Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call in the second reading on the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill in the name of Kieran McAnulty: he's a list MP from somewhere around the country and he's a new member. He had the misfortune—as sometimes new members do when they come into this House—of inheriting a bill from a long-distant long-gone former colleague. In this case it was a trade union Labour member by the name of Darien Fenton who has—I notice since she left Parliament—gone back to her core work of being a trade union membership officer and is busy trying to trumpet-up trade union membership and finances for the trade union movement.Actually therein lies really the purpose of this bill. It's part of a suite of legislative changes that have been presented to this Parliament—and I suspect there will be more yet to come—that are actually all designed to do little more than improve the membership the financial structure and the market share of the trade union movement in New Zealand. The simple reality is that nearly 90 percent of New Zealand employees in the private sector are not members of trade unions and that's because the trade union movement doesn't offer them a significant value proposition that makes it worth their while that means that a membership of a trade union is going to enhance their workplace opportunities or career opportunities or actually reflect their aspirations as employees in a modern functioning flexible growing economy that is forward-looking and forward-facing to the world. These pieces of legislation—and this is just one of them—are part of a suite of legislative changes designed to take us back to the bad old days of the 1970s when the trade union movement dominated the industrial landscape of the nation.Now because this member is a new member and he inherited this bill from Darien Fenton he didn't really know what he was inheriting when he signed the piece of paper that took it up. He came to the select committee almost apologetic. He knew in his heart once he'd actually read the piece of legislation that it wasn't fit for purpose that it wasn't part of a modern industrial regulatory or legislative framework and that it was something that was going to take us back decades rather than take us forward. As we went through the select committee process we heard submissions from a raft of trade unions formulaic and pro forma in their submissions all pretty much exactly the same probably produced on the same word processor. It wasn't until we got the submissions that came from labour hire companies from Business New Zealand from a range of organisations such as the Employer and Manufacturers Association organisations like Salt like the New Zealand Port Company CEO Group for instance that the member realised this bill had some serious and fatal flaws.Now the select committee did propose and make some changes. This bill is undoubtedly a better bill at second reading than it was at first reading; but it's still a bad bill it's still an unnecessary bill and it's still a bill that is a sledgehammer to crack a peanut—a very small peanut at that. Now the member in charge of the bill cited just one example. For many many New Zealanders the opportunity to be employed and have the flexibility and the opportunity to work for and in a number of different places workplaces businesses entities and sectors even is an exciting opportunity for people and in a modern future forward-looking workplace.The Labour Party did some work while they were in Opposition—in fact it was about the only piece of substantive work they did do in Opposition—on the future of work and they looked at the gig economy and the opportunities for people to be flexible in their employment arrangements and terms. Labour hire companies undoubtedly provide the New Zealand economy and workers who are employed by labour hire companies in triangular employment relations with the kind of situation and employment situation that they want that they like that they embrace and that they want to be part of because it suits their particular style of work. So we come back to what is essentially the primary driver of this piece of legislation: it's to increase union membership—and that's really what it's all about because this is a Labour Government that is driven by ideology driven by the good old days of the trade unions dominating the industrial workspace and wants actually to pigeonhole all New Zealanders into either being employers or employees.Actually this pigeonholing effect isn't suited to those that choose to work in the gig economy or choose to be forward-looking and modern in their outlook and choose to work for labour hire companies and choose to have a flexible employment arrangement of the sort that triangular contracts provide. So those people are traditionally therefore not eligible to become union members because they don't fit that employee category and that definition that would slot them and pigeonhole them into that position. So the real purpose of this bill is not about equity or fairness as the member has suggested; it's really all about growing union market share taking us back to the 1970s taking us back to a time when the trade unions dominated the economy of New Zealand and not in a good way.I want to just draw the House's attention to a couple of comments from submitters. Now these are credible sensible submitters. Auckland Council was one for instance that came to the select committee and in their submission they said: we [are] concerned that … unintended consequence[s] will be to impose considerable transactional costs and administrative burden on the primary employer secondary employer and the employee." if this bill is to proceed. Further Auckland Council went on to say in their submission on the bill "… the bill will afford little real protection to temporary workers [it will] impose significant costs on secondary employers and make employment for temporary workers and permanent employees … more precarious." Now surely that's not the intended objective of this bill if it was really about fairness and equity—but actually it's not; it's about trade union membership.Salt who are one of the leading labour hire and recruitment organisations in the country made a submission to the select committee. In their submission they said: "The operational realities of the measures outlined in this bill are significant and extremely challenging." I think that Kieran McAnulty the Labour list MP from somewhere said that he realised that during the process of the select committee. Salt went on to say that "The industry some call 'labour hire' is far more complex and layered than many understand and this bill if made law will ultimately negatively impact upon workers [and] professionals and the New Zealand economy."We know that the economy is slowing and we know that the tide has turned. We no longer have the GDP growth that we were so familiar with and used to over the nine years of John Key's and Bill English's administration. And we've seen—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): We are sliding a little bit away from the bill as it was reported back from the select committee.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well I'm trying to give some context Madam Assistant Speaker but going back to the Salt submission and this really summed it up—this really summed this bill up—they said in their submission: "Put simply this bill caters for an employment and contracting market … which existed two decades ago and is not fit for purpose in [2019]."—not fit for purpose in 2019.Then we had the New Zealand Port Company CEOs—and they're a group that represent CEOs who manage and operate places like Northport Ports of Auckland Port of Tauranga Eastland Port Napier port Port Taranaki Centreport and so on. They said in their submission—it was a very compelling submission—that "The Group believes that the proposed automatic transfer of labour-hire employees [in]to collective agreements would be draconian and would remove the flexibility obtained through these arrangements." Then they said—which I think is telling—that actually the impacts would be in provincial and rural New Zealand: "The Group is particularly concerned"—they said—"about the impact that this proposed law change could have on provincial New Zealand and on industries such as agriculture horticulture and viticulture where labour-hire arrangements play such an important role." I think they're right.This is a poor piece of legislation inherited by a new member who really didn't understand what the consequences of it would be when he signed his name to it. He came to that realisation halfway through the select committee process tried to put it right has made some positive changes at select committee but it's still a bad bill it's still a sledgehammer to crack a nut and we don't support it."