Sowry Roger: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Sowry Roger: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:614;Page:10555] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 As National’s industrial relations spokesperson I have just come from a meeting in the eastern suburbs that I am sure the Committee would be keen to hear about. Employers at the meeting were thankful that the Government has given them until 2007 before the 4 weeks’ leave comes in. They have calculated that the total cost of this bill is about a 3 percent increase in their payroll costs and they have three wage rounds in which to claw that 3 percent back. In those three wage rounds instead of paying what they would have paid it will be 0.5 percent or 0.75 percent lower as they claw back 3 percent so that when 2007 arrives and Labour is celebrating the introduction of 4 weeks’ leave the total employment costs to business will be the same as a percentage of turnover as they are at the moment. 
So who is paying for the extra week’s leave? Labour members do not want to answer that. It is certainly not businesses that are paying. Does any Labour member believe that it will be businesses that will pay for this or do they believe that it will actually be employees who will pay for it? Employees will have to trade off current wage increases for future promises of 4 weeks’ leave. That is the reality of what is happening out there in the marketplace and Labour members know that. Labour members think they know best and they have cunningly worked out that businesses can adjust over a 3 or 4-year period of time. One person tonight said to me: “My local member of Parliament Annette King has said ‘Don’t worry you have time to adjust.’ ” What does that mean? That means employers have time to reduce their pay rounds to their cleaners and their low-income workers and have time to reduce the conditions to cover the extra costs of the 4 weeks’ leave. 
So that is what Annette King says to people when they raise the issue with her in her electorate. She says: “Don’t worry. We’ve given you time to adjust.” Then they wander around and talk to the low-income wage earners in the businesses and say: “Ah but you’re getting an extra week’s leave.” while knowing full well that that same person is paying for it over the next few years—knowing exactly that. Members of this Labour Government take people for granted and think that the good old traditional Labour voter is never going see through them. Just as this Government has taken Maori voters for granted for years now it is taking low-income workers for granted because basically Labour Cabinet Ministers believe that nobody is as clever as they are so nobody can figure it out like them and they can keep them all in the dark and say one thing to the employers and a different thing to the workers. 
That is the reality. Otherwise why would Mrs King not have said: “No we really think your wage costs in your business should be higher.”? Does any Labour member think that the wage costs in New Zealand business should go up? Oh silence! None of them thinks wage costs should go up. So how are businesses going to pay for this? That is why they have been given the long adjustment period. 
This bill is a cruel hoax. Workers are not being given a choice. Labour has decided that workers should trade off future wage increases for a week’s leave. It is as simple as that. That is a choice that is not being made by the workers—Labour has never trusted them—but by the Cabinet Ministers.