Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
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Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) 
First Reading 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) be considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that the committee report finally to the House on or before 5 November 2010 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during questions for oral answer and during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that it could slightly be my colleagues but I think it might be the sound system again. I am the next speaker and I am having real trouble hearing the Minister. I notice that the microphones at the front appear to be working so it might even be better if she could shift down there and that might help. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I believe that it was the level of noise in the House. Would members just be a little more quiet as they move about the House and if they are going to have conversations I ask them please not to have them in the House. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that this is really unusual but it is not done in any facetious way at all. Could the Minister start again? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I invite the Minister the Hon Kate Wilkinson if she would like to to start her address to the first reading again because members were making a great deal of noise. I say to members in the House to please not have conversations in the House. I am looking at a pair of members carrying on their conversation and totally ignoring the Speaker. I ask members if they are going to have conversations not to have them in the House please because it was very hard to hear their colleague. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) be considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that the committee report finally to the House on or before 5 November 2010 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during questions for oral answer and during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and to meet outside the Wellington region during a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
The employment reforms contained in this bill are designed to assist New Zealand and New Zealanders as we grow out of the recession. This Government is focused on growing a stronger economy and creating more jobs. This bill is about creating opportunities. The changes being debated today are thoughtful pragmatic sensible and above all fair. They will help New Zealand’s overall productivity and will give businesses of all sizes the confidence to seek new opportunities to invest and to take on new workers. 
Shortly after the 2008 election trial periods for businesses with fewer than 20 employees were introduced. Employers with small and medium sized businesses gained the confidence to hire new employees without the fear of facing a personal grievance claim if the relationship did not work. That initiative has been successful. An evaluation of the operation of trial periods revealed that 40 percent of employers who used it said that they would not have or were unlikely to have hired a person without a trial period. Aside from that report I have received and read positive feedback on this policy. One employer thanked us for introducing the trial period as it allowed that employer to hire three new farm workers all of whom were unemployed and two of whom had criminal records. Without the trial period those three New Zealanders could still be sitting in the dole queue. Furthermore a brief survey by the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce found that 30 new jobs could be directly attributed to the introduction of the trial period. Examples like those can be found all over the country. Because of this policy New Zealanders are being given opportunities that they might not otherwise get. By extending access to trial periods we are giving all businesses the increased confidence to hire new employees and giving many more people the chance to prove themselves in the job market. 
I am proud to stand here and tell New Zealanders that this Government backs them. We want them to be successful in life. We want them to increase their standard of living and that of their families. We want businesses to flourish and invest in their communities and not to be too scared to hire someone out of fear that it will derail their business. The trial period has been a success and will continue to be a success. 
The bill also brings us more in line with overseas jurisdictions. If we compare how the same discussion was handled in Australia we see that its Labor Government introduced a system of qualifying periods under the Fair Work Act where employees cannot take an unfair dismissal claim in the first 12 months if they work for a small business and in the first 6 months for all other businesses. That is different from the situation in New Zealand as it applies to everyone whereas our trial period occurs only with the agreement of both parties it must be included in a written employment contract and it is only for the first 90 days. The Australian Council of Trade Unions put in a submission supporting a 3-month or a 90-day qualifying period. 
On one side of the Tasman we have a Labor Government and a union movement that support having compulsory grievance-free periods because they know that it is a policy of opportunity—a policy that encourages employers to invest and to take on more staff. Yet here in New Zealand we have a Labour Party and a union movement so blinded by ideology that they cannot see the positive opportunities. They try only to exaggerate the perceived negatives. Fortunately New Zealanders recognise the positive opportunities that this policy offers. They understand that the employment reform we are progressing is all about providing more opportunities and flexibility. Trial periods in various forms have been utilised successfully all over the world and I am confident that we will continue to see employers using this policy to take on new staff and offer more opportunities to those who need them. I am also confident that sufficient safeguards have been built into the policy and the legislation to prevent the exploitation of employees. 
This Government has always had an express commitment to improve labour laws in this country to make them fairer for employers and employees. Fixing the personal grievance system is a prime example of a targeted change. Earlier this year I invited submissions on the personal grievance system. There was an overwhelming response. A large number of submissions highlighted the point that the test of justification in the current legislation is confusing and we are fixing that. We want employers to be assured that minor and technical procedural defects in their processes will not mean that a fundamentally justified decision can be deemed wrong. 
We will also be making a number of other changes to make the system fairer more consistent and efficient. Reinstatement will no longer be the primary remedy in settling personal grievance cases but it remains as an option where practicable and reasonable. When a relationship has broken down for whatever reason in some situations reinstatement is simply not suitable. Furthermore the Employment Relations Authority will now be able to filter out vexatious and frivolous claims early on. We are focusing on the importance of early resolution by encouraging the use of mediation as the primary instrument to address grievance. To encourage parties to attend mediation first the authority will be giving priority to cases where parties have first attempted a mediated resolution. Both employers and employees need certainty in the process and neither need nor want that process to be drawn out. That is not justice for either party. 
This Government was elected on a manifesto that included a commitment to make changes to union access provisions. We will be progressing that election promise. Employers have the right to manage access to their workplace in a reasonable manner. Unions retain the right to access their members as an employer cannot unreasonably withhold consent. The majority of union members will see little or no difference. Where some union representatives have abused the current very relaxed law they will no longer be able to. As I have said previously this is not a widespread problem but where abuse does occur it has the potential to cause significant disruption and to have an impact on the productivity of a business. Protections for union members are retained by ensuring that consent cannot be unreasonably withheld. Where an employer denies consent but does not provide a written explanation of the grounds for refusal the employer would then be subject to a penalty action. 
This bill also addresses other issues relating to communication during collective bargaining and it strengthens the enforcement powers of labour inspectors in order to improve compliance. Employment agreements are the cornerstone of employment relationships. All employers will be required to have a written employment agreement. Labour inspectors will be able to seek a penalty action for not having employment agreements reinforcing the importance of having written employment agreements. 
The bill also increases the maximum penalty to $10000 for individuals and $20000 for companies and other bodies corporate. This will send the strong message that deliberate or persistent non-compliance will not be tolerated. Collectively the changes in this bill provide more flexibility and greater choice and they will ensure a better balance of fairness for employees and employers. 
This bill provides for more speedy resolution of employment problems improves the overall efficiency and operations of the Employment Relations Authority and discourages poor employment practices by parties. It will reduce costs improve overall confidence in our employment law and lay the foundation for higher economic growth and better times ahead. However it will not condone exploitation of employees; nor will it allow ideologically driven principles to hamper or restrict economic growth. Good businesses need good employees and good employees need good employers. It is as simple as that. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 It will not surprise the Government to know that the Labour Opposition will be opposing the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) and that we will be committing to repeal the most offensive parts of this legislation at the earliest possible opportunity. This bill is an attack on the rights and wages of wage and salary earners. It is part of an attempt by this Government to run down the wages and conditions of those people who work for a living in New Zealand. The legislation is very uneven and it makes vulnerable workers vulnerable wage and salary earners more and more vulnerable. 
Paul Quinn 
: When you were in power the average wage went from 82 to 73 percent. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I tell that member to look at any wage and salary figures in a time of high employment and he will see that when low-income people get jobs averages do not go up as quickly. Average wages tend to go up in times of high unemployment because low-income workers lose their jobs. If those members are too thick to understand that there is no hope for them at all. 
Paul Quinn 
: He doesn’t like it eh? He doesn’t like it. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member thinks it is a compliment to be called thick and I agree with him. It is not fair on thick people to put Paul Quinn into that category. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: He can’t handle it can he? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Paul Quinn cannot handle it at all; I agree with Tau Henare. 
This is a four-pronged attack on job security. There is an attempt to weaken the process to extend the range of reasons for dismissal— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I cannot hear and I am sitting directly opposite the member who is not in his own chair but who is interjecting. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I would have some sympathy with the member’s point of order but I have to say that there has been some provocation from both sides on the matter. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: These changes are unfair unbalanced unnecessary and ideologically driven rather than being driven by people with any real knowledge of how wage and salary earners live in New Zealand these days. The provisions attack job security they weaken the processes they extend the range of reasons for dismissal they restrict the right to appeal and they restrict the right to reinstatement. What an outrageous Government that tips away the balance. When someone wins his or her case the Government says that the balance should not be towards that person getting his or her job back again. That is the sort of approach we are seeing from the National Government here today. 
This is part of National’s attempt to drive down wages and it proves that before the election lies were told about the wish to close the gap with Australia. What we have seen under legislation— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Who by? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Those members should all look in the mirror occasionally! This bill makes a lie of the commitment to closing the wage gap with Australia. It allows people to be sacked without a reason and that is just not fair. New Zealanders do not like that; New Zealanders are for fairness. New Zealanders accept trials and they accept probationary periods but they say that if someone is not going to be employed at the end of a probationary period he or she should have a reason. That is pretty fair and reasonable. No reasonable person would disagree with that. No one is saying that someone has to keep a job but if that person is not keeping a job then a reason should be given. 
The Prime Minister made a promise to the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions as to the processes about access provisions. He said that that was not a priority for the Government. Business New Zealand said that it was not a priority for that organisation. The Prime Minister said that he would discuss the matter again before he made any public announcements on it but he has now been shown not to be telling the truth on that issue. I think that one of the things we used to see quite a lot of around here—and in recent years and I include the latter period of the Hon Jim Bolger—was a high emphasis put on people keeping their word and being honest. But that has been abandoned by the Prime Minister in this legislation. 
On the question of access I think it is a pretty simple issue that if workers have an immediate problem if there is a grievance issue—subject to provisions like safety and normal working arrangements which are the sort of things that have been there—they should be allowed to ask someone from the union to visit them on site in order to try to sort out the issue. That is not an unreasonable thing. Again it is a matter of the pretty basic fairness that Kiwis believe in—that is that if there is a problem or an issue in the workplace then someone from the member’s union should be allowed to come in and talk to that person about it and that that action should be pretty immediate and not put off until the next day or the day after by an employer who may well be attempting to mislead people as to what is actually going on. Even Kate Wilkinson—I want to quote the Minister—said just over a year ago that “There does not appear to be widespread evidence of union representatives exercising their current rights to enter workplaces in an inappropriate way resulting in disruption for business operations or adversely impacting on the employment relationship between employer and unions members.” 
I agree with Kate Wilkinson. In a year as Minister of Labour I do not think I had a single complaint come to me about that issue. I do not know of any complaints that came to the department. Certainly no complaints about that were reported to me. I think that we are trying to solve a problem here that does not exist and in doing so we are taking away a fair entitlement for workers which allowed them to get on the phone and ask their union representative to come along and try to help them sort out problems they had. That is not an unreasonable thing for workers to be able to do and I think that most Kiwis think that that is fair enough. 
I have referred to the 90-day trial period before and the issue is relatively simple: it goes to whether someone is entitled to a reason when they get the sack. They are not asking for even a good reason just a reason and whether or not they are entitled to a reason. We have been seeing some parallels on that particular issue in these buildings over the last couple of days. The issue has been very well set out by Heather Roy when she said talking about someone who was the leader of her party: “As previously arranged Rodney Hide came to my office to view the defence document. He took it away from me and turned to leave. I explained that he could not take it away but could read it in my office and explained again the security classification that he holds. He refused to leave it here. He turned to leave my office. Short of standing up in the doorway or coming from behind my desk and taking the document from him I could not stop him from taking it from the office.” There we have a very clear case of someone who is effectively an employer. He is a leader of a party which is pretty close to being an employer for these purposes and which was certainly enough to get Heather Roy sacked. She could not intervene in that way so we have a situation where one of her former fellow Ministers is saying that she thinks it is all right and that she thinks it is something that can be extended to other people. 
I tell this House that this legislation is designed to tell ordinary wage and salary earners that the Government wants them to have fewer rights and that it does not want their wages to go up. It says to wage and salary earners that the Government is happy with the gap opening up with Australia that it does not want union representatives to come in when workers call them and that it does not want workers to be given a reason when they get the sack. That is the sort of legislation that I would have expected from a 1960s National Government. Even Sir Robert Muldoon would have believed in people being given a reason when they were getting the sack. Bill Birch certainly would have believed in people being given a reason when they were getting the sack. But with John Key and Kate Wilkinson we have legislation here that does not do that. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I will take a short call on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). First of all I congratulate the Minister of Labour on bringing this legislation forward. The first thing that New Zealanders need to do is acknowledge the success of the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2008 and the number of people who have obtained employment in very tough times through that legislation. It is good that this Government has recognised things that have worked and it has delivered even more so that we can get more people into work and give them opportunities dignity and the ability to work. 
It was very disappointing to hear that last speech from Labour member Trevor Mallard. It tried to attack people’s emotions and included a lot of inaccuracies about vulnerable workers and reducing wages. It was all a load of rubbish that is not in this bill. This bill is about giving opportunities and promise to New Zealanders and that is what we will be doing through providing employment and making sure that the rules and regulations around it are easy so that people can get those jobs and get that chance in the future. 
We look forward to this bill passing through the House to the select committee where I am sure there will be some submissions on it. In essence this bill builds on the very successful Act that this Parliament passed in the first term of this National Government. We look forward to this legislation progressing through the House and being successful. Thank you. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 That was another stunning speech from David Bennett from Hamilton. I am sure that lots and lots of wage and salary earners in Hamilton are interested in his point of view and will give him feedback about the ridiculous things that he continues to say about the workers of New Zealand. As we have made clear Labour strongly opposes the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). It takes us backwards. 
The reason why we have this bill in the House today is that the Government is desperate to show the country that it is doing something about the economy. But really the truth is that it has no plan and the problem is that we are falling further and further behind Australia. The Minister of Labour the Hon Kate Wilkinson can talk about Australian workers having various trial periods but she never mentions that Australian workers are paid a whole lot more than New Zealander workers. They receive things like redundancy pay; they have centralised wage fixing. I ask the Minister why if we are talking about balance she does not put forward a balanced argument. The only new idea that this Government can come up with is to undermine the ability of Kiwi wage and salary earners to improve their wages and working conditions. Unfortunately removing the fundamental right of workers to protection from unfairness is not a plan. It is not a plan for growth in jobs. It simply further undermines employment security for Kiwis when we know and have seen that unemployment is already high and growing. 
I really had hoped that we had moved on to a point in our country where New Zealand’s workforce—the Kiwi wage and salary earners whom we rely on to do the work to produce goods and provide services and to help make businesses successful—could at last take a breather from being blamed targeted and hung out to dry by the National Government. But unfortunately that is not true. That is not happening because this bill removes rights from all Kiwi wage and salary earners. The bill extends the fire-at-will provisions to all workers and it leaves them with no right to appeal against unfair dismissals within the first 90 days of their employment let alone to be able to have a reason for why they have been sacked. It makes it harder for workers to have access to their union in the workplace for advice. Some of the restrictions in this bill are worse than those that were in the hated Employment Contracts Act. Can members believe that? We have access provisions coming from this Government that are worse than something that Bill Birch introduced 20 years ago. 
The bill reduces the requirement for there to be a fair process it expands the reasons for dismissal and it removes reinstatement to a job as a primary remedy even when unjustified dismissal has been proven. Is this the payback to the New Zealand workforce for its contributions and hard work during the last 2 years of recession? Many workers have reduced their hours in order to keep the business going many have taken pay cuts or had zero wage increases and thousands and thousands of workers have lost their jobs. Unions cooperated with the Job Summit with the Government and with the 9-day working fortnight. That worked because of trust in close working relationships between employers unions and staff not because John Key had a bright idea. 
But this bill is typical of National and may I say of ACT. When they do not have a plan they turn their guns on wage and salary earners. This bill sends a message to New Zealand wage and salary earners that this Government thinks workers are skivers and untrustworthy and that they should be punished. What is more it paints unions as adversaries and outsiders by making access hard and by getting in the way of good-faith bargaining by allowing employers to be able to bypass union representatives in communications with workers. 
The problem is that National has a very old-fashioned view of workers—of people who work for others for a living. National thinks that they should be grateful to have a job—that they should go down on their knees and be grateful that they have a job. Well yes workers are paid for their time but they do not own the company and they do not have any direct or meaningful stake in or say on its profits. At an individual level what a worker in a company does seldom has any measurable impact on whether the company succeeds. That is about what its management does yet this bill puts the blame for and consequences of poor management and company failure on to the economic livelihoods of New Zealand workers. It encourages sloppy management practices. It allows and encourages employers to substitute dismissal for good supervision and training of new workers. This bill is the big stick. It gives employers a powerful tool by making it easier for them to sack the 700000 workers who change jobs every year. It is a low-trust approach to employment relationships which is why this bill takes us backwards. It puts fairness as a requirement for decent work on the back-burner. 
Mr Garrett has been yelling out about one of the Council of Trade Unions cases that have come forward and I have no idea why he thinks that young woman is a party member. She happened to go on to the Grassroots Labour website. [ 
Interruption 
] Well the Minister does not know that. Has she checked our party records? How would she do that? I want to talk about a hairdresser. I am about to tell the member about another one. I would be happy to go on all day if I were given the time. 
David Garrett 
: The other one? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Another one and if the member would like to seek leave for me to talk for the rest of the day I will cite numerous cases. 
Yesterday the Minister talked about a hairdresser. She said the hairdresser was a bit rough but she was taken on and was grateful to have a job and it has all turned out lovely—it is all sweetness and light. I want to tell the story of another hairdresser whom I talked to yesterday. She got a job as a stylist via the Internet. It is funny about the Internet actually. What do we see on the Internet? We see job advertisements on TradeMe that state that the provisions of the 90-day legislation will apply. I thought that it was voluntary not compulsory. I go back to the hair stylist. Two days after she started work she was called into the office and given an individual agreement with a trial period in it and she was asked to sign it. A few weeks later before the 90 days were up she was called into work and fired. No reason was given no notice was given and no support was offered. Let me tell members about that woman. She is 58 years of age and was delighted to have a job. She had been struggling to find a job for a long time. She has never been sacked in her life and this dismissal hit her like a bombshell. Her confidence has gone down the gurgler. 
This is just one of many stories that we have been hearing. The Council of Trade Unions helpline has been inundated with calls from parents who are concerned about their children. 
Labour is totally opposed to the extension of the 90-day trial period. The Minister’s own evaluation showed that there is widespread abuse of the 90-day trial period. One in five workers were sacked. The report on the trial period was very unbalanced: 3500-odd employers were asked and just 13 workers got to give their point of view. Yet the Prime Minister paraded that report at the National Party conference as a sign of the success of the trial period. It was a very very unbalanced report. I am confused about the 90-day trial period in the current law let alone what it may mean in future law. I cannot understand whether it is voluntary. If it is voluntary what is voluntary? Is what is voluntary that the worker does not have to accept a job with a 90-day trial period? It seems to me that the only thing that is voluntary about this provision is that the employer gets to decide whether to voluntarily impose a trial period. There is no choice for many workers. If they want to have a job they simply have to accept this provision. 
I want to spend just a couple of minutes on access. There are so many things in this bill that I could talk all day but I know that Mr Assistant Speaker will not let me do that. The problem with the access provisions in the bill is that first of all there is no demand for change and that has been referred to today. No one asked for this change and no one wants it. There is no problem; the Minister’s own officials have told her that. But the Minister is proposing that an employer must consent to access by a union representative and that that consent cannot be unreasonably withheld. There is a reference to unreasonableness again which the Minister is removing from the Holidays Act with the amending legislation that we will be debating next week around sick leave because she says it is open to interpretation. Well yes it sure is. I predict that we will see big tussles as a result of this provision I say to the Minister. We do not have to look too far back in history to see what life was like when employers had to give consent to workers having access to their union. There are practical considerations as well. If there is an accident at a worksite does a union really have to give 2 days’ notice in order to go along and support the workers? There are a whole lot of things that make it completely impracticable. 
Finally I want to comment very quickly on the issue of process. Once again this bill seems to be going through a rushed process. The bill has to be reported back by 7 November. That is a very very short time frame—and we will have the amendments to the Holidays Act as well—for the biggest change to employment law that we have seen in a decade. That is a disgrace and Labour will be opposing this bill. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will also oppose the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). It is a serious attack on workers’ rights and conditions on a number of fronts. Firstly it restricts union officials’ access to work sites in a much greater way than previously. Secondly it makes it easier for employers to dismiss workers not only through the generalisation of the 90-day trial period but also through technical changes that make it easier for employers to win a dismissal case. Thirdly it allows employers to communicate directly with their employees during a bargaining process so that on a day-to-day basis they can undermine the collective negotiations between the employers and the unions that represent the workers. 
I will talk first about the union access provisions which I addressed in my questions to the Minister of Labour at question time today. It is quite clear that there is no need for the tighter provision on union access in terms of the regulatory impact statement made by Kate Wilkinson’s own Department of Labour. It states: “There does not appear to be widespread evidence of union representatives exercising their current rights to enter workplaces in an inappropriate way resulting in disruption for business operations or adversely impacting on the employment relationship between employer and union members.” Further on that same document states: “Current arrangements provide an appropriate balance of fairness to employers employees and unions.” So what is the need for the change? 
The existing legislation provides a practical surround for union access—that is the Employment Relations Act specifies that union access is restricted to “reasonable times” and “a reasonable way having regard to normal business operations in the workplace;” and must comply with any existing health and safety requirements and security procedures. What more does one want? In this case it will be much more complicated for union officials to get on to sites particularly if there is an anti-union employer. Under the provisions in the bill before the House the employer can wait up to 2 days to respond to a request for access and even then the response could be negative. Then the union has to get back and negotiate further. It could go on for days and days. When one talks about an important conflict on the job—perhaps sexual harassment or a personal grievance which often requires immediate attention—the employer can just stuff the union around and hold it off from getting on to the site for days and days. Even in a subsequent court case the wording around access to workplaces is so vague that postponements could be allowed for all sorts of reasons. The wording in the legislation is that the employer can deny access on “reasonably practicable” grounds. 
Then we have the 90-day trial period which is supposed to make it easier for employers to hire labour. When we read the information obtained under the Official Information Act from the Department of Labour in a document to Kate Wilkinson dated 8 June in terms of the trial period that has existed so far we see that it states: “very few employers use them for this purpose”—that is to hire disadvantaged job seekers—“because of the potential high cost of employing a candidate who was not the best or most able candidate selected from a competitive employment market.” The report goes on to state the very thing that the Green Party and others have been saying: “Some employees indicated that they had felt an increased vulnerability by being employed under trial periods.” There will be fear on the job and these workers will be scared to join a union and scared to stand up for their rights because they can be sent down the road at any time in those 90 days for any reason at all. That is disgraceful. It will divide the workplace between those 90-day workers who are scared about everything and the union members who might be a bit more confident. 
Then we have the unfair dismissal procedures through the Employment Court and the like. There is a provision in the bill that if the defects in the employer’s case or the process were minor or technical then the worker can be dismissed. As said by an earlier speaker the bill does not allow redress through re-employment the way there is at present. This means that the worker finds it very hard to get justice if he or she is unfairly dismissed. It is an important principle across all our law that we do not say that because the problems with process were minor and technical people who committed those breaches get off and can in this case do something very damaging to any workers—that is sack them and deny them of their livelihood. Losing a job is very traumatic and we want to keep the disciplines in the Employment Relations Act that employers have to abide by the provisions of the Act if they want to go through with a dismissal. 
Then there is the question of collective bargaining. It is a well-established procedure. The whole concept of collective bargaining is that the union is on one side of the table and the employer’s representatives are on the other side of the table and they negotiate. It completely undermines that process if the union which in this circumstance will often not even be allowed access to the site very often to talk to workers is disadvantaged by that. The officials are outside the workplace finding it hard to get on and day by day the employer is saying to the workers that the union proposal to them is just a load of cobblers. If the supervisors day by day talk to individual employees directly and tell them what they do and do not believe it intimidates the workers so that one cannot have proper collective bargaining on wages conditions or whatever it might happen to be. 
Overall if we take those issues together we see that it is not as Kate Wilkinson said in her introduction to this debate that the opponents of this legislation are blinded by ideology. There are very directly practical matters of concern in this legislation. They affect workers detrimentally in real-life situations. Being dismissed within the first 90 days is real life and a bad thing to happen to someone. Not being able to have one’s representative on the worksite—be it through negotiations over wages or conditions or some immediate issue of bullying or something that has come up in the workplace—is a real-life problem and it makes it harder in the workplace. To be dismissed and not be able to get back one’s job when the process has been wrong is a real-life problem. 
I think that if we add it all up and then add to that what is coming next—we will shortly probably be debating the Holidays Amendment Bill which will require workers to get a doctor’s certificate for just 1 day off sick being made sicker in the process—we see that it is a very serious attack on workers’ rights and a very serious attack on unions. If we look at the situation with unions at the moment in the private sector we see that the level of unionisation is not very high at all. That is to a large extent because of the discouragement of employees by their employers. They say: “You don’t want to join the union do you?” and they sometimes put certain penalties around it. That is what has kept the level of unionisation in the private sector very low—lower than it was in the 1970s and 1980s before the Employment Contracts Act. 
We live in a time when the economy is not growing rapidly and there is relatively high unemployment. That has pushed down workers’ real wages and conditions for 75 percent of workers over the last year. We need strong unions to redress all of those things. Thank you. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou katoa e te Whare. Maori Party policy is to support the right for workers to be treated with dignity and fairness so when the Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson said when introducing the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) that the Government is committed to producing an employment relations system that is fair pragmatic and helps to give New Zealanders more opportunities and flexibility it sounded good. But the relentless increase in unemployment confirms that the 90-day trial employment period that we have had since March last year which this bill aims to extend is having none of the positive effects that the Government has been touting. The statistic showing that 25 percent of those who got jobs under this scheme have since been fired tells us that we were right to oppose the scheme when it first came to the House. Although the Government has been talking about how good the scheme would be for young people I note that the youth unemployment rate has jumped 12 percent since this policy was introduced as well. I also note that the Department of Labour evaluation of this trial employment period says that “[employees] saw it as making them more vulnerable to reduced job security and unfair treatment from employers. This belief was confirmed for the few employees who had been dismissed without explanation and in their view unfairly.” The interesting point is that those comments were not from the unions or from the Opposition; they were from the Government’s Department of Labour condemning the actions of employers who were using this scheme to simply fire people rather than pay them properly. 
The Maori Party concern with the probationary period legislation is that it discourages the very thing that is needed—clear contracts for new employees and good employment induction and training processes to minimise the risk of poor performance. We were told that the 90-day scheme would result in all kinds of employment opportunities for the 7000 Maori and the 2200 Pasifika youth currently unemployed but there is precious little information to suggest that it has. There is no data on how many Maori and Pasifika youth started under the scheme how many were paid more than the minimum rate how many were kept on after the 90-day trial period and how many got a pay increase. That information is important because we know that Maori and Pasifika youth are struggling to get into the workforce in the first place. We know too that they will often accept less than they are due by employers exploiting that legislation for their own benefit. We think that the Government should be focusing on ways to get our rangatahi into work and on keeping them there rather than making it easier to sack them. We will oppose any move that marginalises them especially during the current unemployment crisis and particularly given the leap in the Maori youth unemployment rate over that time from 6 percent to 27 percent. This bill is not fair it is not providing the opportunities for secure sustainable employment and we will not be supporting it. Kia ora tatou. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak in the first reading debate of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). I congratulate the Minister of Labour on bringing the bill to the House. It will make a difference to many many New Zealanders. 
The bill amends the Employment Relations Act 2000. Importantly I want to take some time to talk about the 90-day trial period which is being extended to all businesses. In 2008 the trial was for businesses with fewer than 20 employees. It has been very successful. A recent survey showed that 40 percent of employers would not have hired without it. I want to correct the previous speaker Hone Harawira. I tell him that 75 percent of people hired under that scheme still have jobs and the 25 percent who left did so for a variety of reasons. They usually left in the first few weeks not at day 89 as some cynical people might suggest. 
This scheme has made a real difference in people’s lives. It is giving them an opportunity for a job they would not otherwise have had. This bill is all about giving people choice and opportunity. It is right behind the Government’s objective to increase the number of jobs and also to grow the economy. So I congratulate the Minister on this. 
The other issue is that most OECD countries already have this type of trial period. This is not a radical move by the Minister; this is in line with other OECD countries. In fact their trial periods are longer than 90 days. This is a very moderate scheme. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Hear the old trout brigade over there. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: Absolutely. The other changes to this bill include union access to workplaces. It also clarifies communication with employees during collective bargaining and the personal grievance process. This bill is all about giving choice it is about giving flexibility and it ensures balance and fairness to both employers and employees. I commend this bill to the House. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 It will not surprise anyone in this House that I am vehemently opposed to the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) from a Government that made a commitment to the Council of Trade Unions that it would not rush through legislation and that it would listen. By the Minister’s own acknowledgment union access to workplaces is not a problem; there was no need to change that. But again true to its colours this Government had to go backwards in time. When I talk about backwards in time I ask members to look at the 1990s just very quickly. 
Darien Fenton 
: Who was in Government then? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: It was National and what did it do? The first thing it did when it was in Government then was to scrap the pay equity legislation. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: The very first thing. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: It was the very first thing and it has done exactly the same thing again. What else did National do? It passed the Employment Contracts Act which in those days was recognised as an attack an assault on workers— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: And that member was still a young member then. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Never mind the member chipping in—this Government is doing exactly the same thing again. It has scrapped the apprenticeship legislation which is another way of not creating jobs. That is what the previous National Government did and it had dear old Max Bradford wanting to buy the extra week’s holiday—surprise surprise. 
David Bennett who is sitting there is looking forward to chairing this bill when it comes before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee but I tell members in this House that it is an absolute insult to workers. For the Minister to stand there and talk about fairness and balance is utterly and completely ridiculous. 
This bill is unfair it is unbalanced but most important it is unnecessary. We heard Jackie Blue turning round the figures. She said that because of this bill 75 percent of the few people who managed to get a job in New Zealand managed to keep their job. 
Hon Kate Wilkinson 
: They did. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I can see the Minister nodding over there but what it actually means is that 25 percent of workers in New Zealand were dumped in the first 3 months. That was just in a select group of workplaces but this Government is now saying “Oh gosh we are not doing it tough enough. We will extend that to every workplace in New Zealand.” It is absolutely shocking stuff. 
We heard a Maori Party member say that there is no job creation under this Government; it is actually preventing employment. We know that. It is pretty rich when we look around this House that anyone can be sacked from a job during the first 90 days for any reason whatsoever and that reason does not have to be given. It might be that an employer does not like the clothes an employee wears. It might be that an employer does not like the employee’s haircut. No reason needs to be given. I say to this House that if a young person’s first experiment I mean experience—or experiment because it is an experiment—of work is to be sacked with no cause and no reason given how does that set up that young person for the future? This is a Government that is supposed to care. 
But the other thing again in line with a Government that does not think about creating or keeping jobs is reinstatement. If as a result of a personal grievance a worker loses a job and it is deemed to be unfair surely it is right that that worker should have the right to get back that job. Is that not fair? If an employer has sacked a worker and that worker is lucky enough to have access to personal grievance proceedings because he or she has been working for that employer for more than 3 months and if it is deemed that the employer botched up why in the middle of a recession with no recovery happening would a Government remove reinstatement as the primary remedy? Why would it do that? It is a mean-spirited and mean-willed action from a mean Government. 
This Government is doing this despite all the rhetoric about caring and I think that is what we on this side of the House find so offensive. It is saying that it cares so it is going to make it easier for workers to be sacked. It is saying that it cares so it says that if workers are unjustifiably sacked then reinstatement is not a primary remedy. I would like the Minister or someone in National to take a call to explain to this House why a worker who has been dismissed without cause and without justification cannot have his or her job back. I urge someone in National—perhaps Tau Henare would be able to— 
Darien Fenton 
: He’s very reasonable. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: He is a reasonable person and he has had experience of representing workers—not in a very good way I will accept but he has had experience none the less. 
This is a sad day for workers in New Zealand. The fact that this bill will be hurried through the select committee process in order to be reported back to the House in November will be a nice Christmas present for workers in New Zealand. 
Darien Fenton 
: Here we go again. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Here we go again. We know who will be the worst affected by this bill. Who will it be? We have seen an example of workplace bullying with poor Heather Roy and we all have a lot of sympathy for Heather Roy in terms of the workplace bullying that we have seen today. I can see Sir Roger nodding his head there and thinking it is not on. But Heather Roy still has a job. We are looking at young workers vulnerable workers who will not have an opportunity to stay in their job—a job that they may have worked really really hard to get. This Government is removing that right. 
I also want to draw attention to what we have seen in the short time that this Government has been in power. We still have languishing on the Order Paper victims’ rights legislation that would give real support to victims of domestic violence in New Zealand. But the Minister says that legislation will be introduced when the Government can afford it. The legislation is languishing on the Order Paper until the Government can afford it and instead this Government is racing through legislation that once again is dealing to workers. 
I would have more respect for Government members if they said that they launched it at the National Party conference because they know their constituency likes dealing to workers. They like it; that is part of what National is about. If they said that we would at least respect them for a degree of honesty. But they say “We’re from the National Party and we are here to help workers.” Well I do not think anyone certainly no one on this side of the House believes that. I know that in their heart of hearts National members do not believe that either. It is just like their welfare reforms. They are there to help people into work. What do we say? Find the jobs. Invest in people invest in the economy create the jobs and then people will work and they will be able to keep their jobs. Do not take away their right to get a job. As Ken Douglas said his grandad said to him that when one gets a job look after it because someone worked very hard— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: That dinosaur. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: That is rich coming from that member. That is a doozy coming from that member. Calling people dinosaurs; that is a real doozy. 
This bill is an insult to workers in New Zealand it is an insult to families in New Zealand and it is something that should not happen. I am really pleased that members on this side of the House along with the Green Party and the Maori Party are vehemently opposed to this bill. I say to the Government that there will be many submissions before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee telling this Government what a lousy job it is doing in industrial relations and what a bad Minister of Labour it has. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT Party— 
Hone Harawira 
: He wasn’t going to speak. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS 
: No I was not going to speak but the member got me so excited. 
ACT supports the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). In particular I want to talk about just one provision and that is the extension of the 90-day provision. What we have on the other side of the House—it is really interesting to listen to the Labour Party—are the unionists advocating protection for existing workers and locking out the disadvantaged. That is essentially what the Labour members’ argument is. They wrap it up but essentially they want to support and extend the privilege of existing workers and they want to limit any possible competition from disadvantaged people. They want to lock out young Maori people and they want to lock out our Pacific Island people from getting one foot on the ladder. 
We know from the provisions that have already been passed that 40 percent of the people who got a job would not have got a job otherwise. In other words those people got a start; they got a step up on the rung. Labour and the unions want to lock out the most vulnerable people in society so that they cannot get a step up on the ladder. They do not want to allow them to get a start. 
We know what they said about youth rates. Labour members were not in favour of youth rates. They are not in favour of a young Maori boy being able to work for $300 a week. No those members say in the name of so-called justice— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. We do not have interjections from members on their feet. Members should interject from their own seats. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS 
: I was enjoying the interjections. I certainly was not worried. What Labour members say in terms of those young people is that they are not happy for them to work. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to check that we are debating the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) and not the youth minimum wage legislation that the member moved. I think he might be slightly stuck in the past. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you for those comments. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS 
: I am making the point that their objections are similar in terms of this bill. They are saying to that young Maori boy that he is not allowed to work for $300 a week but that they will be very generous to him and give him $160 a week so he can stay home. Labour is saying that if those people want supplementary income they should join a gang or if they are female have a child. 
The simple point is that this bill aims to allow the disadvantaged the most vulnerable people in our society to get a step up on the ladder. When they get that step up they can go anywhere. They can climb. That is what Labour wants to deny. Labour wants to protect existing workers at the expense of the unemployed and the disadvantaged. So when Labour members come in here and cry crocodile tears we should not take any notice of them at all. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 Members have been playing a little bit of “my statistic is bigger than your statistic” over this debate and I am very happy to play that game as well particularly in relation to the Department of Labour report on how effective this measure has been for the last 18 months in respect of firms with fewer than 20 employees. We have heard from Sir Roger Douglas and others that 40 percent of those people who were offered jobs would not have got them had there not been a trial period but I ask how many employers actually took advantage of the 90-day probation period at all. We have heard great statements from members opposite— 
Sue Moroney 
: Was the job there already or was it not there? Did they make up a new job for them? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: There is another statement. We are hearing that everyone will use the provision and that when we extend it out to firms with more than 20 people absolutely all employers will use it. But I say that that is absolutely not the case. Fewer than half of the firms eligible to use this provision did so—fewer than half—and only about half of the people employed by that half of employers were taken on under the probation period. So of all the people who could have been employed under a probation period by my maths probably only about a quarter of them were. 
But what is really interesting is why those people were taken on. Nearly a quarter of employers said that they were not sure whether work was available for employees or that they had given a job to someone who might not otherwise have got it; they were not sure whether the person could do the job. To be opposed to that sort of thing and to prevent even one job from being created in the face of uncertainty is to have no understanding of how to run a business during a recovery from a recession a recovery that is uncertain and fragile. If one has a small business—if one is a landscape gardener or a plumber with five or six staff—taking on an extra staff member is a huge risk an absolutely huge risk in the face of that uncertainty. To give a little bit more flexibility— 
Sue Moroney 
: The Prime Minister won’t like you calling it fragile. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: It is a fragile recovery and it is uncertain particularly from the point of view of employers. That is what the surveys are showing and they show that because people cannot see into the future. 
I take up the point made by Mr Harawira about this measure being bad for young people. But 43 percent of the people taken on under these provisions were aged under 25. Nearly half of the people given a chance under this measure were young people so I think this is good legislation. It is fair it is flexible and I support it. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I would just like to make a remark about the speech made by Sir Roger Douglas—and unfortunately he has not remained in the House—but it is hard to take him seriously given that he presided over one of the biggest— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Members are not supposed to say whether a member is in the House. It is pretty plain. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you for that. The member cannot refer to the absence of a member from the House. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: I apologise Mr Deputy Speaker. 
I want to talk a bit about what this Government is. My colleague Darren Hughes today quite accurately described it as a mirage because ultimately it does not mean what it says. This Government does a thing called Orwellian language. Orwellian language means an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda surveillance misinformation denial of truth and manipulation of the past. The Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson stood in the House at question time today and again during her first reading speech and described this Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) as fair and reasonable. Let me tell the House what fair and reasonable means according to this Government. It means unfair and unreasonable. Every time this Government says certain words we know that it means something else—the opposite. The Minister said that the bill was not major and that it was only a little change. That means it is a big change. It is just like when Tony Ryall talks constantly about change in health—change that equals cuts. Bill English talks about change in the public sector and reprioritisation—words that mean cuts; cuts to people’s services and cuts to people’s jobs. The icing on the cake is “aspirational” which means that the Government does not really mean it. We are aspirational about closing the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia. We are aspirational about creating 170000 jobs—was it? 
Grant Robertson 
: Something like that. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: It was something like that. 
Unfortunately the Government is not aspirational about this bill. It really means it but it is not a small change that is fair and reasonable. It is a major shift towards fundamentally affecting the relationship between employers and employees in our New Zealand workplaces. It is taking us backwards as a country. It will affect the morale and the productivity of employees of hard-working New Zealanders of people who earn wages and salaries and of people who are not liars and slackers. It will make workplaces harder to be in. It will entrench unfairness in our employment relations system and it will not do anything to address the fact that we do not have enough jobs in this country and we do not have an economic plan. If the Australian Labor Party wins the election on Saturday it will make Australia an even more attractive place to head for with higher wages and more jobs in an environment that encourages and enables working people and does not make them feel bad. 
Labour opposes this bill. I commend all my colleagues for their efforts to expose this bill for what it really is—an assault on workers’ rights wages and conditions. It demonstrates that the Government is implicitly saying at the outset: “We don’t care about fairness or treating employees as a valuable resource.” It is a continuation of National’s attack on workers’ rights wages and conditions. These amendments are unfair unbalanced and unnecessary. As I said it is a backward step for New Zealand. It will undermine the ability of New Zealand employees to improve their wages and working conditions. 
I will talk briefly about a couple of the measures: firstly the 90-day trial period which will let employers sack employees for no justifiable reason within 90 days of taking a new job. With an estimated 700000 people changing jobs every year and about 300000 at any one time in their first 90 days the legislation will have a grave effect on most workers. I know that one of my other colleagues called it sloppy and bad management practice. It will allow and encourage employers to substitute dismissal for sound appointment and induction and good supervision and training for new employees. It will lead to considerable abuse and bad practice; it will not increase employment or work towards closing that gap with Australia. During the 1990s the Employment Contracts Act allowed many of these practices so the legislation is going backwards; it is going back to the future. The result of that bad practice and the destruction of unions was low wages. In the 1990s after inflation the average wage rose only 6 percent over the 10 years that the legislation was in force and studies of this period show that exports were built on low wages and low skills rather than on high value. That was the period when most of the growth gap with Australia opened up so I ask whether that is what we are heading for again. 
I will give just a few examples of real people who have been affected by the existing 90-day law. A woman in Auckland worked at a bar but got the sack because—she thought—her employer wanted to hire younger people. There was nothing wrong with the quality of her work; it was just her age. But as I was told how could she prove it? She could not and had to leave. That was not fair. A man in Wellington gave up a good job to go and work in a public relations company. He got to the new job and discovered that builders were doing renovations and he did not have an office. He did not have a job. A young worker at Burger Fuel was dismissed for asking for a tea break. That worker had no ability to defend himself; it was not fair. Twenty-two percent of people employed on the 90-day trial basis to date have lost their jobs but if there was a problem with the quality of the work being done or with behaviour in the workplace they could be dismissed fairly. Why should we make it legal to dismiss workers unfairly? It goes against the grain it goes against the New Zealand psyche and it goes against the essence of what it means to be a New Zealander. It legislates for bad employers and bad employment practices—bad law. I did not come into this place to see bad law being enacted. 
I will also speak about restricting union access which is an ideological and deliberate attack on the democratic right of workers to join unions and resolve workplace issues. There are campaigns nationwide on the streets in which workers and unions are protesting against this unjust and unfair legislation. The House has heard from Labour and Green members about this today; it is about fairness. This Government has at least now shown its true colours; it pretended to like the unions and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions for the first 19 months of its term. But all of a sudden this legislation has shown what Government members really think: keep unions out of workplaces. I heard Kate Wilkinson say at question time today that the legislation had just a small change that provided discretion to employers to be able to plan. But I ask: plan for what? It is a plan to be able to block union representatives from workplaces if there is any whiff of trouble—in other words to prevent employees from exercising their rights to be represented in their workplaces. 
At the same time we know there is actually no need for the change. The regulatory impact statement noted that there did not appear to be widespread evidence of union representatives exercising their current rights to enter workplaces in an inappropriate way resulting in disruption for business operations or in an adverse impact on the employment relationship between employer and union members. Having lived in Australia for a few years during the 1990s I saw what happened when the Howard Government unfairly took on the unions and workers interfered with that relationship between working people and their employers and tried to skew it to the side of employers. Many thousands—hundreds of thousands—of people took to the streets over it and the Prime Minister had to back down because it was fundamentally unfair. It is a short-sighted attack on workers and it will have negative consequences not only for working people but for the initiatives to change our workplaces into the productive—and it just appals me to hear Government members say exactly the opposite—well-rewarded places they need to be for real growth in the economy. 
I will mention a few things about National’s past record on workers’ rights. Too many of the Ministers in the current Government are from National’s school of the 1990s which taught that workers’ rights should be secondary to business profits. National has a shocking record on workers’ rights but it tried to put on a smiley face at the last election and pretend that things would be different this time. But they are not and they are clearly not. The first thing that National did in Government in the 1990s was to repeal the last thing that Labour had passed the employment equity legislation and in 1991 the National Government passed the Employment Contracts Act. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Mr Speaker— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: This will be a bottler. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: This will be a bottler all right. Back in 1966 there was the FIFA World Cup final between England and West Germany. For years later a battle raged over who actually won that game. The battle went on and on. Well this debate is a bit like that because Labour members are fighting the old battles that were won and lost a long long time ago. 
I heard the lady from west Auckland Lynne Pillay who talked about the Employment Contracts Act and how this bill the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) resembled that Act. But if that were the case thousands upon thousands of down-trodden workers would be piled up outside. The last big protest that had thousands of people parked up outside this building was over the foreshore and seabed legislation. That is a telling little example. Who won that game? The Maori Party won that game—and England won the World Cup back in 1966. The Employment Contracts Act is so long ago that it does not bear even mentioning. 
I will get up in this House and say a big thankyou to Sir Roger Douglas because he has hit the nail on the head. Putting all the philosophy and the old rhetoric aside this bill is about hope. It is about giving people a second chance. All we need to do is ask an ex-prisoner who is looking for a job— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: A bottler. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely! Oh no I mean somebody who has actually been convicted—oh but that is OK. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No no—someone who’s bottled someone and cut their head open. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Let us not go there. 
This is about opportunity this is about giving a chance and this is about giving hope to the ex-prisoner who may want to get a job and get on the rung that Sir Roger Douglas talks about. 
Where are all those thousands and thousands of union protests? They are nowhere. They are nowhere to be seen. In fact the only place that they are seen is in the minds of the Opposition members. I tell members that my parting shot is this: they should go and look at the film  
Inception 
 because that is where the Opposition belongs—in dreamtime. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee consider the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) 
 that the committee report to the House on or before 5 November 2010 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to.