Franks Stephen: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Holidays Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:614;Page:10525] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 There is a point in the Holidays Bill that I do hope can be clarified by the Minister in the chair the Hon Judith Tizard during the Committee stage debate. It is a technical point; the sort that the Committee stage is intended to deal with. Clause 7(1)(b) states that ordinary weekly pay for the purposes of calculating annual holiday pay includes—“(iii) the cash value of any board or lodgings provided by the employer to the employee;”. It then states in clause 8 what the cash value is. It goes on in a redundant way to state that clause 7 “includes the cash value of any board or lodgings provided by an employer to the employee—(a) as agreed by the employer and employee; or (b) as determined by a Labour Inspector …”. 
We find words similar to those in clause 7 in clause 12 “Meaning of gross earnings” but paragraph (a)(vi) states: “the cash value of any board or lodgings provided by the employer as agreed or determined under section 8:”. Now there is a difference in wording. Usually in reading statutes if one finds a difference in wording where one thought they would be the same the courts try to put a meaning to it. I do not know what the meaning may be but I would really like to know. Is it something more substantive than drafting clumsiness or maybe an accident of the tortured history of this bill? What happens when the employee is continuing to use the cash value—or is continuing to use the board and lodgings provided—but is on holiday? Because it appears to me that this says the employee must be paid holiday pay including the cash value and then receive on top the board and lodgings. 
I am sure the members who sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and the officials would have thought of it but it looks to me as if it is a doubling-up. If so there is time for the Minister to put an amendment forward to make clear if that is not intended. If it is intended then that is consistent with the cavalier approach in this bill to just doubling-up irrespective of cost. 
In looking at Part 1 this really is evidence of the projection. The previous speaker got to it when he said: “Why would you do this?”. Why would they pass something that the advice tells them costs hundreds of millions that reduces the employment of those who most need jobs that patronises people and treats them as if they cannot work out their own arrangements that will change the nature of holidays in New Zealand again? Because things that people wanted to go and do—like shopping or go down to the restaurant for a treat—will suddenly be out of reach of some of those who cannot afford it. 
It will not matter of course to the people who can pass their costs on. It will not matter to the people who get the cost of living adjustments—like Labour members opposite who were sneering and talking about this as “trifling”—but it will matter to the people for whom a few dollars—the 1 or 2 percent difference—really matters. 
When I look at the way this has emerged it is the Hon Margaret Wilson’s bill and I think she loves being Lady Bountiful with other people’s money. There is no more refined pleasure than wandering around being Lady Bountiful with other people’s money especially when one can hide that fact and bribe people with their own money and their own time. When she can put in these definitions that are as vague as her “good faith” definition in the Employment Relations Act— 
Simon Power 
: Look where that got her! 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Exactly! She had to rewrite it—and it will be worse next time. One finds that a bill that was supposed to make it easy and simple to understand to allow the woman sitting at home trying to make up the wage book for her husband’s business the guy who is sitting down late at night after having worked all day trying to do the wages and the holiday pay calculation then having to dig into this kind of legal drivel that defines “ordinary weekly pay” “relevant daily pay” then goes on and defines “gross earnings”. I am a lawyer. I have spent 20 years reading the law. If this is simplification God save us from any more! Having sat here for the last hour and a half trying to understand what it is going to mean if one is working through the wage book trying to make up the entitlements I cannot tell what it means.