Fox Marama: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFox Marama: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9406. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Neither of the Māori Party’s two members in the House were able to sit on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee during the passage of this bill and so we have relied on the collective workings of the parties involved and their efforts to ensure that workers’ rights are being upheld—something that we were gravely concerned about.Pita Paraone: Particularly Māori workers.MARAMA FOX: Particularly Māori workers—actually all workers. So when the bill came out of the select committee we continued to have some concerns that the issues had not all been addressed to our satisfaction. Hence we began a dialogue between ourselves and the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety to raise those concerns. We sought some good-faith bargaining—I guess you could call it that. We sought some advice from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and we worked with other people to ensure—Hon Simon Bridges: Hey who started this great bill?MARAMA FOX: That is right. We started to ensure that we were taking workers’ rights into consideration and to make sure that we could do what we could to help move things along.There are a couple of things like the zero-hour contracts that everybody has been talking about. I had a couple of sons work under zero-hour contracts and they did quite well under those zero-hour contracts. They were casual contracts with no guaranteed hours but their holiday pay was seen in it. They negotiated those contracts themselves and when the time came when they had proven their worth one of the sons took a fixed-term contract and the other stayed on a zero-hour contract because he got more money. That is wonderful and that is lovely but I also have a number of nephews and nieces in the Wairarapa who also worked to zero-hour contracts who did not have the same security in their jobs so we raised the issues with the Minister.We come to the second reading and the Supplementary Order Papers that we have seen which propose some changes are not where we wanted them to be. However we have now sought assurances from the Minister that the issues we have raised have been addressed and that through the Committee stage that Supplementary Order Paper will come with the support of Labour in the work that it has been doing. So I would like to acknowledge that here because I think that is important.Given that and given the good faith bargaining that we have been talking through with the Minister we are happy to take him at his word that these things are being addressed. We have seen the draft of the Supplementary Order Paper and though it is not here today in this reading based on that and the notion that our issues will be addressed through the Committee of the whole House—is that what you say?Grant Robertson: Yep.Iain Lees-Galloway: You’re right.MARAMA FOX: That is right. That is the one. Given that they will be addressed at that stage we are happy to support this bill at its second reading and we look forward to seeing that Supplementary Order Paper come to the House.On that we also just want to mention the paid parental leave. Previous to this bill paid parental leave was only for parents and formally adoptive parents and paid parental leave has now been increased to recognise whāngai parents. Parents who in a Māori way are able to whāngai a child without a formal adoption process—that has now been recognised under this bill and we want to acknowledge the Minister and the select committee for ensuring that that has been there.This has been difficult and people have received flak over the zero-hour contracts and the rights of workers. What we want to make sure is that people who may not have the capacity to negotiate a contract with an employer are able to get support able to get some guaranteed hours and are able to ensure that they are adequately compensated if those hours fall over and they cannot get work.I come from a family of shearers. We know what it is like to be rung up at 4 a.m. and told: “No work today.” If you do not work you do not get paid. We understand what that is like and it is very difficult. It does not offer security to a family who has children and dependants to feed if they do not know how much income they are going to get in the week.We are happy that the Minister has sought to address those issues. We acknowledge the work of the select committee and the parties involved to get it across the line and we look forward to the Supplementary Order Paper coming to the House and offer our support to the bill thus far.