Brown Peter: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Brown Peter: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16254] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Maybe I can answer the question the member just posed to the National Party. I am not here trying to defend the National Party— 
Darren Hughes 
: Always sticking up for the National Party. 
PETER BROWN 
: No I am not always sticking up for the National Party but the member raised a good point and I thought I would at least like to address it at the start. When people work for wages and overtime they generally get extra for working extended hours weekends and public holidays and New Zealand First supports that element in this bill. But when an employee is on a salary as the member over there referred to that employee would not lose part or half of his or her pay for going off sick. I point out to the honourable member that an employee does not earn any more when he or she works overtime at night at weekends or on public holidays and that is the balance of the whole thing. It is a different wage-type structure which is why the employer answered accordingly at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
New Zealand First wanted to support this bill. We very much wanted to support it because the 2003 legislation in nautical language was a stuff-up. We got it wrong. The select committee got it wrong. I will be attacked by members behind me but we supported— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: So it was nautical—the stuff-up—was it? 
PETER BROWN 
: Well that is nautical language. We are very kind in nautical circles. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I thought nautical was an aviation term. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well there we are—we learn something every day. But the legislation was wrong and it needed to be corrected. This 2004 bill corrects a couple of areas. It corrects the area of sick leave as the Minister has rightly pointed out. It puts some very limited basic controls in the system. That concerned employers and I think that that is reasonable. New Zealand First would have liked that to be a little bit tighter but we can live with it. It is better than the 2003 legislation. 
It does not touch the issue of the 4 weeks’ leave and I want to make New Zealand First’s position quite clear on that: we are totally supportive of workers getting 4 weeks’ holiday a year. Indeed that provision does not come in until the year 2007 and we would have liked to bring it in earlier. I want to make that position clear. We believe that that could have been done relatively easily. I notice that the Government has brought in the Working for Families legislation and the provision could easily have been embraced in that legislation by using the tax system to bring it in a little earlier. But it is no big deal for it to come in in 2007. 
New Zealand First was also supportive of low-paid people getting time and a half for working on public holidays. We see no problem with that at all and we are quite supportive of it. But that 2003 legislation provided for people who volunteered to work on a public holiday to get time and a half on everything as well as a day in lieu if they were sick or for some reason could not work on the public holiday they had volunteered to work on. 
Brent Catchpole 
: Bizarre. 
PETER BROWN 
: My colleague says that that is bizarre. It sounds like something designed by Basil Fawlty and that had to be corrected. This bill corrects that and New Zealand First is comfortable about it. But there is a problem—and I know that the Minister knows it—with relevant daily pay. That has gone a little too far and it should have been addressed. An amendment was put forward by Dr Wayne Mapp at the Committee stage that really brought the whole matter back to what Labour wanted in the initial instance. We thought that that was the way to tidy it up but it was not to be. United Future abstained and the legislation went through. Now United Future has told us that it was eating the elephant piece by piece. We are still trying to work out why it is that in legislation about holidays we are talking about eating elephants but I am sure the member over there has a reason. The United Future position sounded to New Zealand First as if its members were kissing the elephant’s rump bit by bit because they did have a chance to tidy this bill up fairly and properly in the interests of everybody. 
Paul Adams 
: No. 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes you did. I can understand the member saying “No”— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I did not—the member will please not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
 This part is very important. It is the third reading. I am pointing out why United Future members said no—they were not on the select committee. They were not permanent members of the select committee did not volunteer to go on the select committee did not turn up in the audience of the select committee and neither did they read any of the submissions. Yet they abstained from quite a reasonable amendment and they sit here telling us that they want to eat the elephant bite by bite. 
I want to tell the member over there of another failing. United Future opposed the amendment in my name that related to this bill which would have prohibited people on a salary—I am talking about the high-flyers now—from having their salary regarded as a composite agreement as this bill allows. I trust that the National Party has done its homework. It has told us that Theresa Gattung who is on a salary of $2.8 million— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It was a calculation. 
PETER BROWN 
: It was a wrong calculation? She is on $2.8 million a year and under this bill she can have her agreement pulled apart and put together again so that if she works on a public holiday for a couple of hours it is what—$10000? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: No she can get $15000. 
PETER BROWN 
: Fifteen thousand dollars! I do not know how she will struggle through. I really do not know how she struggles through. I do not know how the United Future member can sit there. I see he is smiling now. I think he must regard it as a joke. He actually voted against an amendment that would have tidied that up. 
Paul Adams 
: My amendment did the same thing. What’s your excuse? 
PETER BROWN 
: I say to Mr Adams that his amendment did not do the same thing. The amendment that New Zealand First put in would have addressed the Theresa Gattung problem. For the member to sit over there and say that that is all OK is to treat this whole thing like a joke. 
It is regrettable that New Zealand First cannot support this bill. We know that it goes part-way to addressing the situation but we are not prepared to allow the relevant daily pay problem just to creep through the whole of society. It will have a huge adverse effect on some employment practices in this country and I believe that many small employers will be looking twice over this sort of legislation before they decide on whether to employ somebody. This will be a balancing act for a small employer to go through before he or she puts someone on the payroll. 
It is absolutely ridiculous that a person on a salary—particularly a high-flying salary—can claim something like thousands of dollars a day for working on a public holiday. It is absolutely disgraceful. I do not want to imply for one minute that Theresa Gattung will go in and pull her salary apart and then claim it but the fact that she can is beyond belief. I think the public of New Zealand when they get to know these sorts of facts will wonder what the dickens we do in this House. In two sequences we have turned a relatively untidy piece of holidays legislation—the earlier Act—into very complicated legislation. 
We went through this in 2003 and got it wrong by quite some. It was far worse than we in New Zealand First estimated and I think it was far worse than many of the submitters who were concerned by the 2003 legislation thought. Now this 2004 bill has tidied up two fairly minor parts of that legislation but we should be dealing with the whole thing. Let us do it once and do it right. This was the opportunity. I have to say again that if United Future had paid a little bit more attention to the detail turned up to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee actually got the submissions— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I let the member go the first time but I remind the member that it is a longstanding convention that members do not refer to the absence of members not only from the Chamber but also from select committees. That does not stop members from criticising other members for failing to vote failing to answer questions or failing to take part in debate. I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 23/7 a ruling of Speaker Algie. 
PETER BROWN 
: I am sure that you are correct Mr Speaker but I just point out that United Future is not on that select committee. I acknowledged that from the word go and I am trying to point out that had they shown a little bit more interest and got themselves on the committee by leave of the House Parliament might have been better informed and we would have better legislation out of it.