Bennett Paula: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Bennett Paula: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I too would like to commend Sue Kedgley for bringing the bill to the House because if nothing else it has opened up a debate and it is a debate that in some respects has been worth having. The debate has been about our families and it has been about the effect of the number of hours that parents work and what it means for them. But the debate that perhaps we have not gone into when we have had an opportunity to do so with the introduction of this bill and one that I think we could have taken the opportunity to take further is a discussion on the role of parents and paid work in their lives; how they juggle family and how they juggle the issue of who is looking after their children. 
There have been immense changes over the past 15 to 20 years. I do not think anyone can absolutely deny that. Are we seriously monitoring what those changes mean? Are we seriously looking at what those changes mean for families and for our children? We have one longitudinal study in Dunedin but are we asking ourselves who is raising our children? What does a push towards longer working hours for mothers and fathers actually mean for those children when we put them into more care on a week-by-week basis? What does it mean when the Prime Minister stands up and tells women that they need to be in productive work? The Prime Minister herself stands up and says women need to get into productive work and raising children is not considered productive work. 
I do not for one moment stand up and pretend to have the answers to all of those questions because I do not think we do yet as a society. I do not think society has had those discussions. I do not think we are even having the discussion let alone starting to come up with some of those answers. But piecemeal bits of legislation like this bill are not the answer. Until we have actually sat down looked at longitudinal studies and really looked at what it means for our children to be in care for a longer time and for their parents to be working longer hours and look at those in significant detail what we are doing is making it up as we go along. That is not the role of this House and it should not be the role of this Government. Legislating for flexible arrangements is simply not the answer. Looking at what is best for families is the answer. Politicians dictating to families what they think is best for them is most certainly not the answer. We need to look at common sense and formal approaches that are currently happening and the fear that this legislation can take them away. 
The difference is that members on this side of the House appreciate that New Zealanders are common-sense people. New Zealanders know what is best for them. They are getting on with it and they are doing the best job they possibly can for them and their families. Let us not continue to treat people as stupid and incapable. I think that is a really important point and one I would certainly like to make again in this House. Let us not continue to treat people as stupid and incapable. We need to recognise that people know what is good for them and know how to get it. We need to recognise that they know how to manage their families and their working environments. They have the ability to talk to each other to negotiate and to come to reasonable solutions. 
Constantly telling people that they are incapable of making representations and decisions for themselves is in its own way an exploitation of those very people. It is another way of making people dependent and it is simply wrong. This is the key difference. Here the difference is stark. Members on one side of the House say: “We know what is best for you and we will legislate accordingly.” The others—on the National side of the House—believe in people. We believe in people’s ability if given the chance to do what is right for them and their families. Trusting people and their own abilities and their capabilities is at the heart of it. That means not regulating every part of their lives. The New Zealand people are standing up and saying “No more.” We do not believe that people want or need legislation to rule every part of their lives. Will this legislation outlaw informal requests—those common-sense approaches that are happening day upon day in workplaces throughout New Zealand? This regulation has the risk of pitting one employee against the other. 
Hon Member 
: Just lip service. 
PAULA BENNETT 
: One can talk about lip service or whatever one likes but let us deal with the realities. Let us deal with a real workplace and deal with what is actually happening in our workplaces now. People are discussing amongst themselves and with their employers what will work in the workplace and they are making it happen. They are making it happen for themselves they are making it happen for their families and they do not need legislation to tell them how to talk to each other. People are coming to arrangements amongst themselves; what they might say is: “I need a Tuesday off to have with my young child because I want to pick my child up early.” A colleague says: “I’ll work Tuesday afternoon and step in for you.” The reply might be: “Well I’ll do Friday morning.” They then go to the employer. They job-share and work part-time and those arrangements are already happening. 
One may not hear it out on the air waves but there is this snippy snappy coming from the other side of the House all through this speech. Quite frankly it is the whole “us and them” mentality. We have heard it tonight and we are hearing it now: snip snip snip coming from over there and it is that whole divisive unhelpful “us and them” mentality that is actually going to destroy workplace relationships. They are continuing with it and it is their only way to try to get personal and undermine us. But the snip snip snippy “us and them” is simply not going to work when it comes to dealing with relationships in the workforce. 
There is nothing wrong with people asking for flexible hours. We can exaggerate it from the other side and make things sound all dire because it is coming from the National Party but the simple fact is that there is nothing wrong with people asking for flexible hours. They can do that now. In fact anyone has the right now to go to his or her employer and ask for flexible hours and flexible working arrangements. It is called—and everyone wait for this because this is important—a conversation. It is called an actual conversation. 
One of the other concerns that one must have is that these requests now must be in writing. So those people who do have trouble putting a letter together and putting their thoughts down in writing—and there are number of people who do have problems in putting a letter together and putting a request that makes sense to their employer—are going to be disadvantaged by this piece of legislation. Because they cannot simply go and talk to their employer as they have always done because now the request will have to be in writing. And they can of course ask only once a year under this legislation. Once one starts legislating for this this is simply what one gets—one request a year and that is it. Who is to say that employees’ circumstances are not changing regularly? There is a real fear that this will take away common-sense approaches in the process—another layer of bureaucracy. 
How many more people will the Department of Labour need to employ to administer this bill? What will happen under this legislation is that if the employee is not happy with the result it goes to a Labour inspector then to mediation and then to the employment authority. So we have three layers. We are going to need more people. How many cases does this House expect to go to the authority and at what cost? Well start legislating and that is what will happen. 
If an employer has already approved a few requests in a year—and this is a huge concern for us as well—met with the first one met with the second “Yes yes” and finally says: “We can do no more; the answer is no.” then that person is simply disadvantaged for the rest of year in many respects we think. So what will happen? The employers talk to each other talk to themselves and come to arrangements. But that does not happen once one is putting legislation in and once one is making it in writing. It is true and those members know it is true. It is quite a simple fact that once one starts legislating once rules go in place like that there are dire consequences and it will be to the detriment of the employee. 
So I stand up to say that this legislation is not what we believe will work for employees to make the workplace a better place. We simply stand by our conviction that flexible working hours and flexible arrangements are a given and are a right for any New Zealander; we simply do not need to legislate for them.