Catchpole Brent: Holidays (Four Weeks Annual Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Catchpole Brent: Holidays (Four Weeks Annual Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:4024] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First concurs with the sponsor of this bill Matt Robson when he states that stress both physical and mental has the potential for serious long-term health effects and that long hours increase the feeling of stress and create an environment for high blood pressure to occur. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt Mr Catchpole but I do not think it is correct that the honourable member John Tamihere can accuse the Chair of being stressed and not looking too good and I would ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I did not hear that said. Did the member say that? 
Hon John Tamihere 
: For the benefit of the debate Madam Chair I withdraw and apologise. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: High blood pressure is recognised as having a long-term health problem associated with it and the hours that we keep in this House are sufficient to prove that. The high blood pressure and the stress that took place in the previous debate are testament to it. But I digress. 
The long-term health advantages gained by reducing stress levels in the workplace will result in long-term economic savings particularly if we view them as preventive measures. The resulting reduction in the health bill can only be positive. Why does not the Government spend more of its surpluses on health issues as has been suggested by Mr Anderton? Because of those health issues we welcome this bill into the House. We support qualified areas of it only but we support it going to a select committee for further discussion and development and to enable submissions to be heard from both the business community and the workforce. 
As my New Zealand First colleague Peter Brown said last week when he was speaking on the Holidays Bill some people in this country are in our belief entitled to longer holidays than they are getting. We also agree with Matt Robson that a more rested workforce is in general a more productive one. 
We do not however agree with Mr Robson’s simplistic implication that stress in the workforce is the cause of family problems and is the main factor that damages families. Stress from unemployment has an equally devastating and damaging effect on families. That factor also needs to be kept in the minds of the select committee members when they consider the implications of this bill in the real world of commerce. This bill will have an effect on management’s decisions on whether to take on additional staff or retain existing staff to meet peaks and troughs in production levels. The overall costs including the extra week’s holiday pay will most definitely influence management’s decisions. This may result in the opposite effect to that intended for this bill. Staff will be put under further pressure and further stress either in meeting the increase in production levels or in finding themselves unemployed as management endeavours to cope with the increased wage costs. 
The estimated cost to the business sector in real terms is approximately $500 million. Small- business owners will be the hardest hit because they will not have the depth of staff to cover gaps. These are not the same gaps that the Government was talking about a few years ago; they are the gaps created when a key staff member is away on extended annual leave. 
We have heard a lot over the past couple of weeks about catch-up with the majority of our OECD partners and Matt Robson sees this bill as another step to achieving the Government’s goals and targets. I have a word of caution on this idea. Before we embark on achieving this target the Government must ensure that the economy has also reached its targets; otherwise we are digging a deeper hole for us to try to climb out of later on. 
In conclusion New Zealand First welcomes this bill going to the select committee and I can assure Matt Robson that in supporting it going to the select committee we approach it with an open mind and encourage others to do the same so that a broader view of all the aspects of the bill can be examined. We look forward equally to submissions from the business and employment sectors together with those from employees’ representatives so that this House has a fair and balanced view to consider at the end of the process.