McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you Mr Speaker. I was going to read my speech until you said that; now I won't. It's very easy to confuse passion with anger and in this case many speakers in Government who have spoken on this bill have seemed angry not because of injustice but because of an ideology of We are the Government. We know what's best. We got a great big mandate at the last election on this one issue alone"—that I think was mentioned once for about 3.5 seconds on the campaign trail—"and don't worry. We are the Government. We can do anything we want with our majority and just watch us: we will." Members opposite said they look forward to this legislation coming before the select committee. Well here is a prediction: they won't make a single meaningful change from anybody other than those who agree with them or are members of a union. Anybody that comes forward from the business community a small business in New Zealand that has a relationship with their workers who looks after their workers who invests in them who pays them well who doesn't believe the Government needs to be involved in that relationship—members opposite with their majority on the committee won't listen; won't make a single change.This piece of legislation creates mandatory union deals around the country. In fact it's worse than that. It mandates union deals around the country.Hon Member: It does. Of course it does.Hon TODD McCLAY: Now what's happened from the very back of the Government benches is a whole lot of noise there. Any moment now we will hear from them. "But this is a fair pay agreement." they will say and they know that because it's in the title. Well many many years ago in Africa a president of a country—President Mobutu—ran Africa. He said it was democratic and it wasn't. They had one of the worst economies in the world. Mr Mobutu every year would decide how much people were paid. The country was called Zaire. Then one day the world started putting pressure on him to say "But you aren't democratic and this isn't working you deciding by yourself." Why can't businesses and employees have a relationship where they can negotiate and decide how they will work together? Do you know what President Mobutu did? He changed the name of Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo. To members opposite here's a hint: if you have to put "democratic" in the name of your country you're not democratic. If you have to put "fair" in the name of a piece of legislation when it comes to pay agreements it is not fair to anybody other than making it easier for your union mates. That's it.So the unions find it hard to go around the country and to get New Zealanders to sign up and pay them a fee and if they don't get those fees it's very hard for them to provide money by way of campaign funding to the Labour Party. So together when they were in Opposition they came up with a plan and said "What we should do is go back to the time"—and we heard this from a Green MP—"when 70 percent of the country was covered by bargaining rounds which meant every year the Government would have meetings for a moment with the sector and for hours and hours and hours with the unions and they would come up with the pay rates and all of the conditions and they would announce it from the Beehive and it would be rubber-stamped and put everywhere." Well this is what this legislation will do: take us back to the days where union-mandated agreement and deals are rolled out for employees and employers who have a perfectly good working relationship and they don't want the Government involved.Think of it this way. We have restaurants and bars up and down New Zealand who have struggled as a result of the restrictions this Government has placed upon them in the last two years. We heard yesterday the Prime Minister say "Actually because we haven't invested properly or sorted out the health system those restaurants and bars—actually we're staying in red. They still need restrictions on them for at least another month." They're doing it tough. They're having to bear the costs of the Government's inaction and not actually when the Government hasn't sorted out the health system. All right? So it's very hard for them. They've taken on debt. Many of them have closed.Here's another guarantee: 10 percent of that workforce or 1000 workers will be approached by union officials who will get them to sign a paper and restaurants and bars will be one of—probably not the first but one of—the first that will have to go through these mandated union deals legislation the so-called fair pay agreement. For the restaurants in downtown Auckland who continue to struggle there will be a decision about how much they have to pay and what they have to do when it comes to leave and whether or not if there is a 10-minute rest break the employer and the employee can reach agreement to take it now or take it later or finish 10 minutes early. Well actually under the Government they won't allow that. The Government will make an announcement of what is happening for the whole country when it comes to the payment for those restaurants and those bars.But the legislation has been changed slightly to say "No no there can be regional differences." So if you drive in your car south of Auckland and you get to the bottom of the Bombay Hills and you see the sign that says you're entering Waikato there could be different rules set by the Government for there—another area where the restaurants and bars have done it tough. It makes no sense at all for the Government to be that involved in the business of employees and employers that is working well and doesn't need Government involvement in it with the exception that this is a Government that thinks it knows best. They've brought their ideology here. That passion that was anger is because these guys have always wanted to do this and they will take New Zealand backwards.Just think of it this way. Think about what's happened to the New Zealand economy—putting COVID aside for a moment—over the last two years. We've lost the America's Cup. That's a billion dollars when the American cup is held here for the tourism sector alone. It's gone. It's out the door. Do you know why? Because the Minister pledged just $31 million and a whole lot of other stuff in kind that would have to happen anyway and that deal walked and it's overseas now. Thirty-one million dollars—that pledge is less than the Government spent on the Auckland cycle bridge they're never going to build which was $50 million.Think about The Lord of the Rings that's no longer made in New Zealand by Amazon the tens of thousands of jobs over a decade or more that will be lost. Think about the high number of people that are on benefits in New Zealand today more than actually before COVID yet we have record low levels of unemployment. Think about the cost of living and how hard it is for working Kiwis to get ahead—not because of what they're paid because there are people that are earning $80000 or $90000 a year that can't afford to live. They too have to choose between paying their rent and their bills or feeding their kids because of the huge cost increases that have been piled on consumers in New Zealand through businesses who have had to pass it on because this is a Government whose ideology says "We know best."If there is a problem to fix here—Hon Member: Who wrote these talking points?Hon TODD McCLAY: Who wrote the talking points? I'm writing these myself and therein lies the issue—therein lies the issue. These guys over there don't actually care about hard-working businesses. They don't care about New Zealanders that are working that are struggling. They want to drive this ideology through and they're disguising it behind that word "fair" when it is anything but fair. If they actually this Government want to do something about employees who are not being treated properly focus on them alone and the employers who are not treating them well. Don't come up with a blanket rule that says "Whether you are a good employer or not or you have a good relationship with your employee or not we are coming after you because we are a Government that knows best."The final point here is actually when this was raised before the last election and in this House previously the Prime Minister backtracked very quickly. She said "You don't have to worry. There'll only be one or two industries that probably would be part of this." Well if that was the case why would they need to put in place a rule under this legislation that says the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) would be the gatekeeper of which fair pay agreement negotiations go ahead unless they were concerned that they would be swamped by five or 10 or 15 of these all at once? There would be no reason otherwise for MBIE to do that to be the gatekeeper. What that suggests to me is when the Prime Minister stood in this House and she was on TV saying to the public "You don't have to worry because this is going to be fair and there will only be a few." she either hadn't been advised properly by her advisers or she wilfully knew she wanted to kick it for touch so they didn't have to talk about it before an election.This will harm the New Zealand economy. It won't help workers the way that this Government says it will. If there's a problem to be fixed they should actually focus on fixing that problem rather than burdening hard-working small businesses of New Zealand who treat their workers very very well. It is not a good piece of legislation. We will be opposing it and we will be repealing it when we get to Government."