Flavell Te Ururoa: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee Recommittal Third Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee Recommittal Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:475] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker kia ora tatou katoa e te Whare i tenei ata kua rarauika mai ki roto i te Whare nei ki te wananga i nga take o te wa. E te Kaihautu koia te pai o tenei kirimana i waenganui i a maua te Pati Maori me te Ropu Nahinara he ra tona kotahi te korero he ra tona kua rereke te korero. I tenei rangi ko te mea tuarua te mea ka whakaarahia ake i tenei ra. Penei taku korero i etahi rangi e orite ana te korero o te Pati Maori me te Ropu Nahinara. I etahi wa kua rereke te korero. I te rangi kotahi tera pea koi nei te ara. Koi ra. Hei whaiwhai haere i tera korero me haere tonu nga korero mo te wa poto. Te tikanga o tenei pire he tautoko i te hunga kua roa e noho ana i te koremahi me te rangatahi me te Maori.  
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to us all the House gathered here this morning to debate the business of the day. The good thing about this coalition between us the Maori Party and the National Party is that there will be days when we will be of one mind and days when we will agree to disagree. The second option will apply today. Indeed the situation could well change throughout any given day. But that is what the coalition between us is about where we will work together some days and against each other on other days. To pursue that line of thought I will continue for just a little while longer. The purpose of this bill is to support those as well as young people and Maori who have been without work for a long period of time 
.]  
I do not want to take too long a call. The purpose of this bill from the Maori Party’s perspective is supposedly to assist the long-term unemployed the young and Maori—the assumption being I suppose that our people are being done a favour by being given some expectant belief that there will be some benefits down the line. Our fear however is that the economic downturn we are facing will in the near future have long-term effects on the unemployed and the young as well as on the new group of the middle-aged recently made redundant the majority of whom are likely to be Maori. According to some korero i roto i te reo Maori tera pea kua whiua te kumara kua pirau; some might say—and I am translating—that we have been thrown a fermented kumara. Drips from the roof have fallen on the kumara it has become wet and it has become fermented. 
The Government is trying to convince us that this bill is a good deal but to us this bill is no different from the one the Maori Party has referred to in the past as the “mini-Mapp bill” or indeed the 200-hour new-entrant legislation passed by the last administration. From our perspective the 200-hour new-entrant legislation discriminated against the young. It was promoted by the Greens and was taken over by Labour. We voted against that legislation and we got criticised by Labour for it. We are now voting against the legislation before the House and look who is coming with us! The one thing I hope we can say is that we are being consistent. 
We opposed Mr Mapp’s 90-day bill. We did support his bill’s first reading for the purpose of it being scrutinised by the select committee. Unfortunately we are not able to do that at this point in time because this bill is being dealt with under urgency. We would have hoped that that scrutiny would happen again to give the public an opportunity to make submissions. 
We supported young workers in seeking their rights and ensuring that they were not discriminated against and we were unfortunately criticised by Labour speakers. Darien Fenton criticised our stand in supporting rangatahi workers. In fact she criticised us because we had principles. Well that is a criticism we are happy to bear. At the time we asked what was wrong with the notion that if a person does adult-type work that person should get adult-type pay. We do not need a 200-hour new-entrant rate to prove that sort of stuff. 
As I said at the beginning of this short call with the economic downturn heading our way we believe that there is likely to be a huge pool of unemployed people. There will be a recycling of the pool of recently unemployed and redundant workers. The only opportunity from the Maori Party perspective that this bill offers is for unscrupulous employers to exploit the huge pool of vulnerable ex-workers. Many of these people are our people and now is not the time for legislation that exploits one group of people the vulnerable—the people I spoke about yesterday. It is more a time to show some compassion and uphold some rights for those workers. That is what we call manaakitanga. 
In conclusion I simply say that the Maori Party will not support this bill. But in line with the terms of our agreement with the National Party we will be seeking ways in the future that we can work on legislation that allows the Maori Party to contribute to better legislation for the country. Tena koutou katoa.