Brown Peter: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Brown Peter: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
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PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I was very interested in the contribution from United Future and I tell that member that another piece of legislation that will push small employers over the edge and where the employer will be second-best to his or her staff is the Holidays Act. You had a chance—United Future—to address the evils from the employer’s perspective of relevant daily pay. In fact it will get through only on your vote. You had a chance to address it. Do not sit there sanctimoniously and tell this Committee— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Will the member please not bring the Chair into it. 
PETER BROWN 
: I would not dream of bringing the Chair into it. To be honest several employers spoke before the select committee about the Employment Relations Act as it is now and almost without exception they said: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” If we heard that expression once we heard it close to 100 times from many employers—maybe not 100 but at least a significant number of times. If we want to do anything with industrial relations in this country we should be introducing more freedom and flexibility both for the individual working person and for the individual employer. 
First and foremost we should remove the monopoly that unions have on collective contracts. It is farcical to say that New Zealanders as a group cannot get together and work out who will negotiate on their behalf with their particular employer in a reasonable and fair manner. One does not and should not have to have a union do the whole thing for one. That is an important change we should make to our industrial legislation. 
But does this legislation do that? No it does not. The explanatory note in the initial bill sets out—and I could not believe what I was reading when I read it for the first time—“To achieve this the Act acknowledges the inherent inequality of power in employment relationships and seeks to balance the interests of employers and employees through the promotion of unions and collective bargaining”. Employers do have a little bit more power than employees and one would expect that. They run the show or at least they are meant to. They are responsible for the location of the place organisation management administration finance and financial risks. Employees do not take any of that into account. And one cannot have power without responsibility; at least I hope one cannot. Maybe the Labour Party disagrees with me on that. 
It is important that the employer has his rightful place in an employment relationship agreement. This legislation distorts that terribly. I agree with Gordon Copeland. I chastised him a little bit earlier but he is absolutely correct. Some small employers out there believe that this is just about the last straw. If it has the negative impact that they believe that it will have then I think they will close up shop. But when this came up at the select committee Labour members—Lianne Dalziel in particular as I recall—said to employers and the other members of the committee that this legislation would have no effect on small employers or medium-size employers and that it would really aim only at the bigger employers who have large workforces. 
I ask the Minister why we do not put a clause in the bill that states just that: “Nothing in this bill shall impact on the operations and activities of small to medium-size employers.” Put that in and that will be a significant improvement. But no it has not been put in. 
This legislation has the potential to do a lot of damage. Firstly it undermines the employer’s thinking. It also gives working people—the employees—the false understanding that they will be better off from it. However I would say that employees will not be. There will be moves to engage people on contract and special arrangements to find loopholes in this legislation so that they are not covered by it. That will be to the detriment of employment and the employment relations in this legislation. New Zealand First does not have the fear of unions that some of my colleagues on the right have. Collective strength is an important ingredient in an industrial setting.