Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I will state right at the beginning that Labour will be supporting the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill to go to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It is a pity that the member in whose name this bill is had not consulted his nephew the list member for the Hutt Valley in order to make sure that the bill was similarly consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Maybe his nephew could give him some lessons in that area. 
It is an unusual position for Mr Henare and me but there was almost nothing in his speech that I could disagree with. He summarised the situation pretty well. His bill will do effectively nothing. He is enshrining in legislation what is already codified in the vast majority of union rules. Again I will do something unusual and take the language of Ruth Richardson to ask “What is the mischief in that?”. There is no problem in sending the bill to a select committee. I have a question in terms of whether Parliament would be better dealing with some other issues. I think there are some bigger issues in industrial relations and other areas but this is an issue that would be good to get to a select committee. I think that as far as the member goes there will be a degree of unanimity. I hope there will be a degree of unanimity in the House about the legislation because all it is doing is reflecting the practice of modern unionism something that has changed a bit in the time since the member and I were more actively involved in the union movement. 
There is an area in the bill though that Labour will look to amend or to see whether the bill is a vehicle for amendment—that is a reflection or mirror image for employers an area to make sure there are proper processes for employers before they lock out workers. I think there is a lot of unevenness in the employment relationship legislation at the moment. Generally in our industrial relations law we have rules that apply to employers as well as to employees. What the proper approach for employers should be I am not entirely sure but I think certainly for companies it will be appropriate for at least the board of directors to make a decision before workers are locked out. 
Darien Fenton 
: What about the Business Roundtable? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well it might be good for the Business Roundtable to take a secret ballot on some of its own policies. It is interesting as one goes around the Business Roundtable to see how different the individual members’ positions are from the positions that have been put forward by Mr Kerr. But as I say that area is something that we will be happy to look at. 
I say to the member that over a number of years there have been some real changes in practice from the time when we were both actively involved in the union movement. In that time there were probably a significant number of unions that did not have secret ballots and people had different methods of enforcement—both employers and employees. They had different methods of dispute resolution over that time; I ask Mr Henare whether that is so. I think it is fair to say that people had different attitudes to transparency at that time because when there were incidents within the union movement those incidents tended to be covered up and some of the people who behaved badly as Mr Henare did tended to be protected. I do not know whether it was because of the union brotherhood that they were protected or whether there was a special deal even in those days under the United Nations or some other arrangements which meant that Mr Henare had protection rather than prosecution in the way that everyone else would have had if they had behaved in the way that he did as he exited the union movement. 
Mr Henare knows exactly what the story is; he introduced the importance of transparency in union matters here. I am sure that over the next period of time we will enjoy him telling us the story of the way that he exited the union movement. I tell members that it was not a matter of ballot fixing. He did not get caught for his ballot fixing although I think the union might have had a trouble or two in that area at one stage or another around the time that he was an official. But that was not the reason that he decided to resign from the union movement; it was something that was much more serious than that. I look forward to transparency. 
As I said at the beginning we are supportive of the bill. It will have almost no effect in its current form. It might be a bit of a waste of time. It is likely to get widespread support but we hope to improve it so that it will be fair and will mirror the processes available to employers before they use their power to lock workers out.