Fenton Darien: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:676;Page:21553] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Here we are on another bill again debating that a principal Act be amended. The principal Act being amended by the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill is the Employment Relations Act 2000 and is being done so that the Hon Tau Henare can get his way by imposing on union members the right for secret ballots for strikes. I find that very very interesting having just heard the previous debate which was fascinating and where we talked about freedom of association democratic rights and the people’s right to choose yet this member’s bill is from a National Party member who wants to impose decisions on the democratic decision-making of union members. 
We have talked before about whether this bill is necessary. I want to be fair to the member Tau Henare and acknowledge that he probably had a genuine belief when he brought this bill to the House— 
Carol Beaumont 
: That’s fair! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I am a very fair person and I am generous. I was interested to go to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to find out whether there really was a problem on this issue. Guess what? We found out there was no problem. Not a single worker came to the select committee to say there was a problem and that workers were being forced into strike action because there was no secret ballot for strikes. We also found out that most unions already have this process and carry it out where practical. But it is not always practical and we have to remember that we live in a world that is way way different from 1980 when the Hon Tau Henare was the worst union organiser in the world. He worked for the— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Not very generous. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Not so generous and I am sorry but I just could not help myself. We were talking about a time when we had compulsory trade unionism and times were different then. That is Tau Henare’s experience and he used to go into workplaces and say: “Pull the pin. Everyone out! Tell those clerical workers”—those very militant clerical workers for whom he was the union organiser—“they have to pull the pin and take strike action.” I am sure there was the odd clerical worker who rang up Syd Jackson who was the secretary of the clerical workers union at that time and said: “Tau Henare came in and told us that we have to go on strike today and we don’t agree with that.” That was like 30 years ago but times have changed. 
The House finished a very interesting debate tonight about freedom of association and the rights of people to freely associate. I say to the ACT members who asserted in their comments about freedom of association that the right was just as strong on the other side of the argument which is freedom not to associate. Actually when it comes to workers’ rights and International Labour Organization conventions the right is much stronger in terms of freedom of association; absolutely much stronger. 
We are talking about amending this principal Act and wasting a lot of time on a members’ day at the eleventh hour of Parliament when there are a lot of other priorities or other things that we could be doing. For example I was contacted tonight by someone in Christchurch and she said to me that she was not complaining but was only just surviving. She said she was a bit low at the moment. The car had blown up and she had to take a day off work to get the car organised to be fixed. She did not know where the money was coming from. There were no groceries this pay—or next no doubt—but she did need a car to get to work. She wondered how she was going to cope with this. This bill would not be a priority for that person and it would not be a priority for many many people. 
In fact as I said no one came to the select committee to say that Parliament needed to make this amendment to the Employment Relations Act. We have amended this principal Act on a number of occasions during this Parliament all of them very unfortunate and very unnecessary amendments. They are unfortunate and unnecessary and what we are now seeing and what I hear every day through my email in-box are the consequences of the amendments that this Government has made to the Employment Relations Act. 
First of all we had the 90-day trial period for workplaces of fewer than 20 employees. That amendment was deemed to be a success and the Minister of Labour has gone around trumpeting that somehow that created 13000 jobs. That is just rubbish. The research is so flawed. It is just rubbish to look at a time period of 3 months after that legislation was passed and say: “Oh well people employed in small workplaces have not lost as many jobs as people employed in larger workplaces and somehow that has created a whole lot of jobs.” On that basis both the Minister and the Prime Minister went out and said they were going to extend the legislation. They have extended it now to all workplaces. 
Of course they have amended the principal Act around a whole lot of other things including the access of workers to their union organisers. I think this bill raises a really interesting question. In fact it is the subject of a Supplementary Order Paper that I have introduced which is about access to workplaces. This Government has restricted the right of workers to talk to their union organisers at work. What is more it has restricted the right of workers to talk to their union organisers even when there is a health and safety matter involved. So one of the Supplementary Order Papers I will be introducing to amend the principal Act will state that where there is a requirement to hold a secret ballot for strikes union organisers will not be prevented from coming into the workplace. Can members imagine it? We have a law on the one hand that says there has to be a secret ballot for strikes then on the other hand we have a restriction whereby union organisers cannot come in and conduct that ballot. How ridiculous is that! I am really looking forward to the member in the chair supporting that Supplementary Order Paper when we get to that part of the bill a little bit further along. 
As I said on going back to the priorities I thought it was an interesting day in Parliament today and not only in the general debate where we heard some silly stuff. I do want to respond if I may to the Hon Jonathan Coleman who made some allegations about things that I allegedly have been saying. He talked about his own electorate but actually I work in the Northcote electorate and I know there are people coming through my office door every day who are sick and tired of this Government amending the Employment Relations Act and who are concerned about this silly bill—this unnecessary bill this waste of time—when we have all of the other problems that are going on in the country. 
We have just spent a lot of time debating a bill about voluntary student membership but nobody wants it—nobody wants it. It is Heather’s last hurrah and thank goodness for that. Maybe this bill is Tau’s last hurrah although of course he will not get it through in this Parliament. Thank goodness for that! Just look at the member in the chair; he does not care. He is going “Oh oh we don’t care!” and that shows the commitment he has to the bill. I have not picked up any—any—real passion from the member since we went through the select committee process where he found out that no one supported the amendment of the principal Act. No one supported it; it was some mad idea that he got from the 1980s when he was the worst union organiser in the world. That is some mad idea some residue; that party has not been able to produce a single worker who has said there is a problem. 
The fact is that we have unions today that are grown-up responsible and modern and that deal with their members in a democratic way. They have rules that deal with these things. Times have changed; things are different to the time when Tau Henare was rampaging around as a union organiser for the clerical workers union on the payroll of low-paid clerical workers and trying to pretend he was important. 
On the back of that he has become the most famous waka-jumper in the world as well as the worst union organiser in the world. He went of course from the New Zealand First Party and I remember—because I live out at Waitakere—the signs I tell Tau Henare: “New Zealand First will not go with National” which of course meant that those members would not amend the principal Act but away he went.