Power Simon: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Power Simon: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5020] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 What a bitter and unhappy member Mark Gosche is. He used to be such a jovial character. I remember reading of his humorous antics when the Employment Contracts Act was in force. He was a member who was far more skilled at enjoying himself in life. What a bitter and twisted member he has become. It is no wonder that union membership is down in New Zealand when members like that are the bastion and the face of unions throughout the country. Workers around New Zealand think: “I might join a union. That could be of some benefit to me.” Then they see Mark Gosche stand up here in the House give a speech about the Employment Relations Amendment Bill and they think: “What a bitter way to get my rights heard. What a strange level of representation that member would bring.” 
The key here is whether this legislation is good law; that is the question. Many members in the House who were here in 2000 working 4 or 5 nights through the night to the wee hours of the morning on the Employment Relations Act will remember that—by my reckoning— 
Darren Hughes 
: The good old days. 
SIMON POWER 
: Those were the good old days before Mr Hughes arrived! This particular legislation is on—at least—its twelfth amendment. What does that tell members of the New Zealand public? It tells them that the legislation was shabbily put together in the first place. The dozen amendments we have seen since then are all designed to turn the screw on workers out there who have decided they are capable of making their own representations to their employers and are capable of negotiating with their employers over their conditions and their workplace arrangements without union hacks getting in the way of what would otherwise be a calm well-thought-out and rational negotiation process. 
If the Employment Relations Act had done what it was supposed to do and was going to fulfil all the expectations of the Labour Party funding arrangements that exist with the unions then two things would have happened. Firstly union membership would have increased—well it has not it has gone down. Secondly if this legislation had been designed to work the Labour Party would have the $450000 it needed to repay the pledge card—that money that it owes the New Zealand taxpayer—but it does not; it does not have that money on hand. The reason is that people are not joining unions because for people of my and the member for Otaki’s generation unions have had very little meaning in the way that we have dealt with our own arrangements and negotiations in the workplace. 
But what is most disturbing about this new legislation is that National members who were on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee tell me that at every opportunity they tried to get these provisions to not apply to smaller and family businesses which make up about 80 percent of the businesses in New Zealand. But no what happened was that Labour would not exclude small or family businesses from the provisions of this legislation. New Zealand First also refused to take the opportunity to allow smaller and medium-sized businesses the flexibility they need to continue to do business in New Zealand. 
But what disturbs me the most about this legislation is that it is taking us back to the most bizarre workplace environment that one could possibly imagine. Let us take a situation where one contracting tendering service-providing business does a sloppy job and the employer—who funnily enough might want to stay in business to provide people with jobs—decides to shift that contract or tender to a different business entity in order to improve the quality of the business and the opportunity for his or her workers: Well he or she is stuck with the same people who did the appalling job in the first place. 
Paula Bennett 
: It doesn’t make sense. 
SIMON POWER 
: It does not make sense because that just drives the business down. When business is driven down people lose their jobs. The Government has a simplistic view that all it needs to do is create another piece of legislation. This bill ties people into jobs rather than allowing opportunity for those looking for new jobs or new opportunities. The bill locks inefficiency into the business model. It prevents business from employing people and promoting them. It prevents business from paying them bigger salaries and wages and providing better working conditions. 
But that does not matter to Labour because for it the important thing is that its coffers get filled. But this bill will not work because frankly this type of hard-nosed arm-twisting approach to union membership does not work in this century. In fact it did not work in the last century. Things have moved on. Union membership is down and the reason is that unions are nothing but bargaining agents. Let us call them what they are—bargaining agents. What gives that particular bargaining agent the legislative and statutory protection to drag in membership and negotiate collective contracts that other bargaining agents do not have? I will tell this House what it is. It is the financial arrangement between Labour and those unions that provides the difference in treatment between one type of bargaining agent and another. Well I have news for Labour. Time has moved on. The sad little games that used to be played—[ 
Interruption 
] Darien Fenton is here; that is good. Labour has some bright new talent! 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: What? 
SIMON POWER 
: Labour has some bright new talent and next we will hear about a step back in time to the good old union days. I say to Labour to stop thinking about the unions and start thinking about the workers.