Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15026] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 That was a pathetic little contribution. It has been the only contribution to date from the Minister in the chair Kate Wilkinson and she did not even apologise for poor drafting. She did not even apologise for the mess of a bill that she has brought to the Committee stage. She already has two amendments and it is my bet that she will be back in the House to further amend this legislation before the end of the year. It is my bet that she will be back in the House with further amendments to this legislation before the end of the year to correct the other three errors that we may or may not tell her about at some stage. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What’s the wager? Put the house up. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: As Tau Henare knows the Minister has another train coming through due for report back very soon from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I bet that she will be further amending these amendments as part of that exercise because of her rushed hurried pressured useless legislation that she has brought before the House. 
In the time that I can remember I do not know whether we have had a less effective Minister of Labour. I go back a long way. I can remember my colleague Stan Rodger and although one did not always agree with him he was always thorough. He was well prepared. 
Grant Robertson 
: Jim Bolger. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Jim Bolger was my local MP and the Minister of Labour before I was a member of Parliament. He would never have brought shoddy legislation like this to the House. He would have had the officials in his room for days and days working through the legislation and making sure that he had it right rather than bringing in legislation with five errors only two of which have been identified to date by the Minister. 
I did not know of Kate Wilkinson before unlike Mr Chauvel who used to regularly feature in those little legal boxes as one of the top five or six employment lawyers in the country. Certainly in the period before and after he appeared in the Supreme Court that was the case. To be fair I did not know of Ms Wilkinson when she was an employment lawyer in Christchurch. She did not feature in those cases but my friend Mr Chauvel assures me that she was a competent employment lawyer. I would have thought that a competent employment lawyer would give this exercise— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: At least she worked for a living! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: At least she worked for a living rather than going around bottling union officials. At least she used to work for a living rather than losing her job as a result of applying a broken bottle to the head of a union official as Tau Henare did—as Tau Henare did. 
The point I am making is that if the Minister wants to take a wild and wonderful approach to legislation and if she wants to be lazy and lack thoroughness in the way that this legislation does she should have got Tau Henare to be the Minister. That would fit because this is the quality of legislation we would expect from Tau Henare if he were the person involved in drafting the legislation— 
Carol Beaumont 
: That’s a terrible idea Trevor. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No I think that if we match quality with this bill then it is Tau Henare quality. 
I am told by Mr Chauvel and I accept his assurance that the Minister— 
Carol Beaumont 
: What about David Bennett? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No please not. The bill is not as bad or as useless as that. It could not have been drafted by that member. I have seen that member chair a select committee and he cannot even do that properly. 
David Bennett 
: Oh come on Trev you like it. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I like it? I hate going to that committee! I hate going to that committee but that is getting slightly off-topic. 
I will come back to the bill and to the fact that there are a number of amendments. I think it has generally been accepted by the Committee that this is the clause with the most substance in it. It is the machinery clause of the bill. I see that the Minister is nodding and she is right. This is the clause on which we expect to debate a series of amendments and to have a lot of discussion. I will be interested to hear the views of members opposite. Unlike in the earlier stages where they were notable by their silence on this particular clause I expect that we will have a reasonable amount of debate and discussion. 
Essentially I have two sets of amendments although I presume they will be put to the Committee in three parts. Two of them are alternative ways of handling the expiry date. A decision was made not too long ago not to have the whole bill expire on 8 November. My suggestion is that some clauses could expire on that date. It would not take out the entire legislation but from our perspective it would render it more acceptable from that time on. That is the reason we have taken that approach. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: What’s wrong with people making a choice in writing? What’s your fundamental objection? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member should catch up with the facts. Although he might have been an assistant lecturer in law at a polytech in Auckland one would think that as a Minister he would have learnt to read legislation and to get the fact that our amendments were tabled before the Minister’s. The Minister was still asleep when our amendments were tabled. I want to make it clear that if we were supportive of making this legislation effective we would support the Minister’s amendment. It is one of five necessary steps towards doing what the Government wants to do. But we do not support it so we will not. I make that clear. 
If the member had been awake yesterday instead of being asleep he would have seen some criticism on this side of the Chamber of my colleague Charles Chauvel the pending Attorney-General inter alia when he made what I thought was a tactical mistake in giving the Minister advice on one of the amendments that we are now discussing. Mr Chauvel is the person who—I do not want to say unwittingly—without a proper tactical sense made some suggestions to the Government on a way in which it could do what it was trying to do. 
Carol Beaumont 
: He was being helpful. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He was being helpful. In my opinion he was being too helpful to the Minister. If Mr Mapp—is he Dr Mapp? 
Grant Robertson 
: He is Dr Mapp. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh dear oh dear where did that come from? Was it a raffle? I bet it came from the United States. We had somebody here called Bernie Ogilvy. He had one of those doctorates as well. With the top of a Weet-Bix packet and quite a decent cheque donation one can get a doctorate from the United States. We see the evidence of that here in the Chamber. I want to know whether— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My colleague Dr Mapp has a PhD from that fine University of Cambridge. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I guess that is a debating point but we get to these kinds of interplays when we tend to disregard the fact that all members are honourable members and the debate starts to degenerate. I give just a little caution. Let us try to keep the nomenclatures appropriate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think there is nothing wrong with a doctorate from Cambridge Massachusetts as long as the cheque that paid for it was not too big. It may well qualify the member for working on a film as an actor because I think it is fair to say that his dramatic skills are certainly better than his legal skills as we have seen in the Chamber on numerous occasions including in his last contribution. The member does not appear to be able to contribute to this debate from a standing position. He appears to be able to stand and he appears to be able to talk but not both at the same time. That is typical of the approach that Ministers have been taking on this legislation.