Mackey Moana: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mackey Moana: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is absolutely unbelievable that on an issue as important as the Holidays Amendment Bill National members are making 5-second speeches and not bothering to address any of the issues being raised by members on this side of the House. It shows the level of contempt those members have for the people who will be the worst affected by this bill: the wage earners and salary earners in New Zealand particularly those at the lower end of the income scale. 
I endorse the comments made by members from the Labour Party the Greens and Maori Party on this particular legislation. It shows just how out of touch National members are with the reality for working people that those members think working people have some kind of choice over whether they cash up the fourth week’s holiday. Roger Douglas’ contribution was unbelievable. This bill is not about choice. When the decision is between being able to pay the bills and having that extra week’s leave that is not choice. I suggest that members in this House get out of their ivory towers and go and talk to some of the families who are really struggling. They should go and tell them stories about sandcastles on the beach. 
David Bennett 
: Yeah you’d better go out and talk to them. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: David Bennett is sitting over there signing his Christmas cards. I am sure he will get a nice break with his family over the holidays but is it not ironic that he is taking away a lot of the protections that currently exist under the law to ensure that all working people in New Zealand can enjoy time with their families particularly on days of importance such as Christmas Day? This legislation is not about choice for those families; they have no choice. If we take Roger Douglas’ argument to its logical conclusion poor people are just choosing not to live in mansions. They are choosing not to be able to afford food. If they are being kicked out of their houses because they cannot pay their rent they have just chosen not to pay their rent; that is right. 
We are passing this legislation which will put workers in the unenviable position of having to trade off time with their family time to regenerate and rejuvenate and time to ensure they are more productive when they go back to work because they cannot afford to pay the bills. National members have talked as though it is a positive thing that workers will be cashing up leave and as though those members are really proud of their record in Government so far which has seen unemployment soar. The people who are unemployed and those who are in work have seen the cost of living go up and up. National increased GST to 15 percent earlier this year despite promising during the election campaign that it would not increase GST. Well that has hit low-income families the hardest. Those are the very families who because they have not had a pay increase will find themselves in the position of having to cash up a week’s leave—which would have been time with their kids and their family—in order to pay the bills. 
It is also important to point out that a lot of the workers who will be put in this position will be shift workers. These people work hours that mean they do not get to see their families. It is not a nine-to-five job from which they go home at the end of the night and still get some time with their kids and with their husbands or wives. A lot of these people work more than one job. A lot of them work at night; they are the people who come into our offices at midnight to clean them. They are the people who come in at midnight to clean our offices and the people who leave for work as their kids are getting home from school. That makes their annual leave even more precious. 
When people work in a job that means they do not get to see their families very often it means that those 4 weeks become even more precious. When people are put in the position of having to give up that fourth week’s leave—a week with their kids and with their families—because they are not getting a pay increase and cannot pay the bills they find it hard to bear and it is even harder for those families. This bill is from a National-led Government that says that it is family-friendly—family-friendly! Everything this Government has done to undermine the conditions of workers in New Zealand goes against the rhetoric that says it is family-friendly. This is possibly one of the least family-friendly pieces of legislation we have seen in this Parliament so far. 
It is interesting that National and ACT members see annual leave only in terms of its dollar cost. They do not see any value in it other than what it costs in dollars. They do not see the benefits for families. They do not see that productivity increases in the workplace because workers are rested and because they feel as though they have had some proper time with their families. As my colleague Darien Fenton said those members see annual leave just as a commodity—one more thing in this world that can be bought sold and traded with no other intrinsic value at all—and that approach is absolutely wrong. 
I will now talk about the argument that annual leave is a property right. This feeds into the idea that annual leave is just something to be bought and sold. We have heard throughout the course of this debate from National and ACT members that annual leave or holidays is a property right. Well I want to know where the respect for property rights was when this Government passed legislation earlier this year taking annual leave from people who are entitled to accident compensation. 
Two workers in the same position have the same accident and end up being unable to work and they both get the same entitlement to ACC. One worker is owed no annual leave because he or she has already taken it all and the other worker is owed 4 weeks because he or she has been saving it up for time at home over Christmas or whatever. The Government now says that the worker who has already taken all of his or her leave at the time of the accident gets ACC but the worker who is owed 4 weeks’ annual leave—4 weeks that has been saved up—has to use up that leave first before getting the accident compensation entitlement. 
I ask where the respect for property rights was when the National Government took away those holidays. The Government will say whatever suits it at the time and the inconsistency between the arguments coming from the Government needs to be pointed out. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: That is scurrilous. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is scurrilous; I agree with Mr Woodhouse. It is absolutely scurrilous. 
David Bennett 
: Tell the truth. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I know this is a touchy subject for David Bennett. David Bennett is the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. He also took only a 5-second call on this legislation. David Bennett actually stopped a lot of submitters from appearing at the select committee and restricted the time that Opposition members had to question submitters. It was a shame that he did not feel it was necessary to take more than a 5-second call given his position as the chair of the select committee and the fact that he gets an extra $10000 a year for being the chair of a select committee. I suggest that that is hardly good value for money. 
I will now talk about the issue of the sick leave changes. Currently under the law if employers have reason to believe that someone is rorting the sick leave provisions they can require a medical certificate and that is absolutely just and fair—absolutely fair. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: It costs $69 to go and get it. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It costs $69 in Gisborne if one has to go to the doctor on a weekend. If someone is obviously taking lots of Fridays and Mondays off or the boss sees that person on TV at the rugby when he or she should be at work then absolutely the employer can require a medical certificate. But this change says that if someone is sick for 1 day then the employer has the ability to require a medical certificate. That is completely impractical. 
All the evidence we had at the select committee said that this amendment cannot work. It would be impossible for all those workers to get access to a general practitioner anyway and if it is just a cold or the flu any doctor would just tell those people to not bother going in to get lots of rest and fluids and so on. Well employees now have to go to a doctor if their employer tells them that they want a medical certificate. It is total ideology over practicality in the extreme and the ridiculous thing is that employers can already require a medical certificate. The only thing this bill is changing is that employers no longer have to have any reason to suspect that someone is rorting it. Members opposite keep saying that that will not happen. Well of course what will happen is that it completely changes the situation for employees who are sick because regardless of whether employers do go on to require a medical certificate they know that they can do that when their employees get sick. 
Employees know that when they get sick their employers can require a medical certificate so they will just go into work. What we know what the select committee was told and what officials told the Government—and what it chose to ignore—is that firstly New Zealanders on average take far less sick leave than workers in the rest of the OECD countries that we compare ourselves with and secondly the biggest cost to businesses when it comes to sick leave is not the cost of employees taking sick leave but the cost of them turning up to work and making everyone else sick and the lost productivity that comes from that. The evidence is absolutely irrefutable— 
Darien Fenton 
: It came from Treasury. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It came from Treasury which is hardly the most liberal left-wing Government department there is. Mr Power thinks that is under question. But Treasury does not take these things lightly. It tends to be very conservative about these matters and it has said the biggest issue is that employees go to work when they are sick. We have legislation here that will only exacerbate that position by scaring workers into thinking that if they do not go into work they will be required to provide a medical certificate for a common cold. That is ridiculous.