Bradford Sue: Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11633] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 That was an extraordinary contribution from Dr Wayne Mapp especially given that the National Party is supposed to be all in favour of families and that I understand it is out to cultivate the women’s vote next year. I do not know how many women actually appreciate the National Party’s position on flexible working hours. 
This is the second Green Party member’s bill on employment relations issues before the House today highlighting the importance that we place on issues of fairness and sustainability when it comes to conditions of employment for workers—unlike certain other parties in this House. The significant improvements in the industrial relations arena that have occurred over the last 7 or 8 years would not have happened without the Green Party’s support and today we have two significant gains for employees being progressed at our initiative. I would like to congratulate my colleague Sue Kedgley on the enormous amount of work she has done in successfully getting the bill thus far. Also I thank and acknowledge colleagues from other political parties including particularly Labour but also New Zealand First and United Future for their support— 
Barbara Stewart 
: And the Maori Party. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: —the Maori Party and also trade unions and community organisations— 
Barbara Stewart 
: And Gordon Copeland. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: And Gordon Copeland. 
Barbara Stewart 
: And Taito Phillip Field. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: Oh good; even more. So I thank also Gordon Copeland Taito Phillip Field and all the trade unions and community groups that have also organised and worked so hard to get the bill through as far as this. According to the Department of Labour report  
Quality Flexible Work: The New Zealand Experience 
 published last year flexibility of working hours is currently something that is largely enjoyed by management and senior staff. Perhaps the National Party does support that part of the hierarchy. But many other New Zealanders of another sort are forced to work longer and longer hours often in more than one job at a time. Indeed 40 percent of New Zealand employees are in paid work more than 45 hours a week and for 21 percent it is more than 50 hours a week. Often—especially in the retail servicing and caring industries—it is low wages that necessitate employees working such long hours. The legacy of 9 years of falling real wages under the National Government’s Employment Contracts Act is in no small part responsible for what has happened. The majority of workers in low-paid work are women who so often carry the bulk of family responsibilities. 
I would really like to acknowledge the contributions made just before tonight by Tariana Turia and Mark Gosche in terms of their own personal experiences of what happens in any job when one has to make that sacrifice to look after one’s children or for other dependants in the family. This is a sacrifice that an extraordinary number of New Zealand workers make every day of the working year. Parents in low-paid work usually cannot afford to reduce their hours and as a result suffer stress as they attempt to fit in their family responsibilities around their paid work. Often enough it is incredibly difficult to cope with juggling work and family especially when one does not have the means to pay for outside assistance; and that is often enough to the detriment of the children. This is of particular significance given that the level of participation of women in the paid workforce is now higher than ever and that in so many families both parents are working. The Department of Labour report I have already mentioned also showed that at any time around 38 percent of workers have responsibility for at least one child 5 percent for an elderly or sick relative and 3 percent for a sick partner. All up it seems that over 40 percent of our workforce has caregiving responsibilities for someone. 
Sue Kedgley’s bill seeks to address these issues by putting in place a framework under which such workers will be able to retain certainty of hours of work while still fulfilling their family commitments. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has recommended some sensible amendments to the bill including that requests for flexibility be extended to the place of employment. This recognises that in today’s electronic age many types of employment can be carried out either wholly or in part from the employee’s home. The second significant change was to extend the categories of people who can request flexible working hours to those who are caring for a dependent relative other than a child. This is another very welcome improvement. Similar legislation in the UK which my colleague Sue Kedgley has studied in depth has been an overwhelming success. In the UK 80 percent of requests for flexible working hours are granted and a further 10 percent reach a mutually agreed compromise position. That is an outstanding success rate for any non-mandatory legislative provision. There is no reason to believe that a similar success rate will not occur here when this bill comes into law. 
This is a bill that New Zealanders clearly want. In a survey in 2005 by the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust 93 percent of respondents identified flexible working hours and in particular flexibility of start and finish times and the ability to occasionally change their working hours as the change they would most like to see in their workplace. Flexible working hours was the most important requirement identified by that survey regardless of gender age or ethnicity. In the face of the overwhelming evidence that this is a bill that is needed and wanted by New Zealand workers and their families and in many different sectors of the workforce I am astounded by the position the National Party has taken on the bill. National Party members purport to claim that flexible working arrangements are in principle a good idea but they go on to not support the bill. In the face of all the evidence they claim that the existing legislative framework is somehow sufficient to achieve the objective of greater flexibility. They are right out on a limb here given that their colleagues in the Conservative Party in the UK are right behind flexible working hours. The National Party does not seem to have any communication with them. 
Claims made by the National Party tonight have no credibility. The Employment Relations Act which incidentally the Chicken Littles of the National Party claimed back in 2000 would cause the sky to fall has been in force for 7 years now and no sky has fallen. The working conditions of many employees have actually improved significantly since the demise of the Employment Contracts Act. But one thing the Employment Relations Act has not achieved for a large number of New Zealand workers is flexible working arrangements. 
The other claim by the National Party about this bill is even more bizarre: it argues that it will somehow be counter-productive and that employers may be dissuaded because of the added procedures they could be subject to under the Act from employing people who fit the profile of someone who may request flexible working arrangements. In case National Party members have not noticed it has been unlawful for many years for employers to do what National claims employers may do in response to this legislation. That is unlawful discrimination under the Human Rights Act under the Employment Relations Act and it was even unlawful under the National Party’s own Employment Contracts Act. What employers are going to subject themselves to the potential proceedings for unlawful discrimination by refusing to employ someone who fits the profile of a person who may request flexible working arrangements? It would be a very reckless employer indeed and one who I would suggest should think seriously about whether he or she should even be an employer. 
The National Party also claims that this bill will be counter-productive because the legislative framework provided by the bill says that employees can ask for flexible working arrangements only once a year. That blatantly misrepresents the effect of new section 69AAD in clause 6A of the bill. That section will prevent an employee from making a new formal request for flexible arrangements under Part 6AA within 12 months of making a previous request. It does not prevent an employer from agreeing within that period to a less formal request however. This section is in the bill for one purpose and one purpose alone: to protect employers from having to deal with repeated trivial or vexatious formal requests by employees. I would have thought that that was a purpose that the National Party would agree with. 
 I suspect that as employers become acquainted with the actual provisions of the bill the need for formal requests under the Act will diminish and employers will become more accustomed to the concept of flexibility and more willing to agree to requests made in less formal ways. Contrary to the National Party’s claims this bill does not prevent any employee from asking for flexible arrangements or any employer from agreeing to them at any time. 
So what is National’s real reason for opposing this bill? I think it is simply that the National Party does not understand employment relations. Those members still do not understand why their Employment Contracts Act was such a dismal disaster for New Zealand workers. They opposed the Employment Relations Act yet they defended it when the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill came around. Now they appear to be defending it again in trying to claim that it provides adequately for flexibility of employment arrangements when the evidence shows clearly that it does not. 
We have also seen the National Party oppose 4 weeks’ minimum annual leave but now it supports it. We have seen it promote Wayne Mapp’s Draconian amendment bill that would have stripped workers of almost all employment rights for the first 90 days on a new job and just today we have seen it oppose my bill that will put almost to an end the ability of employers to pay exploitative wage rates to workers aged 16 and 17. However unlike the National Party the Green Party does understand employment relations and does understand the need for a legislative framework that will help introduce more flexible working arrangements to improve the quality of life of all those workers who work long hours who are often poorly paid and who need this in their lives for the good of not only themselves but also their dependants and other family members. For that reason all of us in the Green Party are delighted to see this bill successfully reach this stage in the parliamentary process and I look forward to that process’s completion very shortly.