Bennett David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bennett David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5030] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 It is truly a sad day for New Zealand and this Parliament to see this bill progress under the arguments put forward by the Labour Government and its lapdogs in New Zealand First with supporting arguments from the Greens and Maori Party—which had some genuine elements. I must admit that I am deeply disappointed at the way that Labour has tarnished this legislation. There may be genuine concerns out there and they came through at the select committee but this is not the way to argue to do what you are doing now. You are using the concerns of the very people who get you into this Parliament to make legislation for your own benefit. All you are doing is supporting the unions. All you are doing is putting up something that pays back the unions. 
Darren Hughes 
: Point of order— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I know the point you are going to raise. The member brought the Speaker into the debate probably about seven or eight times; it is usually just a couple of times. But he just needs to remember not to do that. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: My apologies. 
This is a case where we are losing the ambition of ordinary New Zealanders. I will give an example. Family A have a cleaning business and they have the contract to clean a large intermediate school. Family A comprises a mother father and their young son who has just left school. He is keen and wants to transform the family cleaning business into a nationwide cleaning business. He has a vision and a passion to succeed. Family B clean at the nearby smaller primary school. Family B comprises a mother and a father. Family A and family B negotiate to transfer one of the contracts. They negotiate that the contract changes. Family A buys the business off family B. 
Darren Hughes 
: This can’t happen. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: It can happen. This is an example of what can happen. Family A can buy the contract off family B. They buy the business because they see real financial gains from having that cleaning contract. The legislation means that specified employees—namely those in family B—must be assured of the right to transfer to the new employer family A under their current terms and conditions of employment. In other words family A who wanted to grow their business now has to incorporate family B into the equation. This means that they will be worse off because if they had stayed with their initial cleaning contract they would not have had to take on those extra people. 
Family A had the incentive and desire to build their business take on that cleaning contract and do it with their three people. They had a real desire to make the most of their opportunities to build a small business into a medium-sized business and to turn that medium-sized business into a nationwide business. That is something they will lose under this legislation because under this legislation they will have to take on family B as staff under their original terms and conditions. 
Why would Labour members do this to their own people? Why would they stifle the ambition hard work and desire of their own people? Well there is a reason. It has to pay the unions back. That is all it is; it is a payback to the unions. 
Let us look at New Zealand First for example. Why is it supporting this bill at this stage? New Zealand First members said they went to Labour and said: “We have an option for you.” The reality is that Labour went to them. Labour wanted New Zealand First’s support because it had to satisfy that union vote. In the first reading of this legislation New Zealand First members said: “New Zealand First will not support this bill because we believe that it could lead to protection of incompetence or less than quality service.” New Zealand First said: “Should they have … an automatic right to job protection—should they have been engaged no matter which company had the main contract? New Zealand First says that no we should not be extending that sort of protection to anybody. We do not extend it to normal occupations so why should we extend it to employees who are not delivering the service …” to that employer. New Zealand First was against the bill at the first reading and suddenly it has changed for a couple of Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table. 
There is a reason why it has done that. It has been paid off. Labour has got a deal with New Zealand First. I do not know what the deal is. Maybe the deal is to keep Ron Mark in the House. I do not know. Maybe it is to keep Winston’s job open while he is sick. But there is a deal going on there. There is something going on between those two parties on this bill. 
Going back to family A often when one is setting up a business—which Labour members would never know because none of them has ever been in business—the formative years of the business can be quite tense. People make mistakes. They may take on things they did not expect. Family A may take the contract on and buy the business off family B without knowing what this legislation actually means. That is quite likely. They will learn the hard way what this legislation can do. They will see their dreams go down the toilet. They will see their ambitions stifled by this Government and this legislation. That is not fair to ordinary New Zealanders. They are the people who voted that party into this House. They are the people who need our representation. Only the National Party is providing that representation. 
This law will apply in a number of cases. It will apply whether a contract is terminated or expires. It will apply whether or not a contract starts immediately. It will apply to all the things that the members of family A would not have expected. They made a commercial decision to buy that business and have now been stung by this legislation. Essentially the Big Brother arm of Government has applied to family A. Instead of letting them get on with a commercial decision based on profitability and productivity—which is something Labour says it wants to encourage—the decision has been overruled by a Draconian law created out of the major unions and for reasons of political correctness enacted by Labour. 
This law will destroy ambition and keep vulnerable workers in such cleaning roles. It will destroy small businesses. It will mean that vulnerable workers are able to be employed only by major institutions. There will be only three or four major employers in this industry and that cannot be good for vulnerable workers. Vulnerable workers need to be able to build up businesses like any others. 
It is amazing when one sees Mark Gosche and members of the Labour Party come in here and talk about how they are ready and willing to have hard-working Kiwis cleaning their offices and homes. Yet they will not give those same people the opportunity to make a break in life. It is good enough for Labour to have them cleaning their houses but not good enough for Labour to give those people the chance to excel and build a business. What is the logic behind that? Why would Labour want to hold back these people? Well there is a reason. Labour has been holding back everyone in this country. Labour thinks that if people are under its thumb it can control them; that if people are dependent on Labour for their income they will vote for Labour. This is another example of that logic. We have to break that cycle for all New Zealanders. If we break that cycle then all New Zealanders can stand up fight and achieve. 
As we go through this legislation we see Labour’s contempt for ordinary New Zealanders and its failure to give ordinary New Zealanders the start that family A wanted. Family A had a dream—a Kiwi dream. It is a dream we should cherish and support. It is a dream we should not kill by overwrite legislation. It is a dream that should not be destroyed in this House. 
Labour says it knows better than those people. Labour says it knows what those people want. It will not give vulnerable workers the choice. Labour knows better. What right has it got to tell a person what he or she knows? What do the Labour MPs know that the vulnerable worker does not know? I say Labour should have faith in the vulnerable workers and put some trust in them. They are just people like everyone else. They have ambition and drive. Let us support them. Let us back our people. Let us not back a Government that thinks it knows better and wants to make and control all the legislation that goes around. 
It has been a real eye-opener for the New Zealand public to see how Labour has used its political agreement with New Zealand First to turn on the very people it should be supporting. The very people who need a break are held back by this legislation. It will come back to haunt those people in the future. Now they have the opportunity to progress; under this legislation they are stuck in a system that has only a few employers a system where nobody can grow a system where family A—the mother the father and the son or the daughter—cannot achieve their goals. That is the dilemma and the great discomfort of this legislation.