Simpson Scott; Williams PotoHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It was telling that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety couldn't even fill 10 minutes defending this bill—couldn't even fill 10 minutes to defend this bill. This is a bill that the National Party fundamentally and absolutely opposes and objects to. I give fair notice on behalf of the Opposition to the Parliament of New Zealand and to the employers and workers of New Zealand that we will repeal this legislation at the first possible opportunity after we are re-elected in 2020.The only thing that this bill does is fulfil a promise made by the parliamentary Labour Party to their trade union mates. It was a bill that was introduced in January of this year and then ran into heavy weather amongst the coalition partners. The fact that it's taken us through till December to go through a process that the Labour Party really wanted pushed through very quickly is telling of how much tension there is within the coalition parties. This is a bill that does pretty much just one thing and that is that it grows the market share of the trade union movement. It's designed to increase union powers to increase union membership to increase union influence and of course to increase the cash flow that goes to trade unions through increased membership. In the last 30 years since the establishment and development of what we've come to know and rely upon as the enterprise bargaining model union membership has plummeted—absolutely plummeted. It's plummeted to the point where only about 10 percent—well it's actually 83 percent. Let me put it around the other way: 83 percent of New Zealand employees are not currently members of a trade union. And this bill is designed to try and remedy that to try and take us back to the 1970s.The collective proposition that's put here by these changes in this bill will take us well back past the Helen Clark administration days. It takes us right back to the days of Tom Skinner Ken Douglas and the militant trade union movement. For those of us that are of an age to remember that this is a very scary piece of legislation. Already we've seen trade unions this year flexing their industrial muscle in a way that we have not seen in three decades. There have been more strikes and more industrial action in the last 12 months than we've had in any year in the last 30 years. On that side of the House opposite they say Well this is because of some kind of pent-up frustration." Well actually no it's not. This is a result of a Government that has emboldened and empowered the trade union movement and created an expectation that going on strike is a good thing and that going on strike is something that is laudable and something to be rewarded and welcomed. Well exactly the opposite is true. This is a bill that amongst other things creates an opportunity for trade union representatives to visit many hundreds if not thousands of workplaces up and down the countryside without notice without approval without consent and without any regard to the appropriateness of that visit and that just if nothing else breaches matters of common decency and courtesy to say nothing of the health and safety issues that are involved in that. So this piece of legislation is as I say designed entirely to provide an opportunity for trade unions to recruit members and to grow their market share. One of the interesting aspects of this bill is the so-called 30-day rule that's being reintroduced and that's a rule whereby if a collective arrangement operates in a workplace and a new employee commences employment maybe on an individual employment agreement for the first 30 days that new employee will be on the union deal—like it or not on the union deal. So what is the purpose one might ask? Well the purpose obviously is so that during that period of time recruitment can take place and during those 30 days an employer will have to provide personal contact details to the trade union of that new employee unless the employee opts out. Now that's a perverse and backwards sort of initiative that was incredibly scathingly criticised by our Privacy Commissioner when he came to the Education and Workforce Committee and said this was poor practice this was poor privacy practice and it was contrary to the provisions of the Privacy Act. And so what's been the response of this Government to that? Well the response of this Government to this scathing criticism of the Privacy Commissioner has been in the departmental report back that this piece of legislation will be superior legislation to the Privacy Act. In other words the Privacy Act will be subordinate legislation to this new industrial relations law that the Government's pushing through. This is a bill that removes the ability to take pay deductions out of an employee who's on a partial strike. Now we've seen a huge increase in the number of partial strikes over the last 12 months and if there is no financial disincentive to go on strike then that will simply lead to an obvious conclusion: there will be more partial strikes. And we've already seen that when the teachers have been on strike and as they are going to go on strike on the so-called mega strike the super strike when we'll have both primary and secondary school teachers on strike next year they will be losing presumably a day or a week's pay or maybe a month if they go on strike for a month—who knows how long they may strike? But they will be losing pay. If they go on a partial strike like working to roll or all taking a tea and meal break at exactly the same time or maybe not wearing the company provided uniform—that kind of partial strike means that there will be no financial disincentive to do a partial strike or to go on a partial strike. So needless to say there will be lots more of those. This is a bill that is designed to make recruitment easier. Part of the ability for unions to recruit more easily will be that a union delegate in a workplace will be able to do in an unquantified undefined and unmeasured way union work—undefined—on the employer's dime on the employer's time and that is potentially a situation where union work could include things like campaigning. And we all remember that only 12 months or so ago when the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party and the Labour Party were opposed to free trade and there were—they've changed their mind subsequently of course and come around to the right way of thinking about free trade. But what they were opposed to then was the free trade the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and there were protests and petitions and all sorts of things up and down the countryside. Much of that work much of that campaigning was done by trade union representatives and delegates. Now this kind of union campaigning potentially will be done while on the employer's time on the employer's dime and I think that's inherently unfair. But what's even more unfair is that in this legislation there is a provision that provides greater statutory protection for a union member than a non-union member. And why might that piece of statutory protection be in there for a union member over the rights and privileges of a non-union member? Well it's simply so that a value proposition can be put to a prospective union member who is going to rightly question when the union representatives come along and stand over them and say "Look brother or sister come and join the union." And they then say "Well why should I join the union? Why should I join your union? It's going to cost me $500 $600 $700 or $800 a year." And the union representatives who are lurking around trying to twist the arm of the employee who may be questioning about why they don't want to join a union—they will say "Well look if you join the union and you pay the $500 $600 $700 or $800 a year you will get a greater level of statutory protection under this bill."What that means is that we just go back to the bad old days of the 1970s when we had industrial disruption a breakdown of economic growth and a handbrake on the ability of businesses to grow and prosper and all at a time when we have record low unemployment when we have record high levels of employment engagement amongst New Zealanders and when businesses up and down the countryside are saying that the greatest business challenge that they face is actually getting recruiting and retaining good staff members. And this bill just puts a handbrake on all that good stuff that helps add value to "New Zealand Incorporated".Some of the submissions at select committee were incredibly scary and very worrying on behalf of business. It's part of the reason that business confidence is stubbornly low and will remain so under this Government. More multi-employer collective agreements more strikes more back to the future and more trade union militancy and strike action will be the single result of this legislation. And I repeat: at the first possible opportunity—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired."