Copeland Gordon: Employment Relations (Probationary Employment) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Employment Relations (Probationary Employment) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 First of all I offer my congratulations to Dr Wayne Mapp on the good fortune of having the Employment Relations (Probationary Employment) Amendment Bill drawn from the ballot. All of us again tomorrow when there is a new ballot will be waiting anxiously to see whether we get our bills out. 
I am delighted to see this bill come into Parliament. The bill is actually very much in line with United Future policy. In fact in our policy at the last election we suggested a probationary period of up to 6 months so the 90 days suggested in the bill by Dr Wayne Mapp is well within the scope of our policy and therefore I can signal immediately that United Future will be voting in favour of the bill. We have come to that conclusion—as most parties do when they formulate policy—on the basis that in our analysis we need to have more rather than less flexibility in the New Zealand labour market. We know that that is always a difficult balance to achieve but anything that moves towards flexibility will in our view in the long term lead to greater productivity to greater job opportunities for people and to greater prosperity for New Zealanders. In other words inflexible labour markets can be the death knell of an economy and we probably have an example of that right now in West Germany. So as Dr Pita Sharples has said we always have to weigh up those two competing things. 
There is also a pragmatic element to that approach that is reliant upon the actual experience that has been fed back to us by employers in respect of employing staff for the first time. In particular I mention two groups that are very important. The first group of course is youth. Youth unemployment rates are higher than the general unemployment rate in our society and we need to understand what brings that into existence. From the point of view of the employer not employing a young person is a risk-averse approach. In other words in taking on a young person the employer has less assurance—because the person has no CV no references and no employment history—as to whether that person will work out. That is a risk. People are prepared to take that risk if they know they can bring the employment relation to an end if it does not work out. Therefore on balance the bill will actually increase participation in the workforce by young people. It will mean that young people are trained by employers in a way that does not happen at the moment because they are not actually taken on in the first place. In a sense the bill is almost a balance to Sue Bradford’s bill on shifting the youth rates up to the minimum wage and that has to be a very very good thing—and by the way we supported Sue Bradford’s bill going to a select committee after its first reading. 
Listening to the speech from Ruth Dyson brought back to me an experience I had fairly soon after I entered this Parliament. An employment relations bill was being debated and I listened carefully to the speeches on it from various members of the Labour Party—particularly I have to say from those with a strong union background. I was subsequently at a business dinner and somebody said to me: “What have you noticed Gordon?”. I said that one of the things I had noticed was that there seemed to be an assumption at least by some members of the Labour Party—what I call the left-wing of the Labour Party—that on the one hand all employers are inherently evil and want to deprive people of opportunities in life and on the other hand that all employees are immaculately conceived. That is not reality. The reality is that people are people and on both sides whether one is an employer or an employee there are good people people who are indifferent and people who really should be excluded from the process. We will find corruption and all those things on both sides of the argument. 
The other issue I would like to mention briefly is that of new immigrants. Again there is a risk in taking on a new immigrant in terms of perhaps language or a whole range of other things. The lack of a probation period actually acts against that. We sometimes say that immigrants encounter racism. I do not know that it is a question of race—I do not think most New Zealanders are racist. New Zealanders are simply saying: “The risk of taking this person on is greater than the risk of taking on a person who has English as his or her first language and understands our culture and our customs.” 
So I think the bill overall will be very positive for those two vulnerable groups of people and therefore I am pleased again to signal United Future’s support.