Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Flexible Working  Arrangements) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:13332] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I guess one would have to say of the previous speaker Mark Gosche that it seems he is unaware of the legislation that was passed in 2000 and amended in 2004. An inherent part of that legislation is in fact good faith. What is good faith about? It recognises that in the modern and contemporary workplace there is a dialogue between employers and employees. The essence of what the member says is that the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Bill means that one can ask. Well what employee could not ask anyway? It is inherent under the principle of good faith that one can have dialogue. 
The Government is promoting the case that the only thing this bill does is give people the right to ask and therefore we should support it. Well I have news for the Government. People can ask right now and they do and in large numbers of cases depending on the individual circumstances of the employer and employee arrangements are made. You know we challenged the previous speaker to table the press release where we said we are opposed to part-time work. We gave him the opportunity to do so. We asked him to give us the proof that we were opposed to part-time work. Did he raise a point of order? Did he ask to table a press release? Frankly he was speaking arrant nonsense. We recognise that in the modern workplace people will work part-time. People do work part-time because that is what suits their circumstances. 
I want to make a general point. National members thought long and hard about this bill. We had a very substantial internal debate. We did not just take a reflexive approach and say: “Proposed by the Greens—ergo bad.” We thought about the issues and decided we needed to think about them. We ultimately decided that no we would not support the bill. I want to tell members the reasons why we decided this. We went back to first principles and we asked ourselves what the fundamental problem is with New Zealand’s economy and we said that its fundamental problem is a lack of productivity. 
There are a variety of reasons why that is the case such as a lack of capital and a lack of skills but one of the critical reasons is excessive compliance costs. Although each of these things might not seem to be significant in itself their cumulative effect is to add to compliance costs and regulations—and in this instance quite needlessly because good faith means people can ask anyway. In huge numbers of cases because of the dynamic of the New Zealand workplace because we are largely small and medium sized employers and because there is a dynamic marketplace of employers and employees people make their own arrangements. Labour the Greens and indeed New Zealand First have said that Britain does this. Well Britain was required to do so under the European Union. 
Again if members are looking at first principles they should ask which economies are growing faster—the North American model or the European model. In essence the North American model trusts employers and employees to enter into their own arrangements. It is the model that by and large Australia has and that by and large Canada has adopted and I guess one might say that New Zealand stands a little bit in between. We tend as a nation to borrow from both. But the difference is that Europe—particularly Western Europe—has fundamentally lower rates of productivity and overall growth. [ 
Interruption 
] That is true. I know that it comes as a shock to Darren Hughes to find that out but Europe has lower rates of growth than the North American model. A vast amount of evidence supports that proposition. 
In essence we are asking whether this is a question of supporting this bill or of supporting our overall philosophical approach. We said that the fundamental challenge facing the New Zealand economy is shown in the evidence from this week—the largest number of New Zealanders in the history of our country have voted with their feet and have gone to Australia. They have done that because there are better opportunities there. 
I heard the Minister of Finance saying that it was nothing to do with wages. Well I guess one cannot say that someone lies but he has to be deluding himself to suggest that. He knows perfectly well that the income gap is sending New Zealanders from here to Australia and even Mr Rudd knows that he also has to have a light-handed approach to business. So a large number of the changes made under the Workplace Relations Act in Australia would be retained by a Labor Government. That is part of Mr Rudd’s commitment. He knows that Australia needs to grow quickly and part and parcel of that is not being excessive in the levels of regulation. So he is talking about amending that legislation not repealing it. 
New Zealanders are voting to go to Australia because of higher incomes and those incomes are higher simply because there are fewer compliance costs. Basically it is easier to accrue capital and it is easier to gain skills; ergo Australia has higher productivity and therefore higher incomes. That is because Australia has taken a different philosophical approach from that taken by New Zealand’s current Government. Mr Rudd knows the truth of that which is why part of his election campaign is based on his claim that he will not change the situation fundamentally. That is the truth of the situation. 
The New Zealand Labour Government in contrast is following the European model. Whenever those members look at a situation what is the first thing they look at? They look at whether Scandinavia Britain or the European Union did it. If those countries did it then our Labour Government says that we should do the same thing. That is the path to slow growth. We would have to say that in the last few years that is exactly what this Government has delivered—slow and declining growth. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Fastest in the OECD. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: There are reams and reams of reports on New Zealand’s low productivity. This is all news it seems to the new Minister Darren Hughes so he should listen. He might learn something about economics. Actually I say to Mr Hughes that he might even become a decent Minister if he did a bit of reading on this stuff in the 1 year in which he has the job. 
Essentially National has gone back to first principles on this bill. We asked ourselves two questions. First we asked whether there is already a reasonable level of flexibility in the workplace and we said yes to that. The evidence produced before the select committee was quite clear on that. There is plenty of flexibility in the New Zealand workplace so that box was given a tick. The second thing we asked ourselves was whether this bill would add additional compliance costs perhaps not in a huge way but in its own way and the answer is obviously yes. 
So on a first-principles basis we say that this bill does not help. It will add unnecessary compliance costs and in its own little way it will harm New Zealand’s prospects. New Zealanders know the truth of this and that is why they are going to Australia. This is the challenge we face in our country—whether to compete with Australia—and under our current Government we know the answer: failure. 
National says that we will turn things round in this country. We will get growth going again in this country. New Zealanders are crying out for a new direction. They are crying out for the next agenda for our country whereby the Government will stop the interfering nanny State ways that tie up New Zealanders and restrict freedom. You know the last speech made by Mr Gosche seemed like a speech on electoral finance did it not? Do members know why? It is because Labour members want to control things. They want to tie up people and restrict their freedom. That is the approach of Labour that is the approach National rejects and that is the approach that makes New Zealanders say they want an end to the nanny State. National will deliver that.