Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
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MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) and I refer back to the speech made by Mr Locke and in particular to the comment about the dark ages and the suggestion that the commencement date could be put back to 1911. That would be a very interesting development because it would give us the opportunity to put certain members of this Chamber under a 90-day probation period. I am sure we sure that members on this side would be quite keen to put Mr Mallard under a 90-day probation period. Although there is some merit in the backdating I do not think I could support it tempting though it might be. 
I am really concerned at the suggestion by members on the other side of the Chamber that this legislation could somehow undermine people’s human rights. The member who has just resumed her seat Ms Mackey mentioned that a person who became pregnant would somehow be fired under a 90-day trial period provision. I would be very happy for a member on the other side of the Chamber to take a call to challenge this but I am almost certain that the Employment Relations Act would absolutely rule that out as a possibility because the provisions of the legislation— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Didn’t the member listen to examples being cited? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: It was really hard to listen because it was about as underwhelming a speech as we could get. I am particularly interested in the issue of pregnancy. As far as I am aware firing a person for becoming pregnant would be absolutely forbidden under the provisions in this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] Here we go again! According to Labour members it does not matter what the law says; employers will act so badly that they will simply ignore it. 
Darien Fenton 
: And they are. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Then the employee is absolutely free to seek the remedies that are available. If an employee believes she has been wrongly dismissed because she became pregnant in the first 90 days of her employment she is absolutely justified in using the grievance processes available under the Act as it is now and that will not be changed. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: All powers are being stripped away. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Not all powers—that is the point I am trying to make. We can debate the merits of the powers as they have been diminished but does not help when members throw around Chicken Little examples of what might happen when this bill is passed. They absolutely will not be the case. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: It’s happening. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: If it is happening then a personal grievance can be taken. This is the point. Members opposite are saying that the poor old employees are completely disempowered and absolutely cannot do anything certainly not without the unions. I absolutely reject the notion that this bill’s title needs to be changed to reflect those things. 
This bill contains very moderate and very reasonable changes that will add flexibility to our employment relations legislation and will not lead to the sky falling in as my friends on the side of the Chamber would have us believe. I simply reject those notions. Here is one suggestion for a new title: the “We Actually Trust Employees To Do and Think For Themselves and To Make Choices for Themselves Bill”. 
Lynne Pillay 
: That’s why you’re dumping them. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: There they go again! Those members are saying that the 90-day probation period is terrible that it will undermine workers’ rights and that it will give nobody the sorts of opportunities we believe are possible. 
Let us look at an example of that choice. An employee may be marginalised may be a new immigrant may be a new graduate or may be a youth. That employee is trying to get back into the workforce and the employer quite often—and we certainly saw this with small and medium sized businesses—is not sure about whether to give them a chance. This provision would certainly do that so I think there is every opportunity to put the word “fairness” in the title. But clearly this bill is the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) and I think that title should stay.