Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Hours) Amendment Bill — Consideration of Interim Report of Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Hours) Amendment Bill — Consideration of Interim Report of Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2720] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
Thank you for the call Mr Deputy Speaker although I will say at this point that the other person seeking the call Mr Gosche was the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I feel that that probably should be noted in the circumstances. 
I guess what the report does is to sound a note of caution—which was certainly the National Party’s concern to put it mildly—about this whole bill. We support the recommendation that more research needs to be done. I would have to say however that we anticipate that that research will show the opposite conclusion to that drawn by Ms Sue Kedgley who is the promoter of the bill. There were a large number of submissions—there is no doubt about that—and they were divided. Many of them I would have to say were based on some misapprehension in that people making submissions would often say that they personally did not have a problem because they had flexible working hours but they believed that others had a problem and therefore the bill was necessary. 
The key point that I and other National speakers wish to make—and it is in direct contradiction to the viewpoint of the Green Party—is that New Zealand actually does have a culture of flexible working hours although perhaps not in exactly the way Sue Kedgley believes. We have a lot more part-time work now. A lot of families in particular value the importance of part-time work because when young children are involved in the family it is very difficult for both parents to work full-time. In fact the practice of working part-time is far more suitable and appropriate to the needs and demands of family life in such circumstances. 
There is a huge amount of part-time work in the New Zealand workplace and it exists for a reason. It is not because there are not enough jobs; rather it is because it meets the needs of people seeking employment. In a relatively tight labour market—and I acknowledge that that does exist to some extent at the present moment—employers have had to be flexible in order to recruit staff. I imagine that the Green Party member might ask what the situation will be when the market is less tight. I am sure she would argue that we will need a more prescriptive approach. 
I also want to make it clear that business organisations and in particular Business New Zealand the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) and the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Central) were not opposed to the idea of more education more analysis more discussion and more debate on how we can deal with these issues. That was one of the things they made a particular note of at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. That fact was perhaps not immediately evident in their initial submissions but it was certainly evident in the oral submissions that were made. I note that Ms Kedgley acknowledges that particular point. There is an opportunity here I suggest for the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust to take an active role. That is I imagine the sort of the thing that would be developed and discussed in this year-long period of further analysis consideration and discussion. 
One of the issues that did come to the fore—and I do not believe it has been properly acknowledged thus far in the debate—is what has happened in the United Kingdom. This is very much in the words of Dr Ross Armstrong a situation where first-mover advantage can apply. An employer can certainly provide flexibility for the first people who apply—there has been no real difficulty in the UK around that—and in truth that would actually apply whether or not legislation was in place. It is easy to accommodate the first people because frankly not very much adjustment is required in the balance of the workforce. 
Evidence was brought by various submitters in business organisations that as more and more people apply the legislation becomes more and more difficult. It is much harder to accommodate the later people who apply because at that point one starts to put real pressure on the accommodations that other employees have to make. So it is very much an advantage to the first people who apply and not so much for the later group. That seems to be one of the stresses and strains that is occurring in the UK situation and that is certainly the evidence that was given to us by submitters. 
The other point I wish to raise is that New Zealand is uniquely and certainly much more so than Europe a place of small businesses and small workforces. That means two things. It means that there is a very close and intimate relationship between employer and employee and that a pattern of dialogue and discussion is just simply what happens in the workplace. Actually one does not need complex systems of industrial law to accommodate people in that situation. If people wonder why unionism has dropped off so dramatically in New Zealand and it has— 
Darien Fenton 
: It is growing. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: —I can tell them it is because it is not relevant for small workplaces. I hear Darien Fenton say it is growing but it is growing primarily in the State sector and in large business organisations. In small workplaces that is simply not the case. 
Employers and employees simply do not see unions as relevant to their lives. They do not see the whole process of adjudication and so forth as necessary and relevant in their lives. People make their own arrangements and when they cannot make their own arrangements they go and find more suitable arrangements and often the person who loses out in that particular case is the employer who chose not to be flexible enough. There is a dynamic workplace environment. 
I heard on the radio the other day Mr Andrew Little acknowledge that people change their jobs much more frequently today than they did previously. Now that is hardly a revelation but it was an important point for him to note. The truth is that people do not go for lifetime employment by and large. They do not work for decades for one employer. Increasingly people change jobs on a regular basis. Increasingly people work in smaller enterprises start ups and so forth and that is the fundamental reason why there has been a reduction in unionism. It does not fit the needs of many contemporary workplaces but I acknowledge it has a role in more traditional work sites. So National is saying yes we are supporting this delay for consideration but in truth we expect an outcome that is different from what the Green Party expects. 
I want to conclude on this particular point. One of the things that is often said by members on the Government side—not all of them I acknowledge but some of them—is that in essence employers are only out to exploit people that they take a dog-eat-dog approach to the world that they want to have no dialogue or discussion with their employees and that they just want to be able to set the rules and that is that. Well I would suggest that the submissions made by in particular Business New Zealand the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Central) Inc. and many other employers show a change of approach and a recognition that dialogue is critical for good working relationships. I guess that has been a fundamental lesson that has been learnt as our economy has become more open and more flexible in recent years and as employees are much more willing to change their jobs—indeed they want to—more regularly. 
The old-fashioned view that the employers are rigidly on one side and the employees are all on the other side within unions simply no longer applies in the contemporary workplace—certainly not to the extent it might have in the past. A new dynamic exists in the contemporary workforce and it is our view that this bill does not recognise that sufficiently and that there is in fact a better way of dealing with these issues—which are real; I acknowledge that. There are real issues involved but there are better ways of dealing with them than this legislation.