Hutchison Paul: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:18185] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 It is almost unbelievable when one comes across this Supplementary Order Paper apposite to Part 1 of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill and finds insinuated in it this outrageous bit where the Labour Government tries to trivialise the importance of breastfeeding by bringing in its KiwiSaver scheme in terms of a ground for a personal grievance. It is almost unbelievable that it would treat in that way something as important and as serious as breastfeeding which in New Zealand sadly is way below average levels and needs encouragement which is why the National Party has agreed to support the substance of this bill. But certainly National is astounded and appalled at this Labour Government when it abuses the parliamentary process in such an awful way. 
My excellent colleague Kate Wilkinson was absolutely right when she quoted Professor Jeremy Waldron of the New York University school of law who commented in the  
New Zealand Lawyer 
 just how “terribly irresponsible” New Zealanders’ attitude is towards the parliamentary institution which has been the trend of late under this Labour Government. In fact Waldron said he was particularly outraged by the evolution of procedures for fast tracking legislation and my word have we ever seen a display of that this afternoon when the most important legislation that has come through Parliament in the last 9 years has been rammed through in 4 hours with its 750 new amendments whereas it should have been given appropriate process. 
Coming back to this bill the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill I say that we once again see the Labour Government abusing parliamentary process in the most awful way. It is inconceivable to think that such a bill dealing with infant feeding could suddenly have insinuated in its purpose this extra amendment to make it a ground for a personal grievance for an employee’s employment to be adversely affected because he or she is a member of a KiwiSaver scheme or of a complying superannuation fund. I am quite appalled that the Labour Government would trivialise something so important. As my learned lawyer colleagues have said it is totally inappropriate in this legislation for the Labour Government to have suddenly without any consultation with anyone else decided to bring this irresponsible amendment into the bill. What is more Professor Waldron made this point: “In New Zealand legislative proceedings are utterly dominated by the executive.” And that is the case of this Labour Government. With something like 26 ministerial positions it is almost inevitable that one way or another one of those Ministers will abuse his or her power and this is a classic example. One would have hoped that for something as important as breastfeeding the Government would at least have ensured that it fully consulted all the parties that had agreed to support this legislation. Instead in a sneaky way—in a very very sneaky way typical of the dying days of this Labour Government—it has instead decided to insinuate this absolutely inappropriate amendment into otherwise very important legislation for the women of New Zealand. I would think that the women of New Zealand— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What about the babies? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: And babies—absolutely. I would think that the women and babies of New Zealand would feel totally trivialised.