Gosche Mark: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Gosche Mark: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take part in the third reading of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Bill. It has been a long time coming through the select committee process and the House. 
I talked with Sue Kedgley earlier about the 1-year delay we took. Having heard the submissions on this bill we basically put down a challenge to the employers who said that this matter did not need to be legislated for. They said that it could be done voluntarily which is the National Party’s position. We gave employers 1 year to prove to the Government this Parliament and New Zealand that they were capable of going out there and introducing the spirit of this bill in terms of a voluntarist approach. I have to say that they failed miserably. I say that because a couple of weeks ago statistics came out about the participation rates in employment in New Zealand. We heard that more people had taken up part-time employment in that statistical period than had taken up full-time employment. What was the reaction from employers and the National Party? They described that as a failure. They said that there were more workers out there now who were looking to take up part-time employment in New Zealand and that that was a failure as a result. 
I want the National Party and employers to think about the commentary on that statistic. They say that they are in favour of people taking up flexible employment and of more part-time work but when it happens they come out and say that it is a failure and that it is terrible and they ask how dare those workers decide to take up part-time employment rather than full-time employment? They tried to blame it on Working for Families. They tried to say that it was about Working for Families. They do not know what that last word means. I am looking forward to that funny organisation called Family First coming out tomorrow with a full-page ad in support of this bill. That will be a case of “Yeah right!” 
This legislation actually helps families. This legislation recognises that families are under pressure in a labour market that has been consistently deregulated since the late 1980s. That member over there who acts for the Exclusive Brethren does not know anything about industrial relations; that is why the National Party gave her the job. In the National Party if someone does not know anything about industrial relations he or she gets the job of being spokesperson. She knows how to act for the Exclusive Brethren who actually threw money into the campaign last time because they did not like the fact that they were not exempted from industrial relations legislation. That is why the Exclusive Brethren spent the million bucks. That is what they want the National Party to deliver and that is what the National Party will deliver if it ever gets the chance—to exempt the people who pay the bills for them. 
However I want to get back to the bill. This is very light-handed legislation. It has been dramatically improved by the process the select committee put it through. When the bill came in Sue Kedgley had removed a couple of bits and pieces from the UK legislation. We put them back in. The legislation was going to apply only to a small number of people but we have actually extended it to apply to the group of people in New Zealand who will most appreciate it. I think the National Party and New Zealand business people—Business New Zealand the Employers and Manufacturers Association and the Business Roundtable—who purport to represent the interests of business in New Zealand need to start to think a little more deeply than their entrenched anti-union anti-worker attitudes which they have had for so long have allowed. It is time for them to come into this century not to stay back in the last one—which National members over there would do if they had their way. 
The bill is about work-life balance which the National caucus and the ACT party know a lot about. Has anybody ever seen Rodney Hide here on any other day than pay day? He sits on the same select committee as I do and I hardly ever see him. He came in the other day to do an advert for the movie about himself. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I will do it. The member knows that he cannot refer to members’ attendance in the House. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Sorry Madam Assistant Speaker. I apologise to Rodney Hide for that slight. 
This is a bill that National members over there do not support that Business New Zealand does not support that the Business Roundtable does not support and that the Employers and Manufacturers Association leadership does not support. We are told that New Zealand employers will allow flexible working hours without a law. Well let us think about that. The Hospitality Association made the worst submission I have ever heard in my life in this Parliament. It said that there were flexible working hours in the hospitality industry—if people did not like the hours offered by restaurant A they left their jobs and went down the road to restaurant C. That was its idea of flexible working hours. No say was given to the worker. There was no right to ask. The boss would set the terms. 
Colin King 
: Grow up! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: I grew up a long time ago unlike the member working in that industry and representing workers in that industry. I have seen the worst behaviour and I have seen the best. Sadly examples of the best behaviour are few and far between because the lowest common denominator actually prevails. The worst employer sets the rate and the conditions and the good ones who try to take them on find out that their prices do not match. That is why legislation is necessary in this country. 
This legislation is very audacious! It allows workers to make a request for their boss to consider whether they should be allowed to have some sort of flexibility as to where they work and when they work. And the National Party is opposed to that! The National Party says that employers should have that absolute right all on their own and under the law—that is what National wants. Well we do not think that that is the way to go. 
I want to tell those people over there who are screeching like hyenas to think about this. On Monday I was at a conference. Most of the people there were women. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: All your union mates. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: They were my mates. Their husbands had had strokes and could not work any more even if they wanted to. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Bob Clarkson that they had given up their careers. They would not have stuck with him as a husband; they would have ditched him long ago if he had had a stroke. I take my hat off to those people because they care about their husbands and their partners and they were there telling their stories. They were saying how difficult it was to stay in employment if a loved one had had a stroke. There was a woman there whose son had had a stroke. She had to give up partially her career. Fortunately she worked in a job where she could down cut her hours to 2 days a week. But she had made an enormous sacrifice to be there for her son. I sat beside women who had done the same sort of thing in order to look after their husbands. I ask the opponents of this bill what is wrong with that? What is wrong with their being able to make a simple request of their employers? What is wrong with it? 
Chris Tremain 
: Why can’t they do it now? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: That member over there who does not know industrial law from one end to the other says they can do that now. If they could do that now satisfactorily why have they given up their jobs? Why have they given up their careers? Why have they had to sacrifice their future? It is because they were not able to work the flexible hours that this legislation would see them work if they had an employer who was willing to listen. 
I just cannot understand why anybody in this House could be opposed to this legislation and why any employer’s so-called leader could be opposed to it. It is a simple right to make a request. If an employer says that that does not suit his or her business for reasons x y or z—in fact there are about seven reasons in the bill—then he or she has the right in the law to say that for one of those reasons the request cannot be acceded to. 
Those National members opposite who think they have the skill and the ability to govern had better start thinking again. The one thing they have missing is a heart. I say to Bob Clarkson that not one of those members can get up and be brave tonight by voting for this bill instead of opposing it because they are told to. Kate Wilkinson knows that this is a sensible bill that she would actually support if she were allowed to. But no the whip has been called so National members cannot vote for it. Those members are saying to New Zealanders that they do not care and that workers can go on suffering because employers must have the absolute right to make all decisions and workers just have to cop it. That is last century; this bill is this century.