Mapp Wayne: Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:15883] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 National as has been stated previously supports the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill. Of course it is obviously sensible to fix up technical errors but we cannot help but reflect on the fact that there are much deeper problems with the Holidays Act than the Government is willing to admit. Government members will say that the National Party is against 4 weeks’ holiday. That is not true. We support 4 weeks’ holiday and I want to put that specifically and directly on the record. Indeed we have done so for quite a number of years going back to 2004-05. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: You voted against it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: So by 2005 I say for the benefit of the member we had concluded that we would be supporting 4 weeks’ holiday. The reason I make this point very clear is that I want to assure New Zealand workers and businesses that National believes in fairness. We understand the need for that provision; we understand that people will expect internationally competitive conditions like 4 weeks’ holiday. As has been noted by others that is the norm in Australia. 
The truth is that what we have here is the problem of a complex bill that needs constant and consistent amendment. So even faced with straightforward situations as indeed the airline pilots in Air New Zealand were faced with the legislation was so complicated that the court could not do what in fact the parties thought they wanted to achieve which was the ability to transfer holidays when people were working on a public holiday. The court said that was not possible because the wording of the legislation was so complex and so related to individual agreements and collective agreements that there had to be very clear words. That has actually been the constant and consistent complaint about this legislation. It is simply too complex and it has always been too complex and that is why we have had to have numerous amendments. 
This amendment bill is not the first. My colleague Paula Bennett referred to nine amendments—to the Holidays Act and the Employment Relations Act. In 2004 I was on the select committee that dealt with the Holidays Amendment Bill where another whole series of technical problems was being fixed up. In fact five problems were pointed out to the Government by the various submitters and do members know what? The Government ignored then and is ignoring today the major problem with the legislation which is that of relevant daily pay. 
To put it simply for members including those from the New Zealand First Party the problem with the current definition is that it can pay to be sick and that those people who are working to cover for a sick worker actually get less money than the person who is sick. Why on earth would Labour members want to defend that practice? Why on earth would they want to defend a practice that encourages people to get sick? That is what they are doing. I give a simple example. A lot of manufacturing businesses work on a production cycle. Teams of people have to work together to achieve a certain production target and some of their pay is related to that productivity. If some people are sick that productivity target is not achieved. The people who are sick get paid as if the target was achieved but the people at work do not get paid at that level. 
Why on earth would Labour members want to defend that absurd situation? That is what they did in 2004 and that is what they are doing today by refusing to deal with that issue in this bill. The Government had the consistent opportunity to fix this problem. Business New Zealand knows that. Government members would I think recognise that Business New Zealand is a moderate voice for business. It takes a fair and reasonable approach to issues. It works cooperatively with the Government on certain issues. It also knows that that issue of relevant daily pay is the single issue— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The most significant aspect of this bill is actually what it does not do. I indicated to the House earlier this evening that there are many many problems with the Holidays Act. That has in fact led to a case going to the Supreme Court which was symptomatic of the complexity of the legislation. The Government was warned of that right from the get-go—right from when the legislation was first established back in 2003. The issue was raised then and has been consistently raised by business and others that the legislation needed to be fairer so we did not get the absurdity of people being paid more when on sick leave than when working. 
The Labour members might like to defend that situation but I ask them to think about this particular issue. New Zealand is in a recession at the moment. There is no question about that. There is no quibble about it: we are in a recession. Our economy is declining. How do we know that? Unemployment went up to 3.6 percent and more particularly in just the last 3 months 29000 jobs were lost. 
Darien Fenton 
: What? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: For the benefit of Darien Fenton 29000 jobs were lost. Do members know how many that is? It is actually 1.7 percent of all full-time employees in the country. It is a 1.7 percent decline in the economy in terms of jobs. That is the worst record for 19 years. It is all very well for Labour to go on about the wonderful times over the last 9 years. Things have changed—fundamentally changed—and this Government thinks it is business as usual and that it can just fiddle around the edges and hope it will all go away. Well it will not. We only have to look at global oil prices which are already at $120—many people are projecting that they will go to $200; eminent and respectable people are saying that—and the impact that will have on the New Zealand economy. 
I say to the Government that when it is in year 8½ when it is coming up to a third-term election the public actually expect a good deal better from it than producing a three-page bill called the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill to deal with a technical issue. Yes it has to be dealt with; that is certainly true. But more imagination is required. So this Government will spend time in the House and time in the select committees dealing with this one technical issue as if this were the most important thing in employment law—as if this were the most important thing in the holidays legislation. 
When the nation is dealing with an economic crisis—a recession—we expect the Government to lift its sights and deal with the real issues which are how to boost employment how to produce real fairness in the workplace how to boost productivity how to ensure that we do not lose 80000 people to Australia and how to boost skills. Those are the things this Government ought to be paying attention to but it is not. All it can do is to come up with—let us be honest—a non-controversial three-page bill that it knows everyone in the House will vote for as if that was the most important thing. 
I have news for the Government: the New Zealand public are tired of the Government’s failure. They are tired of its failure to get to grips with the serious issues facing this nation. We expect in this House that when we are presented with legislation when we are presented with a policy it will actually grasp the core issues facing this country and not be essentially some kind of avoidance behaviour—some sort of “let’s pretend nothing’s happening in the outside world; let’s pretend it’s all business as usual and we can forget there are difficult problems facing families out there”. In 6 months’ time this nation will decide who will be the Government of New Zealand. I suggest that when this sort of thing is put up to the people of New Zealand and they are asked whether they know what this Government has spent its last few months doing and is told that it has been worrying about some technical amendment instead of fixing the serious problems they are likely to say that it is time for a change. 
Bill read a first time.