Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10638] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I once heard it said that political discourse requires two elements: trust and understanding. That is certainly true here. Labour members do not trust us and we sure as heck do not understand them. The same truism applies between employers and employees. Good employment relations are built on high levels of trust and understanding and consequently poor relationships in the workplace have low levels of trust and understanding. That has been the case for generations. 
The previous Government when it passed the Employment Relations (Breaks Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Act which brought in the legislation that this bill seeks to amend said that it was motivated by the fact that there was no specific legal requirement for employees to have rest and meal breaks. Well that had been the situation for a long long time but almost 93 percent of active collective employment agreements provided for rest and meal breaks. It was acknowledged that there were some problems with the organisation of work in certain niches in small ways right across different sectors. But little was known about whether the break provisions that were included in the individual employment agreements or in workplaces generally were working or widespread. Rather than actually find out what was going on in those workplaces the previous Labour Government passed that legislation. I think that it is patently unworkable in many areas. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater. 
I will give members an example of a situation that existed at the hospital that I managed for some time. Throughput at hospitals particularly private hospitals often means that by the time the weekend comes around there is quite a low number of patients left in the ward. In nightshifts over the weekend we would have as few as two registered nurses on staff over the night. Because of safety requirements it literally was not possible for one of those nurses to leave the ward. The nurses had plenty of opportunities to take a break but under the strict definitions of the employment agreement we had with them that did not constitute a break because they were not able to leave the ward. What did we do? By agreement with the nurses we paid them a meal allowance and we paid them for the time that they were there at time and a half and it was a perfectly satisfactory arrangement. But the moment that legislation was passed it put that arrangement at odds with the law. That employer is probably still at odds with the law because I know that common sense will be prevailing in that organisation. 
We also had the issue of sole-charge air traffic controllers which was raised in a financial review with the Civil Aviation Authority. Even then the member Darien Fenton in her questioning of the chairman referred to the rest and meal breaks issue as being extremely thorny. The Civil Aviation Authority at that time—this time last year—was quite confident that it would be able to resolve the issue. Frankly it could not. Unfortunately the type of flexibility that is needed for good employment relationships no longer exists and that is what this bill seeks to address. 
I will touch on one other issue that occurred at Dunedin Airport earlier this year when the whole airport had to be closed. It was closed because the sole-charge air traffic controller had called in sick. As a consequence seven other— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Nothing to do with rest breaks. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: No but it does have to do with flexibility in employment agreements. Six other staff members were available but not a single one of them was allowed under the agreement to go back in and see a couple of planes land because of the overly restrictive covenants that were put in place by the unions in their employment agreement. What happened? Hundreds of passengers were diverted to Invercargill and Christchurch. The airport closed because of a lack of flexibility in the overly rigid arrangements that were put in place by the employment agreement. 
I hope that that situation can change. I hope that Dunedin Airport never has to close again because of that. It is not O’Hare Airport or Heathrow; it is not as if these very good workers one or two of whom I know are working flat stick for 8 hours. It should be possible to accommodate those once-in-a-blue-moon events. At least in respect of rest and meal breaks I think this bill is a very good start. I commend it to the House.