Robson Matt: Holidays Bill — Second Reading 
Robson Matt: Holidays Bill — Second Reading 
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Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 The Holidays Bill represents another step forward in the implementation of the policies of the minority Labour-Progressive coalition Government. It is another step forward for the people of New Zealand. It takes a number of progressive steps in the modernising and upgrading of our labour laws. The bill clarifies and reforms what has become a messy law. It ensures that those who work on public holidays are not penalised it clarifies the calculation of annual holiday pay it provides for 5 days’ entitlement to sick leave and it ensures that payment for sick and bereavement leave is at the relevant daily rate. 
The most significant part of the bill in the view of the Progressive party is of course the provision to increase the minimum annual holiday entitlement from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. I do not want to irritate anyone but I must say this issue was a huge gaping hole in the annual leave entitlements in the legislation as it was first presented to the House earlier in the year. As Margaret Wilson has acknowledged in the speech read for her by John Tamihere this is the most significant reform for low-income workers for over 30 years. The year 1974 was the last time that another week of annual leave was granted to the workforce. In that time professionals management some sections of the highly skilled workforce and others have long moved to 4 weeks’ leave and more. So has our greatest trading partner Australia. Members of Parliament with a flexibility of holiday time that low-income workers do not have have now in their majority recognised what is owed to those who have borne large sacrifices with the restructuring of the economy—often poorly done and unwisely instituted. This measure will afford them more appropriate rest recreation and family time to compensate for more than a decade of the rolling back of conditions—in particular the 40-hour week. That is the decade that Gerry Brownlee lauded as a decade of great improvement for workers. 
I am very proud that the Progressives and the Labour Party are now at one on the issue of changing the law to allow for 4 weeks’ leave although the Progressives will continue to advocate that it come in sooner than 2007. I will do that by a Supplementary Order Paper in my name which seeks to bring 4 weeks’ annual leave into force on 1 April 2005. This move is socially just. Our families are under pressure—all parties state that. United Future although consistently opposed to this family-strengthening reform states that strengthening families is one of its major planks. Four weeks’ minimum annual leave relieves that pressure on families. 
I recently attended one night of my younger son’s school camp. A number of parents had been there for the week. They had taken that time out of their holiday entitlement. I had a more flexible arrangement. One father was a factory worker. He had been with his present job for a decade. He had 3 weeks’ annual leave. He gave up one of those weeks to be with his son. He was overjoyed that 4 weeks’ minimum annual leave would come in because that would still leave him with 3 other weeks for his wife and his other children. It is to allow productive workers like him to put adequate time into their children that this measure is aimed. He was disappointed that he had to wait until 1 April 2007 but he brightened up when I advised him that the Progressives had an amendment to have it begin on 1 April 2005. I will say more on that later. 
When this measure was first introduced by the Progressives only the Greens came out in support; it was their policy and they supported it from the beginning. But gradually support built. From the original 11 votes in this Parliament the Labour Party has added its 52 votes to give a parliamentary majority. I am aware that New Zealand First particularly through the work of Peter Brown had intended to support this measure although it does not support it now because of its opposition to the total bill. This turn-round of support came because of the massive public support for the measure. That support was generated by a postcard distribution campaign workplace meetings union stopworks letter writing and a lobbying campaign of MPs. In the correspondence that I received I noted how much support came from those who already had 4 weeks’ leave but wanted that provision extended to the total workforce. That is the Kiwi tradition of fair play for all. They did not want women who clean late at night assembly line workers young parents women who have broken service from having children and the many others largely in low-income positions to be deprived of the benefits they have. 
In economic terms those who decry the cost fail to talk of either the social or economic benefits. What price do we put on the social benefit of the extra time that parents can spend with their children? What price do we put on the health of low-income workers? Why do opponents forget to advise that the total increase will not be a further 2 percent of the total wage bill covering all workers because a large number of employees get 4 weeks’ leave now? The annual net cost will be around $350 million—1 percent of the wage bill. These opponents forget to include the increased spending in the economy because people on holiday spend money on goods and services. They are silent on the fact that Britain which introduced 4 weeks’ leave for all last year—with cries of economic disaster from the right-wing parties’ political counterparts in Britain—has actually strengthened its economic position. Why is Australia not an economic basket case when it has had 4 weeks’ holiday for all of 20 years? It is probably a reason why the Australian rugby team is better than the All Blacks! 
Raising the minimum standard for leave entitlements is vital and critical to New Zealand for many reasons. It is important if New Zealand is to continue to compete successfully against other countries to attract and maintain skilled people. New Zealand has been running current account deficits in each and every year for over a quarter of a century. Under the Labour-Progressive coalition Government our economy has outperformed the average of the OECD over the past 4 years and we are forecast to continue to outperform the average of the OECD over the next few years. Our unemployment rate is now one of the lowest amongst the rich group of nations but we must still do better. We will never export our way out of our inability to pay our way in the world by competing on international markets on the basis of cheap labour and low costs alone. 
That approach would be a loser’s approach a race to the bottom as we attempted to compete with the likes of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the basis of ever-cheaper labour and ever-cheaper commodity production. The Congo does not have 4 weeks’ leave entitlement for its workers. In fact the vast nation of the Congo is a living experiment for ACT policies. One does not have to pay federal tax or even state taxes in the Congo. Businesses do not pay company tax either. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s a stupid stupid statement from a stupid member. He is a half-wit. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think that calling out “a stupid member” is not within the Standing Orders. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It was more than that and I ask the member to withdraw under Standing Order 117 “Personal reflections”. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I withdraw and apologise for my comments relating to the member. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: In the Congo businesses do not pay company tax either. There are no expensive public education or health systems to burden the consumers and taxpayers of Kinshasa. I guess we could say it is an ACT party paradise that National wants to join—no tax no welfare no education no minimum labour standards and no hope for the majority. Progressive takes a different approach from that. We have to add knowledge add value and integrate innovation into everything we export. That is how we are steadily regaining our place in the world. 
But it is not just ACT that does not understand the nature of a modern economy; the National Party leader Don Brash said that any future centre-right coalition Government he leads would change the law and end 4 weeks’ leave—of course they would leave it for themselves. Don Brash has attacked the Progressives’ 4 weeks’ leave initiative on the grounds that it is—yes one can guess it—a cost to business. But 4 weeks’ annual leave is a critical financial issue in the battle to keep low-income families in the productive workforce and contributing to New Zealand’s economic development. The financial cost of balancing work and family responsibilities is too high or on the margins of being unaffordable for many low-income two-parent families. Having 4 weeks’ leave is long overdue for this part of the productive workforce. The fierce opponents of this family-friendly move—National ACT and United Future which now unfortunately are joined by New Zealand First—all get 4 weeks’ leave and more but they will deny it to those who need legislation to get what other more privileged people like the MPs in those anti-family parties already get. 
New broom Don Brash now will have to repeal 4 weeks’ minimum annual leave; he will add it alongside his moves to revoke our nuclear-free status. He has pledged to sell Kiwibank—the “People’s Bank” popularly known as Jim Anderton’s bank—and other State assets that he Mr Prebble and Mr Dunne previously assisted in selling to the rich at bargain-basement prices. Now National and its putative coalition partners ACT and United Future want to repeat the nightmare of the sale of public assets. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: The member is telling lies. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member knows that is out of order. He will stand withdraw and apologise. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I stand withdraw and apologise. 
Hon MATT ROBSON 
: Where is New Zealand First? Fresh from attacking immigrants as its contribution to the season of goodwill it now decides it will vote against 4 weeks’ annual minimum leave. How does New Zealand First explain that to the very Kiwi battlers that it came to represent? Once again as in 1996 when it campaigned as the party that would throw out National it has joined with the parties that sell public assets and cut the conditions of workers. 
I will do my best to persuade my Labour colleagues in the Committee stage to support 1 April 2005 as the introduction date of this bill. I do not want a situation where the reward is denied to those who if they have to wait until 1 April 2007 will not have the help they would have had and the family time if it had been introduced earlier. The bill especially its 4 weeks’ leave component is a time for celebration for all fair-minded pro-family New Zealanders.