Sepuloni Carmel: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Sepuloni Carmel: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15496] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you for allowing me to take a call on the Committee stage of the Holidays Amendment Bill. I think it is important to put this bill into perspective and before I get to the gist of this I will reflect a little bit on National’s past record on employees’ rights. For those members it has been all about employers’ rights as opposed to employees’ rights but let us look at their record on employees’ rights. 
The unfortunate reality is that far too many of the Ministers in the current Government are from National’s school of the 1990s and we need to remember that. We need to remember that that school of thought taught that employees’ rights should be secondary to business profits. We on this side of the House are not anti-business; we think it is important to support business while ensuring that employees have their rights protected. But the reality is that the Government side of the House does not believe the same thing. National as everyone in this Chamber would know—even those from National—has an absolutely shocking record on employees’ rights. It tried to put on a smiley face at the 2008 election and pretend that things were going to be different from last time and that things would not change much with regard to what Labour had put in place when we were in Government. 
I will touch in particular on what the Government side of the Chamber has tried to say with regard to stopping the sickie. 
Darien Fenton 
: That’s insulting. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: It is incredibly insulting. It is incredibly insulting because the Government side of the Chamber has implied the whole way along with regard to the rhetoric it has put out there that New Zealanders are basically ripping off the system New Zealanders are lazy New Zealanders are lying to their bosses and New Zealanders are taking every opportunity to stay home when they are not sick and not only waste their employer’s time but take advantage of their position. It is a horrible way to think. It is a petty way to think. It is a terrible foundation on which a Government builds a relationship with the public if that is the assumption they are making about workers out there. 
The idea that in taking 1 day off sick an employee would be expected to visit a doctor and get a doctor’s certificate is just absolutely ridiculous. All of us know that since National has come into power since the National Government has been at the reins—since 2008 when it won that election—the medical bills have gone up. Yet now we are putting more costs on to the average working person by saying that if they decide to take just 1 day—1 day—off sick they will have to visit the doctor and they will have to fork out for that themselves. We on this side of the Chamber think that is an unrealistic and unfair expectation of ordinary Kiwi workers who are not lazy who work hard and who when they say they are sick they are genuinely sick and should be supported by their employers to take that time off and stay home. 
My colleague who spoke just before me Mr Prasad brought up the fact that this Government’s employment policy shows that it is unfortunately—but in reality—anti-family. When we look at the provisions that are in place with regard to sick leave we see it is another area that proves that the National Government is anti-family. After 1 day off—1 day off—employees must go to the doctors and get a medical certificate. The cost of going to the doctor is money that is taken away from that adult’s ability to look after their children. That 1 day that they need to take off sick they may not be able to afford to. Therefore they continue on at work and later on they end up much sicker than they would have been. Who suffers from that? It is the children because they have parents who cannot spend time with them. In the long term the parents will be much sicker than they should be because they did not take the time off when they needed to. The Government side of the Chamber makes no sense with regard to the decisions that they make.