Lees-Galloway IainHon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I was under the impression that Amy Adams was midway through her call but apparently not.Mr SPEAKER: Well if a member's not in the House I can hardly call them.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: You can ask. Mr Speaker?Mr SPEAKER: Iain Lees-Galloway.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. If ever there was a bill that was a solution desperately looking for a problem this is it.Brett Hudson: That is uncharitable Iain. That is very uncharitable.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: This is it. Well it might be uncharitable Mr Hudson but it's true and the most important thing is to always speak the truth about the bills that we are debating in this Chamber.The member brought this bill claiming that anybody earning over $150000 a year ought to be able to contract out of taking a personal grievance which is essentially diminishing one of the fundamental rights in our employment law for a huge number of workers. Now the member suggested that this was only going to apply to senior managers and to chief executives. But the truth is that at that level a huge number of people who are sort of at the middle-management level or people who happen to be in industries where the level of pay is perhaps higher than most but who are not in senior management roles are people who do not necessarily have more power or more cachet than other employees and they would be swept up by this. There would be a huge amount of pressure put on people who fall into this category of earning more than $150000 to accept the terms of their employment agreement and to accept the requirement to contract out of being able to take a personal grievance.Now what was interesting was that at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—a couple of very interesting things came up at the select committee. One was that the member for Wairarapa stated that he would like to see the threshold actually be reduced to $75000.Alastair Scott: That's right.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: That's right—the member agrees. He would like to see ordinary working people earning not a lot more than the average wage being forced to contract out of a—Alastair Scott: No it's an option. It's a choice.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: See? Now this is where the National Party demonstrate their fundamental lack of understanding of how things work in the real world because the truth is that for most people out there they are presented with a contract they are presented with the terms and conditions of that contract and it's take it or leave it". Now if you're at $75000—if you're earning $75000—there is going to be plenty of competition out there for that job. For the National Party member to say he supports lowering the threshold in this bill to $75000 and putting ordinary workers under the condition where they would be forced to accept a situation where they would have to contract out of being able to take a personal grievance I think is a very dire reflection on the National Party's approach to industrial relations. It just shows that they haven't seen a single workers' right that they do not want to undermine and this is just another example of that with this particular piece of legislation.But what was really telling was that at the select committee Business New Zealand came to submit. Business New Zealand are an organisation that I have a huge amount of respect for. They are helping this Government develop our industrial relations programme and are working very closely with this Government. They came in support of this bill but they made one particularly interesting comment and it was that the vast majority of people that the member in charge of this bill says that this bill is supposed to capture—the CEOs the senior managers the very high-level people—the vast majority of those people do not—Brett Hudson: It's not just the CEOs Mr Lees-Galloway.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well if it's not just about the CEOs and it's not just about the senior managers then I ask the member who is it about? Is it about the ordinary workers that the member for Wairarapa would like to see included in the bill? Is that who the National Party wants to see lose the right to take a personal grievance if they are unjustifiably dismissed? Because it sounds awfully like that is what the member wants this bill to be about.But Business New Zealand came to the select committee and they said "Look in the vast majority of cases chief executives and senior managers do not take a personal grievance. Instead what they do is they settle differences through other means." Usually there is some sort of settlement or payout they move on and they go and get a job somewhere else or whatever happens. But settlement is reached the arrangement is terminated and everybody moves on which is I think exactly what the member intends—or at least that's what he says he intends although his intentions have got murkier the longer I've been speaking this evening.But that's what the member intends this legislation to do—give senior management people the opportunity to terminate their relationship with their employer through means other than using a personal grievance. What it turns out—and Business New Zealand came and told us this at the select committee—is that's exactly what happens right now. The law allows for that right now.It's exactly what happens right now and this bill is completely pointless because it legislates in order to create something that already exists—and that would be one thing. If it was a bill that just kind of was rather innocuous and didn't do anything and legislated to confirm something that already happened then maybe on this side of the House we wouldn't be so bothered by it. But of course what it actually does is it starts this process of undermining workers' rights and of undermining the principle of being able to take a personal grievance in the event that an employee is unjustifiably dismissed. So it's not just a bill that kind of doesn't do anything; it's actually a bill that can do a lot of harm but doesn't actually create any good. It doesn't create anything new. It doesn't create an opportunity that doesn't already exist. The senior managers and their employers already do exactly what is envisaged in this legislation but what it does do is start to undermine workers' rights.That is why this side of the House will not be supporting this bill and that is why we will always champion workers' rights we will always enhance workers' rights. This side of the House—Brett Hudson: Removing choice—removing choice Mr Lees-Galloway.Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —wants to see—no we are not removing choice Mr Hudson because those people already have the choice. They already have the choice and Business New Zealand came and told the select committee that they have the choice. The choice already exists. You are not adding any more choice by bringing this bill to the House. You are not adding anything at all. What you are doing is undermining workers' rights.Now on this side of the House that's not the way we do things. We enhance workers' rights. We want to improve the bargaining position of workers in the workplace. We want to ensure that as the economy grows and as we get more productivity we have an industrial relations framework that ensures that the rewards of that growth the rewards of that productivity are shared with all workers with everybody. And one of the most important ways we can do that is to ensure that we strengthen the position of working people in the workplace.Now we've had nine years—nine consistent years—of workers' rights being eroded by the Government. What we don't need is another member's bill that is frankly silly that doesn't do anything constructive and that only undermines workers' rights even further. I know that's the National Party's modus operandi. I know that's their reason for existing. It's why they come to Parliament. Every time we have a National Government we see workers' rights steadily or often dramatically eroded but it's going to stop.We've had it for nine years and it's going to stop now and we're going to instead start introducing legislation that enhances workers' rights improves their pay and makes working people better off. So as we grow the economy we're finally going to have a Government that is going to grow the economy in per capita terms. We're going to make sure that working people are actually better off as a result of growing that economy.So I say to members: vote this bill down. Let's see the end of it and let's instead get on with some industrial relations legislation that actually makes people better off."