Brown Peter: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Brown Peter: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16071] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to acknowledge the contribution made by the member who has just resumed his seat and to tell him that New Zealand First will be supporting Supplementary Order Paper No 276 in his name. The Brethren Church has been in touch with us. I know that several of my colleagues have been spoken to and when the Hon Peter Dunne sent me his amendment we received it with pleasure and are only too pleased to support it. 
I am not sure whether this is the right part in which to be talking about the bargaining fee but as everybody else has— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Yes you can. It is in Part 1. 
PETER BROWN 
: I do not think the bargaining fee is as sinister as some of my colleagues are making it out to be. 
Opposition Members 
: It’s compulsory. 
PETER BROWN 
: That is a joke. It is not. Let me give members a viewpoint—[ 
Interruption 
] It is very difficult to do so with the rabble behind me making a lot of noise. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: We will sit in front. 
PETER BROWN 
: I like to see whom I am aiming at. 
Simon Power 
: You’re not missing anything. 
PETER BROWN 
: No I am not. I want to give the Committee the benefit of my experience as an employer. The worst thing that can happen in an employment situation is to have a divided workforce. There can be disharmony in the workforce with some people in the union wanting one thing and non-union people wanting something else—they do not get on. I can recall when I was the manager of a stevedoring company—this goes back some while—having watersiders come to the Port of Tauranga who had been involved in the 1951 strike and they did not talk to each other. We had men in the same gang who would not talk to one another. That was exceedingly difficult obviously for the men in the gang because half of them knew from the foreman what the employer wanted and the other half did not unless we went and spoke to them individually. It was a very tense situation and it was never really overcome until people retired. I just point out that that situation should be avoided at all costs in my view. An employer wants to have a harmonious working environment. 
I think I can claim to be one of the members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee who wanted to have a close look at the bargaining fee arrangement. I was intrigued when a Dairy Foods worker came before the select committee and outlined his concern. He was a very moderate man it appeared to me. I thought that what he put to the select committee was worth looking at. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper No 263 plus the new Supplementary Order Paper No 275 which he has come up with—since I suggest he listened to my contribution in the Chamber the other day—has just about got matters right. He could not have got them better than he has. The provision means that before a bargaining fee arrangement takes place the employer has to be consulted and has to agree with it. 
I tell my National Party colleagues that the employers I know are not spineless wimps. They are pretty tough cookies. They do not get pushed into a corner every day of the week by a union official who says: “This is what we want. Hands up.” and members agree with it. That is a long way from being the situation. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s right. 
PETER BROWN 
: The former Minister agrees with me. Our employers in this country are as tough and as fair-minded by and large as we could get anywhere. If a union comes along and says it wants a bargaining fee arrangement the employer will not simply roll over and say: “Yes sir how much do you want to pay?”. The employers I know will not do that. They will ask what the advantages are—what it will cost their people and what advantages there are. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: You’re improving! 
PETER BROWN 
: I am improving. There was a time when I would not have picked that up. Assuming the employer agrees then the arrangement can progress. I do not know whether terribly many employers would agree to a bargaining fee arrangement if they were not happy with the fee structure. I think they would ask what it will cost the individual first and foremost. I would be disappointed if they did not ask that.