Key John: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Key John: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11565] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 Most members of this Committee can understand why Mr Peck has such an interest in redundancy and even have some sympathy. Members may wonder what Mr Peck has done to deserve Trevor Mallard and his Sonny Bolstad impressions down in Invercargill. 
I want to pick up on just two points before I move into what I think is the main issue here. The first is the comment that Mr Barker made that somehow the ACT party’s position was driven off the bankers supporting the ACT party. It may come as quite a shock to Mr Barker who may not know who funds the Labour Party but if he looks at financial contributions from financial institutions he will see quite clearly that the largest benefactors were the Labour Party and the National Party—not the ACT party. He might want to check that out. [ 
Interruption 
] It is a matter of public record and if the Minister does not understand that then he should have a look at it. 
The second point I want to make concerns the issue that Mr Tisch raised regarding growers and how their losses will be suffered and I think it is testimony to how the Labour Government sees self-employed people. The growers in the Manawatu Rangitikei and the Horowhenua who are losing their entire livelihoods and will not be protected by some sort of union-driven status of redundancy bill are being offered three-quarters of the unemployment benefit by this Government. They are not even good enough to get the unemployment rate—they are being offered three-quarters. That is what the Labour Government thinks of self-employed people—when they are really down as a result of the flood they get three-quarters of the unemployment rate. It is a disgrace. 
I want to pick up on a point made by Mr Prebble in his speech in relation to the fairness of these redundancies and the fairness of this legislation. The logic behind this bill is so silly that one would imagine that nobody has taken a reasonable time to look at it. I want to make this first—the first and most obvious point. There is nothing stopping any employee in New Zealand from having this treatment currently. Employees can negotiate the position. They are absolutely free to negotiate this position with employers today—and they do not do it. Why do they not do it? They do not do it because firstly they do not see the value in it doing it and secondly employers understand what the impact will be on the banks’ capital structures. The second point I want to make in relation to fairness is that if anybody can see that a redundancy is likely to happen if anybody can see that a collapse is likely to happen it is the people inside the company. It is not people outside the company. We have all had experiences of going round to large employers in New Zealand and we can recognise when the writing is on the wall. So if people need protection then it is small businesses that operate with those and customers. 
I make one final point. We have heard quite a lot of debate about the issue related to small businesses but no mention has been made of customers who pre-pay for activities with a company that goes broke. There is a large group of New Zealanders who will be adversely affected. However I want to speak tonight mainly about what this bill will do to the capital structure of investing in New Zealand and in companies. One of the great tragedies of this bill relates to whether New Zealand is committed to getting back into the top half of the OECD—and we know that the Government does not like to talk about that. We know the Government has abandoned that proposition. Treasury tells us day after day as it tells the Government that the Government’s policies are anti-growth and that they will not deliver higher living standards for New Zealand any time before the 21st century—unless with the good grace of the people of New Zealand we can put a National-ACT Government in power which I have no doubt will occur very soon. Very importantly we need entrepreneurial activities and we need banks to want to invest in small businesses. The first thing this bill does is make small companies that interact with large companies more vulnerable. That is exactly what this bill does. It makes them more vulnerable and less likely to get a payout than anybody else. Banks will automatically adjust their risk profile if this legislation goes through. 
Peter Brown 
: Rubbish! 
JOHN KEY 
: The member says “Rubbish” but he has not actually spoken to the banks about it.