Gosche Mark: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Second Reading 
Gosche Mark: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Second Reading 
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Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand to support the Status of Redundancy Payments Bill. I would say something about that member who just resumed his seat if I knew his name but I do not know his name. He has been here about 18 months I believe. He did take over a seat from the former National Party leader the Rt Hon Jenny Shipley and he is— 
Rod Donald 
: Which previous leader? How many previous? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Oh it is a while ago but I think most New Zealanders whether or not they liked her knew who she was. But could anybody in this country say who her replacement was? No. I do not know his name and that is because he is a totally—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Could I just say to the member on my left that under Speaker’s ruling 56/1 interjections are acceptable. However we do not have running commentaries and we have that at the moment. So I ask the member to please restrain himself. 
Brian Connell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member is at least a minute into his speech and he has not even addressed the bill yet. If he is going to make controversial statements I think it is only reasonable to expect some response from members in the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I just say to the member again quoting  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 that under Speaker’s ruling 43/3 a member is allowed a little bit of leeway in responding to a previous member’s speech. 
Brian Connell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already ruled on that point. 
Brian Connell 
: Yesterday you might recall that I raised these very concerns with you and you made a ruling that now seems to me to be in conflict with the one you have just made. You ruled yesterday that it was reasonable for a member to interject if the member had been sitting in his seat for some time and he had not moved specifically to that seat to cause a disruption. I put it to you I have been sitting in this House for an hour in this seat and according to your ruling yesterday I am entitled to make interruptions. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There seems to be some confusion. The reason I asked the member to desist was that his interjections were becoming a running commentary and under  
Speakers’ Rulings  
that is not permitted. 
Brian Connell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already ruled on this Mr Connell. It had better be something new. 
Brian Connell 
: It is. You have ruled on that matter but the other matter I raised with you yesterday was a running commentary and you said that was in order. We will go to the  
Hansard 
 record if we have to. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I know what I said yesterday Mr Connell and if the member continues to challenge the Chair in the way he is then I will have no option but to ask him to leave. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: It is rather odd that the member who continually takes points of order does not like it when he gets a bit back. It is OK for him to stand there and point the finger and say: “Union stirrer this failed lawyer that.” When he gets a little bit back the hanky comes out and he starts to wipe the tears from his eyes—the poor wee soul whom nobody in this country knows and who has made a useless speech about the purposes of this bill. The purposes of this bill are in fact to protect the rights— 
Phil Heatley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. To be fair and reasonable I think the member has had enough lead-in time now—it would be well over a minute—and it would be good if he started to get into the substance of the bill. So to be fair I think the lead-in time has been taken. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I thank the honourable member. I am sure that the honourable member will be coming to the point very shortly. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: I have taken about as much time in my speech denigrating that member as he did denigrating this side of the House. He did not know anything about the bill and he proved that when I listened to what little he had in his speech about this bill. 
He made some wild accusations that this bill was about putting New Zealand businesses out of business. I have to tell that member that the bill is about protecting people after the businesses have failed. They are the people who worked solidly and loyally to make that business a success and did not end up in jail after the business went under—unlike some of the people who ran big companies like Fortex Group who had to spend some time at the pleasure of Her Majesty at a jail near the member’s electorate. No we are talking about the workers who put their lives on the line when working in many of those industries because they were dangerous. There are a great many people who worked in the freezing industry for instance who were injured seriously or killed and then the companies went bust and did not pay up what was due to those people. On some occasions the people who ran those companies were found to have broken the law and ended up paying with the loss of their liberty. 
So that member on the Opposition benches who I understand comes from the farming industry should go back and talk to some of those farmers who also lost an awful lot to those businesses. They understand the need to protect their interests and they do their very best using the law to do so. What this bill seeks to do is to offer some small protection to the workers who make that industry and many other industries successful and profitable for most companies in this country. It is fortunate that we have had a strong economy with good management by this Government and there have not been the terrible redundancies of the past that have hit many industries. 
 We also know that quite a number of workers in the public health sector for instance work day and night. For 7 days a week 24 hours a day they are out there cleaning hospitals cooking the food shifting things around the hospital—which is what the orderlies the cleaners and the kitchen staff do. Many of them are contracted out not to New Zealand companies owned by mums and dads—which that member over there said this bill is targeted at—but to big multinational companies that have come here and cleaned up quite nicely in more ways than one in our public health system. Some of them did not consist of particularly nice and wonderful people. One of them here in the Wellington region went bust. What protection was there for those workers who had cleaned cooked and worked in those hospitals looking after the elderly the sick and children for very low wages year in and year out? What did they get when that big multinational company went bust here in New Zealand? It still operates in the rest of the world but it went bust in New Zealand. What happened to the loyalty that those workers were owed in terms of protection of their earnings and their redundancy entitlements? 
I know what happened because I represented them as a union official at the time. It was shocking that they missed out on so much that they were owed. Anybody who knows about the way in which redundancy agreements have been negotiated into employment contracts in the past knows that generally employees—workers—take less in terms of a potential increase in their earnings so that they can have the protection of a redundancy agreement. So they pay for it in their own way by accepting a lower wage increase. In some cases they took no wage increase in order to secure some protection against their job disappearing overnight. 
Of course those redundancy agreements by law were not enforceable and that is what this bill seeks to do. It seeks to give some level of enforcement for people who are entitled to a redundancy agreement so that they have some chance of getting redundancy pay. I would like to look not at the effect that this will necessarily have on the small business that goes bust but at some of those glaring examples of large businesses that have gone bust. In the bill we see that redundancy entitlements are included within the employee priority and that such entitlements form part of a contractually negotiated package for employees. The committee recognised that there had to be an actual negotiated package for employees and their entitlement in terms of the priorities for that money is recognised in this bill. 
Some very valid points are made in the commentary on the bill and by the committee in its report in terms of other people who would like to be treated better in terms of that priority. I can understand that but what we have to realise is that in most cases it is the only source of income for the employees in these businesses. Some of the other creditors that line up may not be completely devastated and wiped out because they have other sources of income. The committee obviously had to take that into account and has supported in its report what the bill seeks to do for employees. 
The cap on employee priority has been moved to $15000 which again is an improvement on the past figure. I believe that needs to be reviewed regularly so that it is a figure that makes some sense 5 to 10 years from now. The level of the cap will in fact be looked at on a 3-year basis as a result of the select committee report. 
There will be other people taking part in this debate who will be able to recall for members and those listening to the debate some of the awful situations that a lot of workers found themselves in as their companies went bust over the last 10 or 15 years in particular. We saw significant restructuring in the economy. As a result we saw quite a number of business failures and it did tend to be the very large-scale ones that were taken note of. But there will be smaller businesses that will have to take this legislation into account. I am sure that they will understand the necessity for it. Nobody wants to see businesses go bust particularly the people who work for those businesses—who generally give their hearts and souls to the places they work for so that that does not happen. We know that many of them may even forgo wages for weeks on end to try to help out their employers. This bill seeks to give a little bit of redress if possible when all the washing-up is done. 
I absolutely support this bill and I congratulate both the member whose name it is in now Mr Peck and the original author the Hon Rick Barker. Both of them come from areas of New Zealand that have been hit drastically by large-scale redundancies and I know that the workers they stood alongside and the managers of those companies will appreciate the intent of this bill and why it is necessary.