Pillay Lynne: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Second Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Second Reading 
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LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 The National Party member has it wrong again. All those people listening to their radios in Whangarei will be very disappointed in their member. This bill is not about referring— 
Phil Heatley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member who is the Labour buddy MP for Whangarei is talking about people in Whangarei listening on their wirelesses to these speeches; she may not be aware that people in Whangarei cannot receive Parliament and I would just like to let the House know that. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Then those people were not blessed with listening to all that rot. Clearly that member has missed the plot. This bill refers to an insolvency situation. It imposes no extra cost on the employer. It is simply about making the creditor status of workers fairer—that is making them preferred creditors. His speech was another example of misinformation from that side of the House—another outrageous claim just like his leader’s claim. 
I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill and I commend my colleague Mark Peck for his member’s bill. I commend him for producing this bill because as I have he has seen the heartache of redundancy the heartache to workers and their families and the heartache to employers and their families. It is devastating for anybody to be deprived of one’s livelihood through no fault of one’s own. The stress both financial and emotional is far-reaching. For some workers the security of redundancy compensation goes some way to assisting them and their families at that difficult time while they adjust to the loss—the loss of their job the loss of their income the loss of their self-esteem and the loss of their dreams for the future. That redundancy compensation can provide some hope whether it is to tide them over until another job is found whether it is for financial support while training or studying or whether it is to allow them to look towards restarting a work career through a small business which this Government is happy to support. Imagine the double whammy if those workers then learn that their redundancy compensation which offers some short-term security is at best at risk but more likely worthless; that that redundancy deal is simply not worth the paper it is written on although it was negotiated in good faith by the employer who is willing for the employees to receive that money should the funds allow it. 
I have seen that situation most recently with the Qantas New Zealand employees. The uncertainty for those skilled professional employees who had thought they had a career a job for life was devastating. They were in a job market that had severely diminished and they had the challenge of finding employment in their chosen field. Add to that the harsh reality that their longstanding redundancy deal which they had negotiated with their employer in good faith was worthless. It was an extremely difficult time for those employees and their families. It was unjust and unfair. 
This bill goes a long way to address those injustices in that it does give employee redundancy claims priority over other unsecured claims and some preferential claims in—and I repeat for Mr Heatley—an insolvency situation. The bill removes the current limit of $6000 on preferential claims made by an employee in a corporate insolvency situation and raises the cap to $15000. I think that is good for workers. The bill also introduces a new priority and that is to provide an incentive for creditors to financially assist a liquidator in recovering or preserving business assets. That is one way to help increase the overall return to creditors. So this bill is about common sense fairness and balance and builds on this Government’s election policy to improve protection of workers’ conditions where businesses are transferred and sold—as we will be addressing in the Employment Relations Act amendments—and to continue reforming laws relating to redundant workers. 
If we look at the background to this bill the Weddell collapse we see that those workers had to line up with other unsecured creditors for their redundancy pay—compensation that had been negotiated in good faith between them their union and their employer. They were collectively owed $35 million and had to line up with other unsecured creditors for their money. It is unlikely that any of those creditors will ever see a cent of what is owed to them. This Government looks forward to workers not being in that situation again. Although there is still no guarantee of full redundancy there is considerable comfort for workers in being in a fairer position in the queue. 
I say to those on that side of this House who oppose this legislation “Shame!”. It is the same sad little group who revels in opposing anything relating to fair play whether it is about workers’ rights women’s rights students’ rights superannuitants’ rights and so on. It is consistent with their support for the pillaging and plundering of the Employment Contracts Act and with their opposition to the Employment Relations Act improved health and safety provisions and improved holiday entitlements. It is consistent with their inability to accept or even comprehend the principle of work-life balance. It is consistent with their inability to comprehend the win-win situation of investing in employees by having healthy and safe working conditions by having a family-friendly approach to employment by following the principle of a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay and by ensuring a degree of certainty about receiving fair compensation in a redundancy situation. 
I repeat that this bill does not unlike what Mr Heatley said add any cost whatsoever to the employer. I am tired of sitting in this House and hearing or reading in the newspaper outlandish claims about what is happening. Those things are simply not true. It is simply not credible—even if we make allowance for stupidity—to make those outlandish claims in this House. Again I commend my colleague Mark Peck. He has had the foresight the compassion the sense of justice and the intelligence to bring this bill to the House to build on this Government’s delivery of fairness and justice so that we as a nation can hold our head high on the world stage and so that we can look our people in the eye and say we are committed to being fair and do not want to see people ripped off. We are also committed to saying to employers that we want to be fair to them and to support them in their businesses but we insist that it is fair that in insolvency situations workers have a fair place in the queue. I say to Mr Heatley that that is supported not only by Labour supporters and workers but also by businesses in New Zealand.