Clark David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:309. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):Thank you to my colleagues for their congratulations on my getting the call. I rise to speak to this bill and will note from the start that there is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name Supplementary Order Paper 14. I have not put in too many Supplementary Order Papers in my time in this Parliament but I have on this occasion because I feel particularly strongly about this bill.The Labour Party opposes this bill in principle because we believe in protecting New Zealand families and building a high-wage economy. This bill will so soon—in just 4 months—strike to the heart of some of the current protections that are afforded to our vulnerable workers. The changes that are going to be made the punitive clauses will have natural justice consequences. Some of these actions that have already been undertaken by workers who are entering into strike activity—partial strikes and so forth—have been undertaken on the basis of the law as it stands currently. So people who have families that depend on their wages who have commitments to mortgages and other kinds of commitments of various types which we all have as citizens in this country like financial commitments already undertaken—that was a circular sentence but you know what I am saying—have still got these things in front of them.The law is changing and this does raise an issue of natural justice. I touched on that briefly when I spoke on Part 2 of the bill. But what I am proposing here in my Supplementary Order Paper is that this bill’s commencement date be pushed out by replacing in clause 2 the word “months” with the word “years”. That would amend the commencement date of the bill from 4 months to 4 years. That would ensure that employers unions and workers will have more time to consider and adapt to the changes proposed. It not only will allow time for those negotiations that have already been undertaken to be concluded but actually more generally will allow more time for the whole system to adapt to what is proposed. It will also ensure that the changes around collective bargaining and multi-employer collective agreements do not affect the negotiations currently under way or agreements that are soon to expire which is a variation on the case that I have been laying out for natural justice.So with that simple simple amendment we could make this bill a much better bill and make it a bill that is fairer to those who are already undertaking activity. It will make it an even transition. It may even allow for some movement to examine this in the cool light of day in a more reasoned debate and we may come to a different conclusion with this bill. I would be interested in the Minister’s view on this because it is a simple amendment. One word is changing. The Minister in the chair Nathan Guy will have a view I am sure about this amendment. Although he does not look to be engaging on it right now I am sure he will have a view.If I can give some examples of negotiations already under way I have a list the length of a number of pages of negotiations that will be settled in that time period that I am proposing. Those negotiations cover a huge range of services in our society that all of us at one point or another come in contact with. They are in the sectors of education mentioned by my colleague Kelvin Davis. We have the School Caretakers’ and Cleaners’ (incl Canteen Workers) Collective Agreement. We have got the Secondary and Area School Groundstaff Collective Agreement. We have got the Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement the Special Residential Schools’ Collective Agreement the Area School Teachers’ Collective Agreement the Primary Principals’ Collective Agreement the Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement and Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu Early Childhood Teachers’ Collective Agreement. All of those particular agreements in that particular list which is one of several I would like to touch upon are due to expire between March 2015 and March 2016. That is not so far away actually. Those teachers will have already been thinking about how they go about their next set of wage agreements before this legislation has passed through the House.Another area that is covered by many agreements is the health care area and I have several pages’ worth of agreements that are due to be settled within the first 6 months of 2015. We have got midwifery agreements. All of us who have had children or have had the joy of children in the midst of our immediate family will have come into contact with midwives as the primary lead maternity carers in our society. Their agreement—