Power Simon: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:614;Page:10678] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I remember vividly sitting in this House when the Employment Relations Bill was passed. I remember the Hon Lianne Dalziel leaping to her feet and applauding and hugging as I recall on that day when the Employment Relations Bill was passed. I remember members on this side of the House saying at the time that that piece of legislation was flawed and that it would not be the last time we saw the legislation come back to the House for further amendment. 
Upon the beginning of the first reading of the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill I consulted the Clerk about how many amendments there have been to the Employment Relations Act since it came into force in the year 2000. As predicted by members on this side it is an imperfect piece of legislation. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Hide will be interested to know that this is the twelfth amendment to the Employment Relations Act signalling what we on this side of the House knew all along—that is that the original Act was never going to work. 
 Part of the reason that the House is being required to look at this bill today is precisely the reason that Mr Hide made out—that is workers have not chosen to flock back to the unions with the passing of the Employment Relations Act. Workers have decided that other bargaining agents including funnily enough themselves are capable of negotiating agreements with their employers. Union membership has not increased in the way that the Council of Trade Unions and other unions would like. That is because this country has grown up and employees and employers are able to sit in a room together and make constructive decisions and agreements about how their working relationships are to be conducted. That has not made the Government’s backers happy at all. That is why we are seeing this piece of legislation in the House today. It is another step on the line back to compulsory unionism. Who does one push out there to sell this to business? Good old Margaret Wilson will step up to the plate and take the employers on. She is a list MP. It does not matter to her. She has no constituents to answer to and she is capable of being pushed out there by the Prime Minister to sell these very unpopular measures when workers themselves have chosen not to go back to the unions. That is telling in itself. 
I want to spend a little bit of time looking at some of the detail of this bill. I find myself not saying this easily but I will anyway—I actually agree with Sue Bradford. That is disturbing on many levels but on the first level is the fact that what Sue Bradford said about the fact that the only people who will benefit from this piece of legislation are lawyers is exactly right—so there is some good in it! Lawyers will be the only people who benefit from this legislation. Let me just take Government members through as to why that is the case. Whilst members opposite try to pass legislation that will allow for continuity of employment let me just tell members opposite how the sale and purchase of businesses works. Usually on a sale and a purchase agreement for a business the purchaser and vendor would agree by way of a clause inserted in that agreement as to how they would deal with employees at the point of sale. I have to say that in my time in drafting those documents and being involved in those transactions 95 percent of staff passed with the business to the new purchaser. There was never any problem with that. What we will see now with the provisions in this legislation is lawyers inserting a different clause. 
I just say to Winnie Laban whose goodwill and genuine interest in these matters I have never doubted that what will happen is this: a new clause will be inserted by lawyers in the sale and purchase of business agreements and that will be to liquidate and to wind up the businesses at the point of sale and a new business will be formed on the date that the settlement of the sale of that agreement occurs and that will be designed purely to get around the provisions of the legislation that is just about to be enacted. Whilst members opposite might think that the intentions are good let me just assure them that there will always be ways around these types of things. When people start to insert clauses like that into sale and purchase agreements for businesses who misses out? The workers miss out when those sorts of businesses and those sorts of clauses are included in those agreements. I have to say that when parties to a contract are forced to include clauses or legislation that are being moved by the Labour Party now the tighter the fist gets clenched around that contract the more it will squeeze clauses out the other end to deal with these issues. I warn members opposite that the people who will suffer as a result of these new clauses being included in agreements like this will be the workers. It might not be the unions but it will be the workers. 
I want members opposite to think about this. Margaret Wilson said in her press release about this bill coming to the House that there would be no return to compulsory unionism compulsory arbitration or the national awards system. She said: “The approach remains one of free choice flexibility and fairness to all.” She then went on to say: “will provide appropriate incentives for collective bargaining.” How on the one hand can Margaret Wilson talk about the fact that there is free choice around entering into these employment relationships and on the other hand in the purposes clauses of this bill blatantly say: “This legislative proposal will provide appropriate incentives for collective bargaining.” Where is the free choice there? There is no free choice there. Incentives do just as they sound and will drive workers into a situation where they are not able to exercise free choice at the point of employment. I was unaware until Paul Adams mentioned it that John Tamihere was in favour of a grievance-free period at the start of an employment relationship. I have to say that I agree with John Tamihere on that because it is those types of clauses that encourage businesses to employ immigrants young people and people over 55 and to give them a trial. Those types of clauses give people the first step into the workplace to see whether they are any good—they give them an opportunity they would not otherwise get. 
The thing about employment law from this Government that makes me really wild is that it may or may not depending on one’s interpretation do things to protect workers who currently have jobs but what about those workers who are looking for jobs? What about those workers who have not yet got jobs? This legislation does nothing at all for those people. I say to members opposite that this legislation will be nothing but trouble. We will know how successful this legislation has been when 6 months after it is introduced we see a whole lot more Mercedes-Benz cars on the roads and we will know what is going on there. It will not be the workers driving them; it will be the lawyers. This legislation will create so much controversy and so much disruption in the workplace that only one group of workers will benefit from it and that will be the lawyers. Members opposite should think closely and carefully about what they continue to do to the ability of two adult people to contract at a point on arrangements and terms that suit them both. Call me old-fashioned but actually the union is not a party to an employment agreement.