Ardern Jacinda: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
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JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 This is my first call on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). I am grateful to take a call on the commencement and the title clauses of this bill in particular. I feel that in all of this debate we have left out one crucial point and perhaps the title of the bill should be changed to reflect the fact that in none of this debate have we ever discussed the perception that seems to exist amongst employers that employing people should be something to be feared. That is essentially what Government members have told us through all of this debate. They have said that some particular groups in our society are less likely to be given a chance by an employer because employers fear those groups. 
If that is the case I ask why in this debate and generally have we never ever addressed the question of why employers fear employing new staff regardless of the age of individuals regardless of their background and regardless of how long they have or have not been in the workforce. I think this bill should be renamed the “Missing the Point or Avoiding the Real Issue Bill” because nowhere have we discussed why that fear exists or the best solution for it. I believe that the Government is currently absolutely copping out by bowing to a perception that our employment laws are something to be feared. It is simply stripping those laws away for the first 90 days. That is its solution. It bows to the perception and strips away the laws rather than asking whether that fear is based on perception or reality. 
Why do I come back to this question and why do I therefore think this bill should be renamed the “Missing the Point or Dodging the Real Issue Bill”? I spent several years working in the UK in an organisation called the Better Regulation Executive and this issue was one we tackled. I would love to talk to the member Tau Henare about this but I see he is currently engaged on his cellphone in the Chamber. I believe that that may be against the Standing Orders. He is not engaged in the debate which is a disappointment. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My friend and colleague Tau Henare appears to be taking a phone call on his cellphone in the Chamber. That has been ruled out of order on a number of occasions. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: If that member is on a call I ask him to go into the lobby. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I was loath to point that out because I would like Mr Henare to hear what I have to say on this issue. 
I spent some time working in the UK in the Cabinet Office there where we began looking at this very issue. We detected that there may have been a perception amongst employers that employment law was difficult to deal with and perhaps if that perception pervaded too deeply then it may have impacted on an employer’s desire to employ people. We spent some time looking at the issue and found that actually a lot was based on perception and misinformation. I would have liked to see the Government spend more time looking at that issue. 
Again I come back to the fact that I do not believe that the title truly and adequately reflects what the Government has done here. The way New Zealand is ranked within the OECD is probably the best indicator of whether this is simply a perception issue. New Zealand is currently ranked third in the world for ease of doing business. Amongst that mix is employment flexibility where we are ranked on whether there is flexibility in our employment market and we come out third in the world. I would like to point out that that is a slippage of one place since the Labour Government was in power when we were second in the world for ease of doing business. I am afraid that in producing this bill this Government has simply bowed to perception and has not scratched beneath the surface of why employers have this perception. If this perception holds true why has the Government gone for just the first 90 days? Why is this Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) not scrapping workers’ rights entirely? If that perception pervades generally then why has that principle not held true throughout our employment legislation? 
I think this bill should be renamed the “Employment Relations Cop-out Bill” because the Government has avoided the real issue here. Instead it has simply turned to a legislative solution for an issue for which it has not dug beneath the surface. That is incredibly disappointing because as a consequence it leaves workers unnecessarily without rights for the first 90 days of employment.