Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:668;Page:15380] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am very grateful to the previous speaker Mr Mallard for pointing out that there are differences between this Government and the previous Government. Indeed there was a very speedy process which he claims was quite unfair. I want to contrast that with the previous Prime Minister Helen Clark and her support of Taito Phillip Field. She stood up and defended him and said all that he was guilty of was working hard for his constituents and she paraded around South Auckland with Mr Field in complete defence of the indefensible. Well if that is the contrast between this Government and the previous Government bring it on. I would really like Mr Mallard to talk as much about that as he can. 
He also raised the chagrin that the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has over the Prime Minister not giving any heads-up to it. Well here is the news: we now have a Prime Minister who does not have to go cap in hand to the unions every time we want to change employment law. We are not beholden to the unions. There is a very sound relationship and if the president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions got a bit angry about that I am sure she will get over it. This is a Government that thinks for itself. It does not have to go to the unions every time it wants to make changes and that is a significant difference for employment relations in this country. 
Sue Moroney 
: Why did he promise he would? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: I was not there. I do not know what he said but I know he does not have to go cap in hand to Ms Kelly every time he wants to make changes to employment legislation. 
I want to drill into some of the matters that came up during the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee’s consideration of the bill and in particular the 90-day probation period. Again I thank Lynne Pillay for providing an excellent example of how the 90-day probation period will work. She quoted a fellow who lost his job because he claimed he put too much aioli sauce in the pasta. Here is what she did not say. The 90-day probation period will not apply in a situation like that. That case may be before the courts so I will not talk about it specifically but a person who does not sign an employment agreement cannot be subject to the 90-day probation period. So yet again the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has scored an own goal. This is an example of the process working not of the process not working. No one who does not sign an employment agreement can have the protection of the 90-day legislation which has been in place for a couple of years now. The Department of Labour has done some very good research into how effectively the law is working. 
Members on the other side can take a “glass three-quarters empty” approach to what is going on. But I point out that a great number of those people who were taken on by small businesses under the 90-day provision would not have been employed were it not for that opportunity. It is just too hard otherwise. 
It is also really interesting that of all of the small and medium sized enterprises that were able to use that legislation only half of them did so—only half of the organisations. They did not all rush out and slap on 90-day probation periods. They thought very carefully about when that would be appropriate and when it was OK to take a chance on employees who might be marginalised—they might be coming back from a long period of unemployment or might be new migrants to this country—and give them a chance. But of the half only of the employers that used that provision they did not even use it for all their staff. They used it for only just over half of those staff. So for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth only just over a quarter of the people who could have been employed under a 90-day probation period were. The rest were employed permanently. And here is the good news: nearly 80 percent of them still have their jobs. Nearly 80 percent of them are still employed. For those who are not they were not all sacked. Some of them left of their own volition; for some it simply did not work out. That is one of the consequences— 
Carol Beaumont 
: How many workers were surveyed in that survey? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Enough to make the survey scientific. Nobody is questioning the validity. I understand that members on the other side are worried that those conducting the survey did not speak to employees but it is not employees who are doing the 90-day probation period employing. It is employers. When we are talking to the employers— 
Sue Moroney 
: So they don’t count? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: I did not say that. Nobody is putting words in my mouth. Of course they count—that is why we are doing this. I have absolute confidence that when this measure is extended we will see similar discernment from other employers. We had the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists—the junior doctors—come in and say that they would all be put on 90-day probation periods. Well that is nonsense because employers are much more discerning than that. 
Sue Moroney 
: How do you know? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Because I have been one and I know what they are like. As Lynne Pillay said and I will quote from her second reading speech there are many many good employers just as there are many many good employees. But what she did not say is what Labour members really think but do not say out loud which is that they have no problems with there being a few errant employees. They ask why on earth we would want to wrap law up around controlling errant employees but when it comes to errant employers they say we should lock them down. They say we should put all the red tape around them that we can and all the good employers can suffer the consequences of having to put up with that— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Darien Fenton’s saying “Yes”. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Exactly; she has admitted it. Why would she not? It is what she believes. Labour members believe that all employers are errant so we should lock them up in red tape. Well I do not think so. I think employers deserve to be given much more confidence in their ability to grow this economy to employ staff and to have the flexibility that this bill will give them and I support it.