Fenton Darien: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15072] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on the financial review of the Department of Labour. If I had taken a bet with my colleagues that the productivity figures for the 1990s would be wheeled out in this debate today I would have won a lot of money because there they were—those old tired figures about what happened in the 1990s. What is interesting about the National Party is that its members do not want to talk about the 1990s unless they think there is something good—and they think that the productivity figures for the 1990s were good. Well as my colleague the Minister of Labour said productivity is easy to grow if it is based on low wages on high labour utilisation and on low investment in skills and plant. Any fool can produce higher productivity on those measures. In fact I reckon any sweatshop in any Third World country or developing country or any organisation using child labour would be able to show high productivity. With low skill and low wages of course there is going to be high productivity. 
But what National’s approach did not do during the 1990s was grow wages. It contributed to an almost nil wage growth in 5 out of 9 years during the 1990s. It contributed to a growth in the wage differential—which it now likes to whinge about—between New Zealand and Australia by almost 50 percent and it did not grow our skill base; in fact it shrank it. This Government has been running to catch up ever since. You did not encourage innovation you did not do any training and you did not even know what a high-quality workplace looked like. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I do not particularly relish interrupting the member but the member is bringing you into the debate and that is not appropriate. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for raising that; she is quite right. Could the member try not to do that? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The National Party did not even know what a high-quality workplace would look like. The point of improving productivity is to contribute to society’s long-term standards of living so that everybody shares in the benefits of a growing economy. It is not about making people work harder and faster—which the National Party seems to think it is—or for less pay and nor is it about making some people at one end much better off and everyone else worse off. I do not hear from the National Party its answers to improving productivity. I hear a lot of whingeing moaning and grizzling— 
Kate Wilkinson 
: Be patient. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The member tells us to be patient; we are waiting with bated breath to hear what National’s policy is about improving productivity. I suspect very much that it will be the same old things those members did in the 1990s so they can get back to Government because that is the only way they know of getting that graph to go up. Of course their policies caused huge damage to people. The standard of living went down under the National Government. 
I also agree with the Minister that National needs to explain its agenda on workers’ rights. It is time the National Party fronted up. Sooner or later that party is going to have to do it. At the moment there is just guesswork and it is not a pretty picture. One thing that everybody is very clear on is that National is still promoting a law change that would expose 700000 working New Zealanders to unfair sacking and discrimination every year with the reinvention of Wayne Mapp’s “Get the Sack in 90 Days Bill” which was resoundingly beaten in Parliament in 2006. We can look at the record for our information. The National Party has opposed every decent piece of employment policy over the last 9 years including 4 weeks’ annual leave paid parental leave and time and a half for statutory holiday work. So it is time National told people what its real intentions are. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: We will. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The National Party says that it will but I think it has a secret agenda. I do not think the National Party wants to own up to what its policies are. It is hoping that no one is going to ask—that there will be no questions about its industrial relations policy leading into the election. National is hoping to keep it quiet and it is hoping that “Slippery John” will be able to get through the next election campaign without any questions about industrial relations. Well I am sorry but there will be questions and they are coming now. They are coming thick and fast. We want to know and the workers out there want to know what National is going to do about industrial legislation. What will National do to improve productivity? If National thinks it has better ideas where are they? Tell us what they are. 
We know so far that National would like to dismiss some workers—unfairly—on probation. I have already mentioned that issue. We know that National would like to have workers sell their fourth week of holidays—in other words a worker would go along and sign up to a job and find that the fourth week of holidays would be included in his or her pay. 
Report noted.