Roy Heather: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of ACT New Zealand to the first reading of the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. The bill is about two things. It is about making legislative provision first of all for the promotion and protection of infant feeding through breastfeeding and second of all for rest and meal breaks. ACT will be opposing this bill and I will come to the reasons for that shortly. 
As a mother who breastfed each and every one of her five children I think I have some authority on this subject. [ 
Interruption 
] Actually there are three of us sitting in very close proximity who have five children. 
Peter Brown 
: Is that all? 
HEATHER ROY 
: This is a great thing because it is important that we have proper representation of parents in this House. I am not sure how many children Mr Brown has. I do not think he has five children but maybe he has fifteen—I do not know. 
Large parts of the background information provided in the explanatory note of this bill make a good deal of sense. I am looking as I say that at page 6 where there is a section about infant feeding. It makes a good deal of sense and I agree with all of the statements there. It states: “Breastfeeding is key to providing the best start for New Zealand infants and important for both infant and maternal health.” Certainly there is no argument there. Page 6 also refers to the recent select committee inquiry into obesity and type 2 diabetes and the advantages for both mothers and children of breastfeeding. Certainly as the bill says “Breastfeeding is a key indicator for Health Target 8 of the Health Targets 2007/08 to improve nutrition increase physical activity and reduce obesity.” I wholeheartedly support that. 
ACT is also supporting Sue Bradford’s member’s bill to allow mothers in prison to have their children with them for longer primarily because breastfeeding is very important and the bonds that are established in those first weeks and months of life are very important. We will continue to support Sue’s bill; I commend her for putting it forward. However I do not think that this bill will actually change anything and that is the reason ACT is opposing it. 
As I say there are two parts to the bill: the breastfeeding provisions and the provisions for rest and meal breaks. I think the Government has put this bill forward very quickly. I will come to the quite clear reason why that happened. I suggest—and this is just an indication—that as we are in election year yet again this Labour Government worried about where its votes will come from has had to put forward its sop to the unions and this is it. The suggestion that this bill is necessary to provide all these extra provisions is based on the premise that employers are selfish and extraordinarily evil. It is sad that all the former trade unionists sitting on the other side of the House have had such terrible experiences. Despite undertaking a large number of different roles in the workforce both in the private and public sector what I have experienced is very different from that. Here we have yet another bill to tackle the evil employer because employers and employees of course are totally incapable of getting together and sorting out provisions for themselves. The best solutions occur when employers and employees are left to determine optimal circumstances that suit both parties. Given that most people are reasonable when people go with reasonable requests and expectations to their employers very often better outcomes are reached because they are able to put forward their own case rather than having to rely on cases that are put forward just in general. 
Here we have another bill forcing extra compliance on employers. I suggest that this bill probably not only will achieve nothing but will be counter-productive. The history that we heard from the Labour member Sue Moroney was all very well and interesting but in fact things have moved on. We are in 2008 and things are very different from those days that she was describing. Thank goodness things are very different. They are very different and we cannot be making legislation based on what might or might not have happened a very long time ago. 
The breastfeeding provisions in this bill are particularly interesting. I suggest that these provisions have been written perhaps by a man—who is obviously not able to breastfeed—or a woman who has not breastfed because they allow two lots of 10 minutes. If we are talking about expressing milk those who actually know something about this and have some practical experience will know that 10 minutes is neither here nor there and in that time one is likely to achieve very little in the way of what is meant to be achieved. But that is by the way and given that this bill will go through to select committee I suppose there will be submissions in this regard. We will have all sorts of people coming forward saying that to express milk effectively—and I suggest they would be right—probably something like 30 minutes is a more adequate time. Are we going to extend the provision to 30 minutes? What obligations and red tape will then be forced on employers in that regard? It is much better to leave the negotiating between an employee and an employer for the short period of time that we are talking about here. 
I want to raise a very different issue but one that should be taken very seriously in respect of this bill. I refer to page 5 of the explanatory note around the regulatory impact statement and the adequacy statement. I read from the adequacy statement: “A regulatory impact statement (RIS) was not submitted at the time approval for the policy relating to the Bill was sought from Cabinet due to the time frame allowed for the preparation of that paper. The Regulatory Impact Analysis Unit has therefore not reviewed the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) or RIS for adequacy as required for proposals that meet the economically significant criteria as decisions have already been made.” I come back to the fact that here we have guidelines for legislation that the Hon Lianne Dalziel stands up and defends rigidly in this Parliament—and I agree with her; she should—saying that these are important so that we know that the financial considerations have been taken into account as have all the other considerations that rightly should be. 
This bill has been introduced very quickly because it is election year. It has come before the House without having the adequate background work done. We have no idea what the cost of this bill will be either to employers or to other groups yet we are forcing it through Parliament before the background work can be done. This is just wrong quite honestly and should not be happening. If this is such important legislation a few more weeks should have been taken before it was introduced into the House. The background work should have been done thoroughly so that the select committee when it is looking at this bill is able to make proper decisions with the proper background information. 
Not everybody in this House is in favour of legislation being rushed through. ACT is not. In that very vein we have before the Commerce Committee at the moment the Regulatory Responsibility Bill in the name of Rodney Hide. It talks explicitly— 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: Where is he? 
HEATHER ROY 
: Oh did Mr Gosche miss the member’s very important question at question time? Perhaps he was asleep. The Regulatory Responsibility Bill is currently before the Commerce Committee and it looks at all sorts of very important questions. It would take a very dim view of this situation. Most of the members on that committee including the Labour members—although Mr Gosche is not one of them so he probably would not have any knowledge of this—know that it is extraordinarily important that the right questions are asked before legislation comes before Parliament. They could be questions about what this bill will do what it will achieve what might the side effects be and what the unintended consequences are. This House has often rushed legislation through only to see unintended consequences emerge as had been predicted. Before we know it we have an amendment bill back in the House and we are going over the issue yet again. 
Are there any alternatives? What makes this bill the best option? When I look further into the explanatory note at page 9 I see under the heading “Alternative options” a pretty bold statement: “No alternative options were considered.” They were not considered because this Labour Government knows best and trade unionists know best. They think they know what is best for the public and the private sector in all of these things and that nothing else needs to be looked at. In medicine the area I come from there is a thing called “differential diagnosis”. We look at all the options so that we can get to the right diagnosis and then formulate the best treatment. The option of an alternative is being run over roughshod in this bill. I ask whether the regulation follows the principles of responsible regulatory management. That is one of the questions that would have to be asked of all legislation in terms of the Regulatory Responsibility Bill. That is the basis on which our lawmaking should be founded on. When will the regulation next be reviewed? There is no mention of that in this bill. 
ACT will oppose this bill for those reasons. The bill will go to a select committee and we will follow its progress with interest but I suggest that this bill will achieve nothing. It ignores the principles that good lawmaking is founded upon.