Bennett David: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett David: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10007. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Tonight there will be a revelation because I am actually going to agree with Sue Moroney for once. Sue Moroney said in her speech that David Bennett would stand up here next and say that this bill the Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill is about protecting unions. It is not about protecting unions. This bill hurts unions. This bill gives a compulsory requirement for employers to pay out a redundancypayment. That is the very thing people join a union for to get that kind of protection in the negotiation process. This bill hurts unions.How dare Labour Party members come to this House and attack unions? How dare they come into this House and take away the very right that unions try to deliver to their members? How dare that member Sue Moroney whom I have heard time and time again in Hamilton speak of her heritage in the union movement? She often says that when we go to public meetings. She talks about her involvement in unions and how she solved the world’s problems in the union movement. Today she is attacking unions—she is attacking unions through this bill. She wants to take away the fundamental right that unions negotiate for. Unions negotiate for terms and conditions. Sue Moroney knows better! Sue Moroney knows better than all the unions in New Zealand. She knows what will be the requirement for redundancy and that is 4 weeks plus 2 weeks for each year.Well I talk to you and ask you: what about those unions that have negotiated more than that more generous conditions than that? What about them? What about them? The Labour Party is saying that they should not have those generous conditions. The Labour Party is saying that this is the standard that they should be going for. What about all those people who have given years to the union movement have worked on the picket lines and have gone out there and worked for those unions only to find that the Labour Party shafts them in this House? That is what Labour members do. They shaft their own people. Once they get in and sit in cushy chairs they want to be in control of the power of their people not the unions themselves. I find it disgraceful that a Labour Party would bring a bill like this to this House.What is more disgraceful is the word that she used. I knew Sue was going to use this word; she always uses this word. It is the word “fairness”. Sue used the word “fairness”—the word “fairness”—after 7 minutes of that speech not talking about the bill but talking about people getting unemployed and then saying that the reason for that is the global financial crisis which it is. This bill is not about fairness Sue. This is not about fairness; this is about the Sue Moroneys of this world telling people that they know better than those people do. It is about the Sue Moroneys of this world saying: “I know how much you’re entitled to.” How does Sue Moroney know what some worker is entitled to? That is what I want to know. How can you Sue Moroney say that you know what everybody is entitled to? Sue Moroney certainly does not know what everybody is entitled to; I can guarantee you that.Iain Lees-Galloway: David Bennett thinks we should just get rid of the minimum wage.DAVID BENNETT: The Labour Party is waking up. Iain Lees-Galloway the man who gave away transport to Julie Anne Genter—it is good to see you in the House Iain. Why are you here? I do not know. You are not representing the Labour Party transport policy.Then there is Darien Fenton. Darien Fenton is a great member of the Labour Party. She is a person who stands up all the time at select committee hearings for members of the union movement. I want to see Darien Fenton support this bill shafting the union movement. I want to see her stand up and do that. Then behind her is that great man from the south of the country Andrew Little. He wants State Highway 3 which Iain Lees-Galloway does not actually know is a road. Mr Little will be standing up soon and he will be shafting and putting the knife into the union movement—the very movement that he led. How can you do that when you come to this House—take advantage of your position and destroy the union movement?This is not good legislation. It is not good for employers it is not good for unions; it is Sue Moroney telling the world that she knows best. That is what this bill is. That istypical Labour left politics: it knows best it will not let anyone negotiate. How dare somebody go into a contractual arrangement around their services? How dare somebody actually go and negotiate something like that? How dare we actually trust our people to have the strength to negotiate? Why would we trust our own people when we have 120 people in this room who know better because they have been in Sue Moroney’s position and they know what everybody deserves? That is a shameful shameful approach by the Labour Party.Sue Moroney: This is the minimum. It is just the minimum they deserve.DAVID BENNETT: Oh this is the minimum. This is the minimum that the Labour Party wants. That is just a disgrace. We hear the talk from the Labour Party about no plan. Well I want Sue Moroney to say that in front of Tim Macindoe and me in the election campaign in Hamilton over the next year and a half because we are looking forward to having you come to Hamilton and say that Sue Moroney.Iain Lees-Galloway is not going to support the Waikato Expressway which is the biggest provider in the last 3 years of new jobs in Hamilton which the Government provided. Iain Lees-Galloway will not be supporting that. Sue Moroney will not be supporting it. Will they be supporting the convention centre? No. Will they be supporting irrigation in Canterbury? No. Will they be supporting any growth in the New Zealand economy? No. All the plans that have been put forward by this Government which are good for New Zealand infrastructure and which provide jobs are not supported by that side. Those members do not support them. Mr Iain Lees-Galloway wants a public-private partnership for the Waikato Expressway. That is not happening under this Government mate.This is a good Government. This is a Government that delivers for New Zealanders. This is a Government that trusts our people. We do not need a Sue Moroney to tell our people what they are entitled to and we will not shaft the union movement like the Labour Party is doing here tonight. We will let the unions go into negotiations as they have done for many many a year and we will let them have that role. It is a disgrace for the Labour Party. I do not know why you are wearing red Sue. I do not think you should wear red in this House after shafting the union movement like that. It is not in the best interests of you or your party.Personal choice is what it is really about if you look at it. At the end of the day we all know the difference between the left and the right the good and the bad. It is very simple. On this side the good side we believe in giving people personal choice. We trust our people. We believe in our people. We believe in our country. On the left they do not believe in our people they do not believe in our country; they believe only in themselves. They believe that people like Sue Moroney can tell an employee how much they are entitled to get as their redundancy. Well I did not know that Sue Moroney had those kinds of skills and strengths and attributes. I have learnt that tonight. I do not believe in them but I have learnt tonight that Sue Moroney can just pick out of the bag what the minimum requirements are for redundancy. How do you have that power Sue? What gives you that power to just set a minimum requirement? I believe she does not have that power. Nobody in this room has that power.What we have is the ability to give our people the power to negotiate those rights and responsibilities. We have got the ability in this House to encourage the union movement to actually keep those negotiations going. It is a sad sad day when Labour Party members come into this House—they are out of the unions now; they may be funded by them but they are out of them—and try to take advantage of that movement because they do not want to give away control. They still think they control those unions and this is their way of expressing control over the union movement and that is a sad day for the Labour Party.This bill does not deserve to go through the House and we will not be supporting it in that case.