Wilkinson Kate: Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Wilkinson Kate: Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:650;Page:19260] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 National is of course supporting the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill through both its second and third readings. This must be one of the few bills relating to employment that has gone to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee unopposed. It passed through the select committee without any amendment it continues to be unopposed and National will of course continue to support it. As the Minister has stated all that this bill really does is to fix up a muck-up of the Government which got the law wrong in the first place. It drafted legislation that should have been certain that should have been straightforward and that should have been able to be understood but that failed. 
This issue went to the highest court in our land the Supreme Court which had to try to work out what the definition of “public holiday” in the Holidays Act actually means. It took a judgment of approximately 50 pages to then try to work out what this House intended with regard to its definition of “public holiday” back in 2002. That Supreme Court decision involving the New Zealand Air Line Pilots’ Association and Air New Zealand basically held that under the current legislation an employer and an employee could not agree to transfer a public holiday from a day listed in the Act to another day. All that this bill seeks to do in reflecting that Supreme Court decision is to provide that the definition of “public holiday” can include by agreement a period of 24 hours being treated as a public holiday but to exclude agreement to part of a day being treated as not being part of a public holiday. 
Usefully we are given an example of an employee who works from 10 p.m. on 24 April to 6 a.m. on 25 April—Anzac Day—and from 10 p.m. on Anzac Day to 6 a.m. on 26 April. Under this bill the employee and the employer can agree to treat the time from 10 p.m. to midnight on Anzac Day as a public holiday. In other words the bill allows the parties to treat one entire shift that is split over 2 days where one day is not a public holiday as if that shift were entirely worked on a public holiday. 
That is all that this bill does; it is a very narrow bill. Some submitters have suggested widening its scope but in the end the bill has come back to the House unamended. As one of the submitters suggested there are also other defects in the Holidays Act. This year those living in Southland actually missed out on a holiday completely because of the definition of “public holiday”. Also a public holiday in one of the other regions still has not been gazetted even though it is observed as if it were a public holiday. So this bill is a very very narrow amendment and it could have gone a lot further than it has. Certainly some defects still remain in the principal Act. Let us hope that at some stage that Act will be amended once and for all so that employees and employers can have certainty as to what it actually means. 
It is really like a situation of déjà vu. Five years ago when the original bill was first looked at the select committee report stated that “By majority we recommend substantial redrafting of the bill to make it explicit in what circumstances the public holiday entitlements would arise and to clarify the intent of the bill.” Well it would appear that the select committee report went unheeded because that did not happen and after further amendments we are back here 5 years later trying to clarify the intent of the Act and we now have yet another amendment to it. It is interesting to look back to 2002 which was about the time of the original holidays legislation. I understand that at that time about 75 percent of all inquiries to the labour inspectors related to holidays. It was quite an important issue. One would have thought that this Government would address some of those issues but no we have a narrow narrow bill. 
We had about 10 submitters on the bill. None of them opposed it. Again I say it is interesting in relation to employment law that there was no opposition to the bill. It has passed through the process so far without any amendments and even at the Committee stage there are no Supplementary Order Papers to be considered. I think that is probably a remarkable feat in this House in terms of employment law. 
Actually the holidays legislation is still in a mess. Employers still do not understand it even with this small amendment and employees still do not understand it. But rather than fixing it once and for all what does this Government do? All it does is to introduce this narrow narrow amendment to fix a narrow narrow area as a result of one Supreme Court decision. When the next Supreme Court decision is made on the next narrow aspect that no one understands then we will be back once again in this House under this Government to fix the next problem. 
Let us hope that does not happen and that the next review of the holidays legislation is done properly so it deals with the whole Act and not just with one small part of it and it deals with it in discussion with both employer groups and employee groups so that we have comprehensive legislation that both employers and employees can at least understand. Employers and employees alike need and deserve legislation that provides certainty. They should be able to know what the legislation says and what it means; they should not have to go to the Supreme Court to ask the justices what it means. They should not have to resort to the legal process all the way up to the Supreme Court for an interpretation of what Parliament intended and of what the legislation actually says and means. 
The bill goes only so far. As one submitter stated it does not deal with the Supreme Court’s prohibition on transferring an entire public holiday to some other day but at least it will allow for greater flexibility by agreement where shift work overlaps on 2 calendar days. National supports this bill. We supported it through its first reading we supported it through the select committee process we are supporting it now through the second reading and later we will support it through the Committee stage and the third reading.