10. Question No. 10—Workplace Relations and SafetyHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and SafetyQuestion No. 10—Workplace Relations and Safety10. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Does he consider the recommendations made by the working group chaired by Jim Bolger are fair and will respect the right of individual workers to negotiate their own individual employment agreements?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes. The Rt Hon Jim Bolger and his team of experts have done an excellent job of identifying longstanding problems with the New Zealand labour market and suggesting innovative solutions to those issues.Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with the recommendation from that working group that just a small minority of only 10 percent of all workers within an industry would by compulsion be able to trigger a bargaining process even if it goes against the wishes of the other 90 percent of workers in that sector and against the wishes of business owners?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: As is the case with all of the recommendations in that report they are recommendations. The Government is considering its response to those recommendations and that response will be made public in due course.Hon Scott Simpson: Does the Minister agree that independence and freedom of choice are among the foundations of an innovative and competitive economy and if so why is he intent on removing these freedoms from both employees and employers?SPEAKER: Order! No the member will rephrase the question and put it within order. There's an assertion in that question that has not been clearly established.Hon Scott Simpson: Does the Minister agree that independence and freedom of choice are among the foundations of an innovative and competitive economy and is he planning on removing these freedoms from both employees and employers?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I do agree that people should have the ability to make individual decisions and have freedom of choice and freedom of association. What we're talking about with fair pay agreements of course is the opportunity for industries to negotiate minimum standards that apply and are relevant to those industries. So just in the same way that having a minimum wage or minimum entitlements to holiday pay do not restrict people's individual choice neither will fair pay agreements.Hon Clare Curran: What issues with the New Zealand labour market did the fair pay working group identify?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The Fair Pay Agreement Working Group found that New Zealanders work longer and produce less per hour than most OECD countries. Our productivity growth has been poor and driven by people working more hours not more efficiently. Wages in New Zealand have been growing more slowly for workers on lower incomes and have not kept up with labour productivity. In other words we have both an equality and productivity challenge. The working group's recommendations are set to address both.Hon Scott Simpson: Will he make the agreements recommended in the working group's report voluntary?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: As with all the recommendations in the report they are recommendations that the Government will now take its time to consider. When the Government has done that and reached its position on the working group report that position will be made public.Hon Clare Curran: What have the OECD and other international institutions said about industry-based bargaining?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: New Zealand is an outlier amongst developed countries by having bargaining at only the individual enterprise level. Two-thirds of OECD countries have some form of sector-based bargaining and as recently as 2008 the OECD has recommended a combination of sector- and enterprise-level bargaining because it is associated with higher employment lower unemployment better treatment of vulnerable groups and less inequality.Hon Scott Simpson: How does the Minister reconcile the concept of compulsory sector-wide collective bargaining without opt-out provisions against international labour standards that specifically state voluntary negotiations of collective agreements are a fundamental part of our labour laws?Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well again I would refer the member to the fact that we are talking about setting minimum standards. We already have minimum standards that are compulsory. The minimum wage holiday pay sick pay and bereavement leave for instance are all minimum standards that are compulsorily applied across the labour market. But I would also say this: the working group recommended to the Government—and we will do this—that we work alongside the International Labour Organization as we build a framework for fair pay agreements to ensure that we are upholding people's individual rights.