Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I will take just a quick call on this particular clause because it is at the heart of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill in terms of the principal— 
Grant Robertson 
: I’m not sure Jo wants you to take a call. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: It is members’ day; that is why they call it such. I will just touch on what this particular clause is not. It was raised by Mr Burns in his call— 
Chris Hipkins 
: He gets a bit of a promotion and it goes straight to his head. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Oh those members are nice to talk about it like that are they not? It is just a list guys. They should relax unless they are in that member’s situation. In that case the member is a little less relaxed would he not say? 
This is what this clause is not about: it is not about compulsion as Brendon Burns would have us believe. Indeed he compared this with the voluntary student membership legislation. He said that somehow this legislation was about compulsion and that the voluntary student membership legislation was about choice so we must be inconsistent. Well I challenge that notion because this bill is not about compulsion. Even the Labour members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee said this bill is about choice. They said it in their minority report in which they said that “in New Zealand union membership is voluntary and unions should be free to run their organisations according to the rules” that the members democratically put in place. 
I will tell members what Labour members did not say but what one of the unions came in and said. I cannot remember exactly which union it was and I will not guess in case I get it wrong. The member in the chair the Hon Tau Henare may remember. When questioned about what would happen to a union member faced with a ballot that would not be secret and about what choices that union member had in that situation here is what that union said: “They’re free to resign. They can just go.” 
The reason this is relevant is that this bill is exactly about protection. It is not about compulsion and that is what the principal Act says. It says that the Employment Relations Act is “acknowledging and addressing”—these are Labour words but in just this situation I agree with them—“the inherent inequality of power in employment relationships;”. I suggest that that inequality of power exists between unions and union members. It is exercised fairly in many cases but I am sure that members on both sides of the Chamber have a number of examples of when union power was inappropriately used to muscle people into strike action against their judgment. 
The member Tau Henare should be congratulated on bringing this bill to the House because the inappropriate use of power happens altogether too often. [ 
Interruption 
] There those members go—up. The halo on unions cannot be nudged. Well I suggest that this bill is exactly what is needed in order to bring to the use of a secret ballot the very few and not the very many who use that power inappropriately. I strongly support the bill.