Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Breaks Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mapp Wayne: Employment Relations (Breaks Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18202. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I will speak on three issues in relation to the third reading of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. The first issue is the general principles of the bill which the previous Government speaker Sue Moroney spoke about. Then I will speak specifically about KiwiSaver issues. Thirdly I will speak about process and procedure—the way legislative issues are dealt with.  
On the first issue let me make it completely clear to listeners to governing party members and to other parties that National supports this bill. The reasons we support this bill are the reasons that were given by Sue Moroney. We believe that people—women in particular—must have dignity in the workplace in respect of breastfeeding and so forth. That is why we support the bill. We had an extensive discussion in our caucus and we understood that fairness requires that employees have proper opportunities for meal breaks and that mothers breastfeeding must have dignity in appropriate circumstances. So National is supporting the bill and I assure listeners that the reasons we are doing so are ones of fairness. The reason this bill is being passed into law today is that there is a consensus in Parliament. I know that the Government would like us to be voting against the bill. That would suit its agenda and I could tell that from Sue Moroney’s speech. I could tell that she was kind of disappointed that National is supporting this bill. She really wanted to be able to go out into Hamilton East and say that David Bennett does not understand the circumstances of workers needing tea breaks and that he does not understand the circumstances of mothers breastfeeding. Well she will not have that opportunity.  
Perhaps in the past the National Party may not have supported this bill. I can think of a National Party that may not have supported the bill but the truth is that our party has shifted to some extent on some of these issues. That is why we have taken a much more moderate stand around employment relations generally and I congratulate my colleague Kate Wilkinson in respect of that. We understand that New Zealanders expect fairness in the workplace and that the law must reflect that as well. That is why we are not saying there will be wholesale and dramatic changes made to the Employment Relations Act. Clearly we will make some changes and they will be moderate and reasonable changes that are the norm in the OECD. The standard operating practice if you will across OECD countries is essentially where National is pitching itself because we are taking a balanced and fair view in relation to employment relations. 
Peter Brown 
: Same old philosophy! 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I know that New Zealand First will be interested to know that we are taking a fair and balanced view on that particular issue. That is a particular stake in the ground that I want to put: National has shifted on this issue.  
The other two issues I will talk about relate more fundamentally to issues of firstly KiwiSaver and secondly process. National has voted against the Supplementary Order Paper in relation to KiwiSaver. We believe that the situation is actually quite different from the way in which the Government expresses it. The way the Government expresses it is to say that it is unfair that someone who is in KiwiSaver potentially might receive less in his or her take-home pay than someone who is not. Actually if members look at it the other way around they will see that it is also unfair because the Government is also saying by that statement that it is fair that the person who is not receiving KiwiSaver would get less money in terms of total remuneration purposes. That is the philosophical objection that National has. We say that employers and employees start from a total remuneration perspective and then from there they will work out how it is delivered. The vast majority of it will be received as a cash payment via salary and wages. Some people might choose to take for instance a company car. Others may take other fringe benefits. Others will take superannuation and all of that needs to be calculated. I certainly appreciate that clearly there is value in cash received right now as opposed to the deferment in terms of KiwiSaver.  
The way we view this is philosophically different from the way the Government sees it. We start from the point of total remuneration. The Government simply does not see that and that is why it has never really understood the objection of the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) which looked into this particular issue very carefully; it simply refused to understand it. We can understand the point that has been made about the tax credit and there is some merit in that but of course that gets taken into account in any event in negotiations on total remuneration. That is the proper starting point in the contemporary workforce around how one receives one’s salary—part in cash part in superannuation and part no doubt in many instances in other fringe benefits. 
The third issue I want to deal with is the process of Supplementary Order Paper 229. It is actually a broader principle anyway because in the last 24 hours we have seen a pattern whereby the Government introduces Supplementary Order Papers in a way that does not allow for proper consideration. I could understand a Supplementary Order Paper on this particular bill for instance being introduced last week giving time for a dialogue time for members of Parliament to talk to the relevant parties affected and so forth and time for a more considered debate but to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper on—essentially—a new topic on the day the bill comes before the Committee of the whole House is I believe an abuse of the process.  
I refer Government members back to a former Labour Prime Minister’s book  
Unbridled Power 
—published some 29 years ago in fact—in which he spoke of these kinds of issues. The way the New Zealand Parliament was characterised back then was that it was the fastest lawmaker in the West. What are the characteristics of being a fast lawmaker? It is actually about the House being in urgency all the time or at least on a regular basis in relation to bills. It is about introducing large Supplementary Order Papers which is the case in respect of the emissions trading scheme into the select committee process at a time when they can no longer be properly considered.  
In relation to the emissions trading scheme 700 amendments were introduced at the very point in time that the bill was to be debated. I read many of those amendments yesterday. Some of them were actually complex in their own right. They had to be referred back to both the bill itself and the prior Supplementary Order Paper. Members had to mesh all that together during the debate in the Committee of the whole House. Some of the amendments clearly were just technical. I guess there is no real objection about a minor technical amendment such as for example schedule one being described as “schedule 1” as opposed to “schedule one”. Clearly no one has concerns about that. But other amendments were not of that character at all particularly around some of the trading issues.  
I use that as an example because just very recently—and it has been recorded in both the major legal publications in New Zealand—Professor Jeremy Waldron of the New York University school of law spoke in New Zealand of the “terribly irresponsible” view of our parliamentary institutions that has “enabled the debasement”—and I want this to be noted specifically—“of deliberation.” Bear in mind that this Parliament does not have a second Chamber. Second Chambers historically are for deliberation and scrutiny. A single Chamber such as this—the legislature as in Australia and other countries—tends to operate more quickly. That is OK when there is a more deliberative process but in our jurisdiction we do not have that so it behoves Governments to be a little bit more careful to allow that debate to take place. I have to say to the parties that are here because of our MMP system of representation that MMP has not actually changed that aspect of our parliamentary institution. It has changed other aspects—and I must say from my own perspective that it is generally for the good—but that particular aspect has not changed at all. Anyone who was a member of Parliament in the 1970s or 1980s under first past the post would see today’s legislative processes as being essentially the same.  
It seems fundamentally wrong that in 2008 we are still beset with exactly the same set of problems that Sir Geoffrey Palmer referred to 29 years ago in his book  
Unbridled Power 
. So many members on the other side of the Chamber pride themselves on their constitutionalism and their care for parliamentary procedure. At least they say that in theory; in practice they abuse it. National is putting on the record our dissatisfaction of the way the Supplementary Order Paper for this bill was introduced. We need that on the record because frankly this Parliament for the benefit of the nation needs to do better.