Mitchell Clayton: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9485. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on Part 2 of the Employment Standards Legislation Bill. I just want to start my contribution by saying that there have been a large number of fantastic contributions in the Committee tonight. I do have to say I had a smile on my face on the news tonight with regard to the Māori Party Labour and the National Government all trying to take credit for fixing this problem up. In actual fact credit really needs to go to the people of New Zealand who have clearly stated that they actually want zero-hour contracts removed from legislation and not to have them legitimised. So well done New Zealand—well done for speaking up. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank a number of the people from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions which has worked with New Zealand First along with some of the other parties to come up with better ways of addressing some of these problems particularly around zero-hour contracts.I have to say just finishing off what Ms Sue Moroney has just been speaking on about one of the submitters who came into the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to talk to us about her concerns—what Ms Moroney was saying was not actually 100 percent correct. It was actually a casual employment contract that the submitter was on which was turned into a zero-hour contract. She was basically in a casual employment agreement with a law firm and as a very intelligent woman who is a solo mother looking after her young people she found herself exposed to being vulnerable in that there was no guaranteed number of hours and she was pretty much just a casual—as and when required. It just shows the vulnerability of even our educated sector because we stereotype people so that if they are vulnerable they have got to be uneducated or they have got to have low-earning jobs but that is not the case.So my question to the Minister in the chair Mr Woodhouse—if you could indulge us to stand up and take a call on this I would very much appreciate it—is what are we going to do about the people who are vulnerable under casual employment agreements? Because we understand that in a modern-day workplace the importance of having casual agreements—we understand part-time and we understand full time. We have heard the commendable result in today’s discussion with regard to the outcome of getting rid of zero-hour work contracts and to that end New Zealand First is in a position of support—so that has changed from where we have come from. But we are still very concerned about the involvement of casual employees being exploited not through zero-hour availability clauses but through just being sort of as and when needed and as required.As we step into Part 3 I would urge you to take a look at Supplementary Order Paper 150 put forward by New Zealand First with regard to that because we believe that that will clear it up. We have support from Labour—it has been given to me today that it will be supporting it—the Greens will certainly support it and we would love to see Government support for that because it is very important. We will get to that in a moment but Minister if you could explain what steps the Government is going to take to indemnify if you will those vulnerable workers under casual employment agreements.I could not speak more positively than on this change—this much-needed change—in our working environment. I think we have seen over the years a direction that is getting towards having a better working place where there is a balance for workers and bosses employers and employees—whichever way you want to say that. A real balance of relationship in any relationship—whether it be a personal relationship a supporting relationship or one with a friend but certainly in an employment agreement—is when both parties have equal power. I think what this employment agreement amendment does is it actually restores the balance of power for the employees to empower them to be able to stand up and rightly say: “This isn’t fair. I am not happy about that.” That takes me into some other parts of the bill because I do not want to readdress what has already been strongly spoken about which is the removal of those zero-hour contracts.What I also think is that Part 2 has got some very very positive aspects and one is that the inspectors and the individuals now have the power to enforce. Once it was just down to the labour inspectors; now individuals can actually take umbrage and take action towards an employer if they feel there has been some injustice or an imbalance in their agreement. I think the higher penalties that have been put forward are another huge incentive for employers to act more responsibly in their working environments towards their employees—those penalties for an individual are now going to be up to $50000 and for a body corporate up to $100000 or three times the amount of money that has actually been sought or lost by the employee. I think those are certainly some good punitive penalties coming through there.We have got declarations of breaches in new section 142B in Part 2 of the bill and compensation orders made by the court. What I like to see are these banning orders that have been brought into Part 2 with some very very hefty penalties of $200000 if there has been a breakdown and a continual abuse of these parts. The parts around the requirements to keep records are I think very very important and I do actually look to support the Greens’ Supplementary Order Paper 151 with regard to that because even salaried workers can find themselves in a position where they do a little bit extra here and they do a little bit extra there and all of a sudden it becomes normalised—it becomes just what they have always been doing. So for salaried workers there is a potential loophole there coming from employers not keeping a record of the hours that they work where the employer could actually take advantage of them. We do support the fact that all records of employees should be kept and should be available for scrutiny to make sure that there is not a disadvantage for anybody salaried or otherwise. It is not an onerous expectation.I also like the fact that there is no ability to indemnify the employer by insurance to let them get away with malpractice of employment. I think that as opposed to parts of the Health and Safety Reform Bill which did not allow this to happen this is a completely different situation where I think it is necessary to take that availability to indemnify themselves with insuranceaway from employers. Again another part of Part 2 that I think speaks very very strongly of the new direction is the inability of employers to take unlawful deductions from employees. We have heard many many cases where staff have had deductions taken whether it be a restaurant worker with a table doing a runner or whether it be a fuel station worker—or a petroleum dispenser as they like to be referred to—where somebody has run off without paying and then those deductions have been taken away from their wages which is unreasonable. Certainly this new piece of legislation addresses that.I would also like to say to wrap up my contribution that Part 2 shows some very very positive changes. It has certainly been a long time coming and we look forward to Part 3 and a contribution from the Minister in the chair himself with regard to casual employment and how that is going to minimise any exploitation of those workers. Thank you.