is its purpose? How will it grow the economy? How will it make the economy go faster? Perhaps the Minister would like to take a call and tell us how she thinks it will help the economy grow faster. Certainly no Labour members on the select committee could talk about it; they never told us that and the Minister never appeared before the committee to show us how it would work at all. We think that area is just a nonsense and we would like to see that period of time for proof of sickness or injury changed back to the 1-day requirement in the legislation at the moment which does not seem to be causing any problem at all. We asked people who came before us what the problem was and the only response we got was from the Greens who said: “Well if you’re required to do that it costs you money and sometimes you have to go out in the rain when you’ve got a cold to get a certificate and you get worse.” I say to the Greens that all the employers sort of rolled their eyes because if someone who rings in obviously has a cold or the flu then the employer will go: “Oh that’s OK.” It is consistent “Mondayisation” or using sick leave to have long weekends that we believe needs to be addressed. 
That was the major issue I have to say in this part of the legislation outside the 4 weeks’ leave provision that the Government sneakily—and it was sneaky—added into the bill It was sneaky because the Prime Minister 3 weeks before the election—she was in a bit of trouble—went along to businesses and gave them her word and her promise that the Government would not introduce it. Then she raced around to Mr Robson and said: “That’s OK. You’re a different party. You introduce it and we’ll all vote for it.” It is a bit like the sneaky little tricks Labour is trying to pull on the cannabis legislation at the moment. The Prime Minister really wants to see cannabis decriminalised so she will let someone else bring that in then she will deal with it as a conscience vote and it will be a case of: “Oh gosh United Future it is so sad that you got tricked by that.” 
The Prime Minister has used the same sort of trickery on the business community regarding this legislation: she told businesses one thing broke her word and proved to them that this is a Prime Minister who simply cannot be trusted. This is a Prime Minister who cares not a fig for business. This is a Prime Minister who says one thing before the election to the productive sector and does another after it. This is a Prime Minister who will engage in mirrors and trickery as much as she possibly can and get away with it because that is the way she operates. They are good old Labour Party tactics; they work in terms of the internal mechanisms of the Labour Party and she has now decided to take those tactics and deal with the business community in the same way. 
Well I have a message for the Prime Minister: the productive sector does not trust her any more. Its members do not believe her any more. They know that this is a Prime Minister whose word cannot be taken at face value. They know that this is a Prime Minister who despite all of the political spin around her “straightforwardness” is very very tricky. We are certainly seeing that with this legislation in the way that the Prime Minister introduced the 4 weeks’ leave provision into this part. Not only that; the Prime Minister thinks it is such a good idea that she has put out to 2007 the date for it to come in and Labour members have just voted in the Committee to make sure that the date is 2007. That has more to do with election bribes than with holding to any principle about work-life balance or other things that the Minister likes to prattle on about. This bill does nothing to achieve any of those things at all.