Gosche Mark: Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Gosche Mark: Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:15876] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I listened to the previous speech with amazement really because this is pretty simple legislation. We have the two major organisations in New Zealand that represent employees and employers Business New Zealand and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions both saying that they support this bill. We have National members saying that they will vote for it but the member Kate Wilkinson then proceeded to spend the next 9½ minutes saying how terrible the Holidays Act really was what a mess it was and that nobody could understand it. But there was not a single word about what is wrong with giving people 4 weeks’ annual leave or with giving them public holidays with some payment which they have to be paid if they work on a public holiday. This simple bill the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill deals with a situation that has been around for as long as I can remember since the days when we had awards and we had the Holidays Act—way back in the 1980s when I started out as a practitioner in industrial relations. 
There has always been a little bit of confusion around shift work what it means and what the entitlements were but in the good old days when we had awards and national agreements that confusion just was not there. It has come about as a result of the fragmentation of the labour market. A number of people in New Zealand do not have any confusion because they work under collective agreements and it is spelt out there pretty clearly. What becomes difficult is when we have about 80 percent of people working on individual agreements. There is no guidance for those people so all sorts of arguments can occur. The National Party is saying that we should have even more confusion and more flexibility for people to sell off their holidays for dollars and cents. That is the National Party’s policy. Why did that member not state it? Are those members ashamed of it? But that is what they are on the record as saying. 
I think that Dr Wayne Mapp was sitting on the select committee when this legislation was put through so he will be able to elaborate in his speech about all the suggestions he made in this particular area to have it changed. He will be able to elaborate on the National Party’s minority report from that legislation when it came out of the select committee. Was there one? I doubt it. I doubt whether anybody on the select committee at that stage from either of the two main parties or from any other party would have thought that this would have caused any sort of confusion. But sometimes we have lawyers companies and people out there that want to take it to court and that is what happens. Then we have the Supreme Court come up with a decision that says: “Sorry you need to clarify the law.” We are doing that. It is simple and it will be done in the select committee in a simple and straightforward manner. We have had employers and employees agree that this is the way to fix it so I do not think that there should be any fuss whatsoever on that select committee in resolving this matter. 
I am keen to hear and I am sure that many workers are also keen to hear it what the National Party actually means when it says that the Holidays Act is a mess that it is confusing and that it is difficult to understand. What will National members do in terms of their policy to supposedly fix it? I am looking forward to hearing about that as I am sure many other people are because we know what they actually mean. They want to be able to have employers and employees negotiating all sorts of weird and wonderful arrangements that in the end are about selling holidays for cash. Selling holidays for cash would mean that people would have to work even longer and harder in New Zealand but they would get only a few dollars. That is the National Party’s policy on holidays. Let us hear it up front and in a speech in the House from National instead of the waffle we just heard from its so-called spokesperson who just sat down.