Bennett David: Employment Relations (Breaks Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bennett David: Employment Relations (Breaks Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18206. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I was a bit disappointed Mr Assistant Speaker that you did not give me the call earlier but given that you are showing your Scottish heritage we will forgive you today. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is nice of you. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: It is interesting that although the Labour Government is amending the Employment Relations Act with this legislation it is not amending the title of the bill to include the word “KiwiSaver”. Why did Labour not include KiwiSaver as part of the amendments? It did not do that because that would be far too honest open transparent and accountable for this Government. It prefers the sneaky approach of just putting through a Supplementary Order Paper and having in it something quite irrelevant to the original legislation—something that deals with a mistake it has made. 
This legislation is symbolic of the mistakes that Labour has made. Labour has a continual process of making quick cheap solutions and not thinking through the full and final outcomes of what it puts forward. That is the case with the KiwiSaver legislation. There was a loophole in the KiwiSaver Act that some employers were taking advantage of to the detriment of some employees. The Government has sought to address that loophole through a Supplementary Order Paper to a completely alien bill the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. By doing that Labour has shown its true colours to the public of New Zealand. It has shown that it is not willing to draft legislation that is good for New Zealand that is good for workers and that will build this country stronger. Labour just drafts legislation on the hop when it feels it is right and how it feels it is right and it does so for political convenience. 
That is not the way to run this Parliament. It is not the message to send the people of New Zealand. The people of New Zealand will rectify that message in a few months’ time because they will deliver a message back to Labour that they are not happy with the process that it is engaged in with the way it does things and with the outcomes that it has achieved. 
In terms of the outcomes of this bill we can see that a pretty quick job was done on it by Labour when the bill came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Labour had not really thought out what it wanted to achieve with it. In fact the bill was detrimental to some employees. Labour in its wisdom was going to pass legislation that took away rights from employees. Why would it do that? The reason is that it does not care about employees. Employees are not its mandate. Its mandate is to stay in power. Michael Cullen has said that. He has said: “Our job is to win this election and to stay in power.” It is not about the people of New Zealand. It is not about the employees out there. It is not about the mothers out there. It is all about staying in power. 
Why are we in urgency? To stay in power. Why are we passing this legislation? To stay in power. Why are we passing the emissions trading scheme legislation? To stay in power. Why are we passing the emissions trading scheme? To give Labour something that says it was in power. That is what it is all about for Labour; it is not about the actual requirements of our country our workers and our people. It does not care and it has never cared. It is a Clayton’s promise to say that Labour cares for our people. All it is interested in is self-fulfilment and fulfilling its ambitions of power. That is what one sees time and time again with Labour. 
If Labour had really cared it would not have taken away employees’ rights in the first place. It would have put forward a bill that took into account employees’ rights. It was only the National members who stood up at the select committee and said that this legislation would take away some workers’ rights. When National members told that to the officials the officials said that some agreements provided for more open meal breaks than this legislation would provide for. Labour members then went back to their offices and decided to rewrite the legislation and put it back through the select committee with changes. That is the reality of what happened in this case. It was the National Party that looked after workers in the circumstances. It was the National Party that provided the incentive for New Zealanders to have the right solutions to their problems. It was not Labour that did so. 
Labour will take the credit for the National Party time and time again and this is another example of that happening. We stood up in that select committee and said that this legislation should not be ideological but practical and that it should provide for people in their time of need in their working environment. That is something that the National Party is very proud of and we will stand behind that position at any election forum. We can stand up and say we were genuinely after the workers’ rights in this case unlike Labour which was after self-fulfilment and re-election by putting out policies in the last month of its 9 years of campaigning. 
Why would you put in a KiwiSaver amendment to the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill? Why would you not put up your own KiwiSaver Amendment Bill? That would be the normal natural process that you would go through but why would you not do that? 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know the member has not been here for very long but he knows not to bring the Speaker into the debate and he has done that on about four occasions now in the last minute or so of his speech. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member must not use the word “you”. It actually brings the Speaker into the debate. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Why would the Labour - New Zealand First Government—married and tied together like we will never see in any other political arrangement—put forward an amendment of that kind to this bill? 
The Government does not want to admit that it got it wrong with its KiwiSaver scheme. KiwiSaver was one of the Government’s flagship policies. It went out there and talked about how great the scheme was but the scheme took away rights from workers again. KiwiSaver had a hole in it that actually hurt workers. So the Government needed to reinvent its legislation and the only way it could do that without going through a formal process of select committee hearings and creating public awareness of the mistakes that it had made with KiwiSaver was to amend it by means of this bill. That is the crux of what is going on. 
The select committee members from Labour and New Zealand First do not want to admit to their mistakes so they are trying to hide it by means of this bill. In doing so they are showing once again that they are not acting in the best interests of New Zealand workers or the New Zealand economy. All they have regard for is the necessity for them to get through an election campaign. If they were honest open and transparent they would put up a separate bill to amend the KiwiSaver Act—called the KiwiSaver Amendment Bill—and they would detail the nature of the issue and look for some solutions. 
I believe that Labour members do not know what is going on in the KiwiSaver environment. They are just reacting to what they see as circumstances that may arise in the workplace over time. If they were to take a more progressive approach and get submissions from the public and those concerned they might find there are other areas in the KiwiSaver environment that need to be amended as well to look after workers’ rights. That is not likely to happen in a Government that will not admit to failure and that pretends that everything is hunky-dory with its flagship policies. 
The Government knows in its heart of hearts that this policy is not successful and that the policy of KiwiSaver has some issues and needs to be refined. That cannot be done by means of this 3-page Supplementary Order Paper to amend the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. The heart of that bill now is the amendment to the KiwiSaver scheme. But this amendment should be in a separate bill and be sent to a different select committee—the Finance and Expenditure Committee not the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: The Supplementary Order Paper didn’t go to any select committee. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: It did not go to through any select committee but if it had gone through a proper process then the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee would have been the wrong committee for that amendment. 
The Government of the day has abused the processes of this House. It has taken advantage of this House by using urgency to put through this sneaky little amendment. It should not do that. The Government has made a deliberate use of the political process for its own gain. Members of this House should not be able to do that in good conscience. This House should be able to say that it has consulted on issues that it has given the public of New Zealand the ability to have their say and that it has given New Zealanders the chance to debate the issues of the day in the public forums of the media and also in the select committees. 
If a Government does sneaky little amendments to legislation as in this case then it is denying the public the right to justice. The Labour - New Zealand First Government may want to deny the public the rights to justice which is something it has done on numerous occasions but it should not have done so in this situation. It should have been up front it should have admitted its mistakes and it should have used the appropriate processes to deal with them. It should not have taken advantage of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill to do so. That devalues this bill. It says that this bill is being used just for political purposes. It does not show that the Labour Government is committed to the intent of the legislation and that is a shame for this Parliament.