Ball Darroch: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9403. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and my colleague Clayton Mitchell to speak on the Employment Standards Legislation Bill in the second reading. Although I have not been involved personally with the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee or with all the other stages of this bill I would like to take this opportunity to ensure that this House and the National Government understand our position on this bill and why although we do support separate parts of this bill we will still be opposing it overall. Although the Minister has mentioned that during conversations with the Labour Party they have come to some sort of agreement about discussions and future changes we obviously have not seen that and as the bill itself stands we will still be opposing it.The aim of the billis as Andrew Bayly actually mentioned as well to make a number of improvements to the employment relations and employment standards legislation for the benefit of all Kiwi workers. But that is actually a little bit—well not just a little bit—quite greatly juxtaposed to the actual reality for New Zealand workers who are exposed to the zero-hour work contracts. One of the issues that I have picked up—and like I said I have not been involved with the process thus far—is that this is an omnibus bill and there are parts through here that the entire Opposition actually agrees with but the sticking point seems to be the zero-hour contracts part. I do not know whether it was mentioned or discussed previously in the first reading or during the committee’s considerations whether it would be a logical step to actually discuss this bill in separate parts. But unfortunately as it is—although like I said there are parts that we do strongly support—we cannot support this bill overall because of the zero-hour contracts.A couple of the parts that New Zealand First does support include the extension of paid parental leave from 16 to 18 weeks. It allows mothers with premature babies 40 hours of keeping-in-touch hours with their jobs which is obviously quite important and it allows primary caregivers to be someone other than the birth mother—and that can be determined by the parents. It also introduces a premature baby allowance. That is one of the vitally important periods of a baby’s life but also of the parents’ life as well and New Zealand First supports any improvement to that. We also support the stronger and more effective enforcement of the employment standards. This is quite a separate issue obviously to the paid parental leave part but we do support and understand that that is an essential part of any employment contract.But then we get to the zero-hour contracts. I know that they are not labelled as zero-hour contracts within the legislation but that is what they are in essence. Although I do acknowledge that the Minister has said there will be changes to the legislation moving forward in the current form of the bill that is exactly what this legislation actually entrenches. What it has got there is that it has actually included employment agreements that do not provide any guaranteed hours of work and that is a zero-hour contract. In fact it actually creates the availability of provisions that mean staff can be required to be available for work at times without any guarantee of minimum hours or even minimum income and effectively that is allowing zero-hour contracts. When that translates into reality for Kiwi workers who are actually on zero-hour contracts that means they have got no ability to budget day to day week to week or even year to year. That includes organising their lives and their children’s lives in regard to day care and in regard to school. New Zealand First totally opposes zero-hour contracts. I note that during the select committee process employers submitted to the committee—some employers are saying that they do not actually need the zero-hour contracts. There were over 12000 submissions and all bar one did not support the zero-hour contracts.It is important to note that New Zealand First understands that casual contracts are an important part of the labour market and that is why my colleague Clayton Mitchell has submitted Supplementary Order Paper 150. That Supplementary Order Paper is intended to create a loading on any casual employee giving benefit to the worker and an incentive to the employer to move the employee on to a part-time or full-time contract. It works both ways for both the employer and for the employee. Casual loadings are not a new concept but return to the situation that applied for nearly 100 years before the Employment Contracts Act 1991 when protections were given to our casual workers. Many of these protections have actually been maintained in Australia. The current situation where employers are only to pay for liable annual leave means that there is a systemic bias towards the employment of casual workers as it is. The Supplementary Order Paper proposals are intended to create a loading on any casual employee giving benefit to the worker and an incentive to the employer to move the employee on to a part-time or full-time contract. The current situation where employers are only liable to pay for annual leave means that there is a system bias towards the employment of casual workers.There is no requirement to load for public holidays sick leave bereavement leave health and safety representative training leave employment relations leave jury duty notice periods or payment in lieu of notice. Casual workers also have no access to personal grievance protections for unfair dismissal and effectively these are cost transfers from the employer to the worker. The purpose of the Supplementary Order Paper that Clayton Mitchell has submitted is to pay all casual employees a loading of 19 percent on the average hourly rate of a full-time employee doing the same or similar job as the casual worker. The 19 percent is broken down as follows: 1.6 percent loading for sick and bereavement leave 4.4 percent loading for statutory holidays 8 percent loading for standard holiday pay and 5 percent casual loading. The employer will have the ability to move workers off a casual employment agreement and on to a part-time or full-time contract without paying any of the loading. There will be no penalty payments for employers who make part-time or full-time work available for casual employees.I know that my colleague Clayton Mitchell will go into depth with the Supplementary Order Paper on his return but what I would like to say is that like I have stated although New Zealand First does support parts of this bill we do not support the bill overall specifically because of the issues with the zero-hour contracts.