Power Simon: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1478] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. I was heavily involved in the original debate on the Employment Relations Act. That legislation came in under extraordinary urgency in from memory early or mid-2000. We worked for 4 days on the trot with very little sleep to pass that bill and this amendment bill is evidence of the fact that passing the original bill under extraordinary urgency was a very stupid thing to have done indeed. I say that because by my recollection—and Mark Gosche or Ruth Dyson are welcome to correct me on this—this is at least the 12th amendment to the principal Act since it came into force in 2000. 
That leads us to one very simple conclusion: that the legislation was appallingly put together in the first instance. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Simon you’re a lawyer; you know that we would correct it. 
SIMON POWER 
: Ruth Dyson chips in by saying that I am a lawyer. I cannot think of another piece of legislation in the 6 and a bit years that I have been in this House that has required 12 amendments—two per year—in order to get it right. [ 
Interruption 
] Mark Gosche asks what is wrong with that. I will tell the member what is wrong with that. Labour members should have got the legislation right in the first place—they told us at the time that the Act was perfect in every way. We had applause and people yahooing and congratulating each other when it was passed and that legislation comes back to the House every time it needs yet another amendment. 
The interesting thing is that the Government did not swallow its pride initially and admit it had made a mistake. It took the Employment Court to tell the Government that there had been yet another mistake in the drafting of the Act that would require clarification by yet another amendment. Here we are with legislation that was poor law to start with. It was poor law because regardless of whether members agreed with the ideological drive behind the Act—and we certainly had a very long and protracted debate over that particularly during the Committee stage when from memory 11 or 12 parts were debated—it was poorly drafted in the first place. Because it was poorly drafted it has allowed situations like this to evolve. [ 
Interruption 
] That member should read her Standing Orders and then she would know that she cannot move from her seat to a position of advantage in order to interject. She should move back to her own seat. Yet again there is a major problem with the Act that requires the attention of this House—for at least the 12th time by my count since it passed into law. 
There are concerning things about this bill. Frankly some of the points Mark Gosche made in his contribution make sense only if the public is of the view that no matter what kind of contract or arrangement two people enter into it will not count for anything. The Government is simply legislating straight across one of the most important principles of law in this country: the sanctity of contract or the ability of two consenting adults to enter into a contract for the provision of goods or services. It is an extraordinary situation when the Government decides to introduce legislation that tells young people who want to get into business after coming back from overseas those who want to set up contracting businesses and those who want to employ people that when they pick up a contract for the provision of services to a particular business regardless of the quality of service that was being provided up until that point—which of course may be the very reason an organisation or business wishes to let the contract out to a different organisation in the first place—there is no way that the new employer can make any changes of a substantial nature to the workforce. 
That is just extraordinary. It essentially suggests to somebody who is prepared to take the risk to get into business set up contracts employ people and make a contribution to the economy by lifting productivity that if that is what the business chooses to do that is fine but it must do so with a workforce that it has been decided was not up to scratch. That is just the most extraordinary set of circumstances. 
This Government wonders why the flood of people who come back from the UK New York and other places around the world stops in Sydney and Melbourne. It wonders why that is the case. I will tell Government members why that is the case because those people are firmly in the same demographic as myself. They are in their mid to late 30s and keen to set up businesses. They usually have one child or possibly two children and they are coming back because they believe that New Zealand offers them a wonderful lifestyle—the opportunity to set up a business and settle down here. But they come and look at the sort of nonsense that is contained in this legislation and say that if their children go to the local kindergarten and the standard of cleaning at that kindergarten is so bad that the hygiene regulations are being breached this Parliament is telling them there is nothing the kindergarten can do about that. The kindergarten associations say they want to change the contractors for the provision of those services but there is nothing they can do about the standard of cleaning. 
The most extraordinary thing is that members of the Government who are sitting there now sat and listened to the most boring ill-informed repetitive speech I have heard in my 6 years in the House. Yet again we heard Helen Clark come to the House and talk about so-called economic transformation— 
Dave Hereora 
: We want to buy in haste. 
SIMON POWER 
: There is Dave Hereora having a bit of a chip there. That is great; that is his contribution for the next 3 years. So we had Helen Clark come to this House and talk about economic transformation yet with her other hand the Prime Minister is allowing the introduction of legislation like this which is the very antithesis of economic transformation. This legislation means there is no incentive for performance no incentive to improve the services that are provided no problem if those providing a service are negligent or careless and nothing an employer or a new provider of those services can do about that. It just seems to me that that is an unrealistic expectation to put on those who proclaim they are the masters of an economic transformation in New Zealand. 
Well that is true actually in one very small way: the economic transformation we are seeing with at least the 12th amendment to the Act is one that takes us back to the days when this country’s chances of getting back up the OECD ladder have just taken a serious knock backwards.