Sio William: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:452. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere):Thank you for the opportunity to speak in opposition to the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. Only just very recently we debated the Speech from the Throne and in that speech there were references to flexibility in the employment sector yet we now know after looking into the detail of this bill exactly what that means. In the Government’s own regulatory impact statement it said “flexibility for the employers but no flexibility for the workers”. In fact its own regulatory impact statement said that the contents of this bill are inconsistent with the international conventions that protect workers’ rights. So I want to make it quite clear to all the new members of that particular Government that this bill is inconsistent with the international rights upheld by the international community: the right of workers to a fair wage the right of workers to have unions represent them and the right of workers to be able to bargain collectively as an organisation. Those are the rights that have been removed by this piece of legislation.I want to make reference again to the new members of this Government. I heard some very good passionate speeches from those who gave their maiden speeches of late. It gave me some hope that there is some humanity in the experiences of those members and so they need to speak up against this Government. They need to put their foot down and vote against this bill because henceforth once this bill passes the Government will be on record as a heartless group of no-good gangsters because that is what it is. It is ganging up on the New Zealand workforce. On the one hand it says it wants to reward people for their productivity but this bill is designed to drive wages lower. How on earth can workers be able to earn a living to sustain themselves and support their families? How on earth can workers be able to hold down a house given the increases in rent of recent times?This is an anti-worker bill. It is anti-worker and I want to say to Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and Alfred Ngaro that if they vote in support of this bill they will go down in history as two members of Parliament who were determined to harm the members of their very own community after standing of their shoulders to get to where they are. In this last election members of our community voted for those members and they expect something from them. They expect them to stand up for their rights and when they vote in support of this bill they are telling the rest of our communities and all working-class communities throughout New Zealand they do not give a damn. They do not care. They do not care one iota whether working people are able to make a living and support their families.This Labour Opposition will continue to hold those members to account to make sure they walk the talk. All this time about child poverty nothing has been done. All this time about housing affordability and providing housing for our community that has not been addressed and this bill will for ever make it more difficult for families with children to support themselves and for families to get into a house because this bill is anti-worker. It attacks the working group. I want to call on all working people now those who are in a union and those who are not members of a union. They must step forward. They must come forward now and begin the agitation because this bill mirrors exactly what National did in the 1990s. We are going backwards.Last Monday on Labour weekend some of our young people celebrated the lives of Bill Andersen and Fred Evans—people who stood up for workers’ rights despite the attacks on them despite being imprisoned despite being locked out despite being kicked out of their workplaces despite going to jail and despite Fred Evans giving up his life. That is the kind of environment this Government has now created—one where workers must step up and fight. And they must fight if we are to regain some semblance of our dignity as enshrined in international conventions.