Fenton Darien: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:415] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I want to return to some of the questions I asked earlier on of the Minister in the chair the Hon Kate Wilkinson because when she responded no answers were forthcoming. I would like to put those questions to her again in terms of the purpose of the bill because she has not answered those questions and I have some additional questions. I asked how the number of staff in a workplace will be calculated. Are we talking about full-time equivalents casuals—including contractors and external contractors—or temporary workers? How will the calculation happen? That will be an important point when a worker or an employer comes to decide whether he or she has to comply with this proposed legislation.  
Also how will the Minister ensure that separate businesses are not created within larger workplaces for the purposes of exploiting the provisions of this bill? The Minister will say that that will not happen but it did happen under the Employment Contracts Act when large workplaces created small subsections of their workplaces so that they did not have to have one department on an employment contract. So it has happened in the past and I ask the Minister how she will ensure that this bill is not abused in that way.  
I have another question about the youth qualifying period for the minimum wage. Will the bill have any impact on the 200 hours involved in that? If a worker is sacked under the provisions of this bill will it have any impact on the youth qualifying period? There is also another very important question related to that. If someone is sacked under this legislation and there is no statement of cause and no requirement to give any reason what will be the status of that person’s employment record? Is that person sacked? What is he or she required to tell the next employer? If the next employer rings up for a reference what is the original employer supposed to tell the next employer? Will the employer say: “Oh well they got sacked but we don’t have to tell you the reason because there wasn’t really a reason we just didn’t like them.” or will the employer say that it was because of the 90-day probation bill? This legislation actually puts workers in a very precarious position because when they go to their next job the next employer will always ask about their previous employment. What is the status of those workers and how do they clear their name?  
I know that the tax bill that was passed yesterday included the provision in relation to KiwiSaver. The explanatory note states that the provisions in the Employment Relations Act were no longer needed because the problem had been fixed but I do not think that the legislation that was passed yesterday does fix the problem. What it does is provide that when a worker signs up for KiwiSaver the contribution has to be on top of a worker’s existing wages which does not prevent future wage rises being offset against KiwiSaver contributions. So although the explanatory note states that the provision is no longer necessary because it has been fixed I want to know how the Minister will make sure that that does not continue to happen in the future so that the next time there is a wage rise one lot of workers will get 2 or 3 percent because they are not in KiwiSaver whereas the workers in KiwiSaver get nothing. That was the purpose of the amendment in the name of Trevor Mallard last year.  
The other question I want to ask is what the objective of mediation is. Can mediation happen only within the 3-month or 90-day period? My colleague Trevor Mallard has brought up the issue of whether those people are still employees. If they are not employees under the definition of the bill are they therefore not entitled to mediation? What is the point of mediation and where does it go? Will it be just a nice talkfest whereby employers can say: “Oh we’ve got some problems.”? Will they still have the right to sack people? Will employers go along and have a chat about it but it will not mean anything? What is the objective if there cannot be any means of independent resolution? I would like to have those questions answered. 
In addition my colleague Sue Bradford in her second reading speech brought up some very important issues about the stand-down and about what happens. Again it goes back to what the status of the workers is if they are sacked under these provisions. Are they sacked for the purposes of the Social Security Act then stood down? How does Work and Income find out what their status is because they actually do not have a status they are just no one they are just nothing and they are just gone. How will Work and Income know? Will they have to make inquiries? Is it the Government’s intention to try to provide some change in that?