Pillay Lynne: Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15218] 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to stand alongside the other youngsters in the Labour Party and denigrate the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I was one of those people who had a bit of fun with this bill when it first came to the House. We knew that every union ran a secret ballot before a strike and we thought it was all a bit of nonsense. But then when the bill went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and submitters pointed out the perils and the bureaucracy that the bill would bring about common sense prevailed. I acknowledge my Labour colleagues and the Green Party. They listened to the majority of submitters and said that common sense had to prevail and that this bill should not proceed. 
Mr Peachey the great educationalist put out a challenge to us. He told us to get in touch with workers. I can tell Mr Peachey that we have been in touch with education workers a lot over the last few weeks from early childhood education workers through to tertiary education workers. We went to the early childhood teachers recently. There was a packed hall of about 300. They are so over this Government and the cuts to the quality of their teaching. Then we talked to the primary teachers. They are so over this Government. This is what the Government wants us to do to get in touch with workers. We got in touch with education workers. The Post Primary Teachers Association is in turmoil. So is the tertiary sector. 
What we are seeing under this Government is more strife and turmoil and more strikes actually than we have seen in the last 9 years. This shows the cheek of silly old Allan Peachey saying we are going backwards. Well what did National do when it came into Government in the 1990s? It got rid of pay equity. It got rid of the Apprenticeship Act. It introduced the Employment Contracts Act. National is a party that goes “Kapow!” and flip-flops backwards. Its members cannot help themselves. Chester Borrows is looking nothing short of embarrassed. He is not a bad guy. He has to be the best select committee chairperson in this House. 
Paul Quinn 
: What about me? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I will not even comment on Paul Quinn. He has made a complete idiot of himself today with his bill and he is closely followed by Tau Henare. 
This bill is absolutely ridiculous. For a party that wants to cut bureaucracy it is just a joke. This bill is nothing short of nanny State. Red tape; nanny State—that is the National Government. And for what? Where is the problem? Labour members of the select committee put forward a proposal and said we did not disagree that there should be a ballot regarding strike action and that we should just make it so that unions have to provide for it. Would that not have been a more common-sense solution? Would that not have been sensible? Would that not have been a little bit less 1990s? But no duh this National Government just could not get it—it just could not get it. It just could not work it out because its members do not understand. For National members to sit over there in their seats in the peanut gallery saying that they are in touch with workers has to be the biggest joke. I have never seen so many annoyed workers in New Zealand in my life—not since the 1990s. 
We have talked about the teachers we have talked about health workers and then we see Judith Collins. The poor Department of Corrections staff are subjected to having her as a Minister. It is just another shambles. This Government sits over there and wastes the Committee’s time. We have good bills on the Order Paper that my good friend Charles Chauvel has assisted in drafting and these bills would help to improve life for New Zealanders. But no this is the Government that wants to deal to workers. 
I will go back to that early childhood meeting. Someone put up their hand and asked why it was that the Government does not get it? This is really annoying teachers right across the spectrum. Most people have a lot of respect for teachers. We said to them that it was because the Government does not talk about teachers nurses or doctors; it talks about unions. The Government is not interested in workers’ rights. It thinks that if it attacks unions and implies that unions are the dinosaurs that Tau Henare is then that will somehow justify the old archaic and really silly polices that it puts out like the 90-day “sack at will” bill and restricting the rights of union officials to go to workplaces. It just goes on. 
We all know that and anybody who has been a union official would know that—and I am really proud that I have been a union official—except Tau Henare. I do not think he was in touch with his members. I do not want to get personal but we all know that he was a bit of a bully. I think he never took the time. He was one those union officials who fortunately we do not see much of now. He was a bit of a bully and he just tried to tell people what they should do. That is not the case now. Unions are accountable to their members. We do not promote strike action unless it is absolutely essential. It is becoming more essential under this Government. It is becoming more essential more common under this Government but it is a last resort. Nobody wants to see workers withdraw their labour and lose money unless it is absolutely necessary. A secret ballot is held because that is what members of a union believe is the right thing to do. 
But the other reason—and this is why it is so important—is that there has to be a clear mandate. If workers do not vote to go on strike and if they do not believe in what they are doing then they simply will not go on strike. No one makes them do it. They do it because they are so annoyed as workers are when they all protest. No one drags those workers down to outside of Parliament and says: “You tell this Government how lousy they are.” They do it all by themselves—they do it all by themselves. All the petitions that they bring down to Parliament to these grounds often out in the rain to tell this Government how bad it is for workers—they are not told to do that. They do it of their own free will. 
This bill is a joke. It is an absolute joke. We could have let it go but the point is that it does create mischief and there could be mischief. What would mischief mean? It would mean that an employer could challenge a legitimate strike action. I tell members that Tau Henare is a mischievous man. If anyone has said anything it is that he is a bit of a scamp. [ 
Interruption 
] He is not offended; he is flattered. Look at him: he has got a big smile on his face. He is full of mischief. He is laughing up there. He is sitting in the back seat laughing thinking: “This is all a bit silly but I have had a bit of fun with this.” The reality is that he has made the National Government again look really really silly. It looks really silly out of touch and back to the 1990s. That is not where labour relations should be in this country. Labour relations should be where unions are fully democratic and accountable to their members because members join voluntarily. They are not like Tau. In his day members did not want him as their union official—who would blame them? He said that it was compulsory unionism and that they had to have him. Unions do not operate like that in this country now. People join of their own free will because they need protection particularly when they have a Government like this which is so anti-union and anti-worker. 
This bill is offensive. It is offensive to workers it is offensive to unions and it is offensive to the Labour Party. Thank you.