Martin Tracey: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:178. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First):Kia ora Mr Chair. New Zealand First will be opposing this bill. We will be opposing this bill for the following reasons. First of all let us just have a think about what is the purpose of laws. Apart from taxation the purpose of the majority of our laws is to protect us. The laws are our fall-back place. The laws state that this is the minimum we will accept for our people.I want to just harken back to when I was working in the insolvency division of KPMG Peat Marwick when the Employment Contracts Act first came in. That organisation ran training sessions for businesses and for employers on how they could use where the loopholes were and how that Act could be used to tighten to keep their employees in line or to be used to their benefit. I am not aware of any organisation that ran training sessions for employees around that Act.Mr Bennett talks about flexibility. I see there the new member of the House from Invercargill Ms Dowie. I listened to her maiden speech earlier today. It was a very good maiden speech a very nice maiden speech actually. Many of the new National Party members of Parliament used the word “choice” used the word “justice” and used the words “I am here for all New Zealanders.” I believe that is the catchphrase we are going to hear for the next 3 years. That is the 2017 campaign cry. I think that is what we are going to hear.Well let us just talk about a 19-year-old young man a pizza chef right now. He came to see me about the fact that he cannot get a contract. He is working 13 out of 14 days from 10 in the morning until 10 at night and his employer because of this situation of his employment requires flexibility around his break times. So they are zero—so they are zero. And the law is supposed to be the minimum place that he can come back to so he can get some justice—so he can get some justice—whether it be natural or otherwise.Minister McClay who is in the Chamber had a conversation with me in the elevator on the way up here. He said: “Well this young man has rights. This young man can actually go and seek his rights.” And he absolutely can except for the fact that it will cost him money to go and seek his rights. It will cost him money to go and seek his rights and this flexibility that Mr O’Connor stands and blithely says that everybody should have—he does not mean for all New Zealanders. If this young man went to his employer tomorrow and said “Excuse me but the law says I am entitled to a meal break the law says I am entitled to overtime pay after a certain period of time and the law says that I can actually work an 8-hour shift and decline working more.” he would lose his job.Do not tell me that that would not happen because in this environment particularly in this environment it is those workers who are most vulnerable. They are part of that “all New Zealand” that that party apparently is supposed to represent. But they are migrant workers young workers older workers women workers. Those are the people who work for the minimum wage. There is a queue out the door for their job. They do not have flexibility and they do not have choice and those members know it.David Bennett: What about Brendan?TRACEY MARTIN: Mr Bennett you know it more than most. You know it more than most. But Mr Bennett would be the first to tell you that if that young man turned down those conditions he is a bludger. He should be grateful for that one job that job that has completely denied him all those rights that other workers stood up for—that his grandparents his parents and Mr Bennett’s parents believed was what was best and good about this country. It is the thin end of the wedge and New Zealand First will not support it. But it is incredibly interesting that it is this part of the wedge that this Government has decided in the first week of coming back into this Chamber will set the tone for the next 3 years.So New Zealand listen to what they say. Listen to the words they use and then understand that it is just to keep you calm. Read the words in this bill and then tell me how—stand up Mr Bennett. Take another call and tell us how that young man can be given his rights.