Upston Louise; O'Connor GregHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in this second reading on behalf of the National Party. This is of course a member's bill. I want to congratulate the member Dr Tracey McLellan for having a member's bill come into the second reading. But I do have to say that National opposes this bill. It was you know somewhat interesting because members' days like this are always really interesting because there tends to be two different types of members' bills: those where there is a bill in search of a problem—and some bills go a long long long way in terms of trying to find a problem to solve; it's called a ballot-stuffer bill—and there are others that are real challenges that members bring on behalf of constituents like my colleague Stuart Smith earlier today a hard-working member of Parliament for Kaikōura who represented businesses and people in this community constituents with a real kind of policy problem and put the work in to get legislation through the House. Then the previous one which was nearly unanimously supported—nearly; so pretty good for Dan Bidois and the bill on—Tom Rutherford: Gift cards.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —on gift cards and expiries. Again it seems on the surface of it—you know really? But actually that is a serious problem. We've heard example after example after example of why it's a real policy problem to solve and a member's bill is on the way to fixing it.Unfortunately this one we have 3.25 million New Zealanders that are KiwiSaver members—$93.7 billion invested. So we actually have a very high proportion of New Zealanders of working age population in KiwiSaver. Unfortunately this is more of an ideological bill because what it says is that the relationship and the discussion and contract between employees and employers is broken. What it actually says is we can't trust the two parties to negotiate and come up with an agreement that works between them. So the challenge with this—and if there was a problem it was actually the National Government that fixed it in 2008 which I thought I would just touch on.In 2008 the National Government amended the KiwiSaver Act 2006 to clarify that whilst compulsory employer contributions must be paid in addition to an employee's gross salary or wages employers and employees can contract out of the requirement through good-faith bargaining. This side of the House actually agrees that the two parties in an employment contract should have the ability to negotiate themselves. So that is the provision that remains today.While I say this is a bill that is seeking a problem in the previous Government the then Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the Hon David Clark—there'd been this review by the Retirement Commissioner in 2019 which raised a whole bunch of issues of which this was a tiny one an absolutely tiny one. But it was two years later that the Minister then thought This is kind of interesting" but then actually still did nothing. And that's why it backs up my statement that this is one of those members' bills unfortunately that is a bill searching for a problem. It's like a problem-searching missile that's just kind of cruising around trying to land and hasn't quite landed it.So the select committee process—unfortunately ACT and National and New Zealand First in the Finance and Expenditure Committee report back had quite significant concerns with it. It's actually quite unusual to have a report back from a select committee where the members don't want it to proceed. It comes back into the House so we're debating it. But again it's not a bill that has significant merit unfortunately. So National won't be supporting the Employment Relations (Protection for Kiwisaver Members) Amendment Bill in this second reading. We don't think it's a problem. We don't think there needs to be a new ground for a personal grievance—actually what it does is just creates another whole area of grievance for the Employment Tribunal. Actually it has the real risk if it was to pass that cases that do need the attention of the Employment Tribunal would be blocked up with something like this that actually has no place to be there because we believe it is important that an employer and an employee have the ability to bargain in good faith.That's why we clearly voted against—we repealed legislation like the fair pay agreements that forced mandatory conditions on large numbers of New Zealanders irrespective of their conditions and their circumstances. We believe that New Zealanders should be able to have that negotiation to provide what is best for them—because what this bill actually does is limits employees' ability to choose the saving option that suits them best. It also limits the ability of employers to opt for a remuneration approach that is best suited for this business. So you know whilst the argument is that employer contributions are an incentive to opt into a scheme the employer is contributing regardless of the remuneration approach they take—the difference is that there is a perception that the employer is not when a total remuneration package is utilised.Carl Bates: It's just madness.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So it is—it is absolutely crazy. Ultimately it is important that both employees and employers understand or employers will understand the package that's being offered and understand whether or not their salary or wages includes or excludes KiwiSaver contributions—that's part of the negotiation part of the discussion that an employee and an employer will have. So we don't believe that removing flexibility through this negotiation process is a good idea. Actually it's a bit concerning because if at the start of an employment relationship an employer and a potential employee can't have an open conversation about how is the salary package made up what are the components and why then it is quite concerning that that would be the start of an employment relationship.So you know while we've had bills earlier today in this member's day that have had wide support unfortunately this isn't one of them. This isn't a bill that has a widespread problem that the Parliament needs to solve through a member's bill vehicle. So that is why the National Party will be casting our votes against this piece of legislation. We do think it is important—of course KiwiSaver is a significant part of New Zealand's savings record and we want to ensure that when employers and employees are agreeing their terms of their new relationship that they are able to discuss and agree what suits them best. So we will be voting against this bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This debate is interrupted and will resume the next sitting day. The House is adjourned.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m."