Horomia Parekura: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Horomia Parekura: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:668;Page:15393] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 Mr Chair morena. Te pai hoki e tu atu penei tonu e kite atu te ngarara e mau atu mo nga tangata e whai atu i te mahi. 
[ 
Good morning Mr Chair. It is really good to stand so as to see the monster that people seeking employment have to pursue 
.] 
The Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) is one of the most important and relevant issues at this moment. We have seen the Warner Bros debacle and we have seen other debacles and the unions are getting the blame for them. I was really pained to hear the speech from the chair of the Maori Affairs Committee which I sit on. I think he does a wonderful job and I can assure members that if this bill had been referred to the select committee we would have done something about it. But somebody has not done anything about this bill and it is shameful. People will be rolling their eyes in Blackball today people will be struggling in Te Atatu and people will be wondering and pondering in Wairoa. Let us talk about the workforce. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Where? Blackball? Does anybody live there any more? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That Maori member opposite should understand better. And I mihi to the Maori Minister in the chair the Hon Georgina te Heuheu. 
Let me point to some real facts. The 90-day bill was supposedly a test to work things out. It jumped from being a test to the whole group of employers being allowed to set sail on workers. This is one of the worst bills that this debating chamber has ever seen. It is an extension. All we have seen from this Government are extensions that hurt families and ruin and wreck their lives: the extension of GST the extensions provided in this bill and the extension of payments to big companies who put their money at risk and the Government finds $1.75 billion for them. Helping workers is not in its psyche. Mr Tau Henare especially should know better. He has been a union organiser and he knows where the people are at. 
I will give people some clear facts about what this 90-day legislation will do. It is unfair it is unbalanced and it is uncoordinated and it is unclear why the Government is doing it—supposedly. But those who know about the labour market know that this is one of the biggest jack-ups in this country in relation to the workplace. It is unfair and it is low-down dirty. I will tell members something from a Maori perspective: nearly 42 percent of Maori women who are between the ages of 15 and 23 have nothing. They are not in work not on benefits and not in study. When we add together the capping of study in universities the changes to make sure that benefit tests are totally unfair and the introduction of this major monster to the workplace I do not know how those people opposite can come to work and say to their colleagues in the Chamber “Good morning”. Shame on them! This bill is an outright disgrace. 
The Maori unemployment rate is now tracking at 17 percent. It is 1 percent behind the rate it was at when National last left Government when we ran it out of town and it left a shambolic mess. This bill is adding to it. What do members opposite have to say about that? The number is three times the mainstream average. What do they have to say about that? People seem to hide away from it as if it does not happen. I say the National members should tell that to the 190 people who have had only 9 days’ work this season at the freezing works in Wairoa. They should tell it to those people who were put out on the streets for 9 weeks. They were just trying to prove the basic issues of the right to collectivise and to make sure that they maintained—not extended—the rights they that had. Those rights are fundamental; they are about fairness equity and all of that. 
The miserable member opposite Louise Upston stood up to call this debate to an end. Shame on her! I see the Minister shuddering in the chair but she knows that it is downright truthful to say that Maori women are really struggling. I have been to food banks and it reminded me of the 1980s. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What have you got to go to food banks for? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: People need food banks I say to Mr Henare because this sort of legislation sends them there. It stops them getting into work and the displacement factor that is behind a whole lot of other legislation that his Government has pushed through in this term is helping that. This bill is about the rich getting richer it is about the poor getting poorer and it is about trying to pull the rug out from under the unions which is the one platform that many workers have to get by. What is so wrong with unions?