Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It's with pleasure that I rise and offer the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand's support for the Employment Relations Amendment Bill this evening in its second reading.We've been hearing a lot from that side of the House about how terrible this is. We've heard about these terrible militant trade unions who are just trying to bring business to their knees and we've heard about really that we're patronising workers and just think that they're too weak to be able to defend themselves. We've heard a lot of rhetoric about just how the sky is going to fall because of this legislation and I really do just need to reference back to—we survived the 2000s. We did and actually I think we're just getting unemployment back to the levels that we had it in the 2000s.This bill doesn't even quite bring us back to the employment relations conditions of the 2000s—not quite—but it's a very good first step moving in a direction of restoring some balance. But the hyperbole from that side of the House really has reminded me of the 1920s of this kind of sense that you know the unions and these people joining together are out to destroy the foundations of our society. It's quite—you know I'm seeing people with top hats and it feels very Great Gatsby to me and not really grounded in the experience of individual New Zealanders' lives.Certainly I've been hearing a lot from people around the country and certainly the working people who submitted on this legislation told us a very very different story. They told us about the value of these changes and I do want to just pick up on one of the points that was made by the last speaker Michael Woodhouse which was inconsistent with the other speakers talking about villainising employers. This legislation really just doesn't do that at all from my perspective. It just doesn't even come close. But what we get from the other side is a denial of the imbalance of power and also the added point to that: that New Zealand from academic surveys has found that we have the second highest rate of workplace bullying in the developed world and that 70 percent of that bullying is from seniors down to juniors.We're told that enabling somebody to have a right to a rest and meal break is treating people as weak. I think the problem is actually in the other side's denial of reality. I think that I do want to point out as well that I've been hearing quite a bit from that side that feeds what Helen Kelly used to talk about as a narrative that working people should be grateful for their jobs. For the last decade or so that's what we've been hearing that people should be grateful for whatever they get paid and they should be grateful for a job in the first place and that to ask for more was really just stepping outside of what you could expect. We've seen the impact of that kind of thinking by an absolute entrenchment in inequality.Even the International Monetary Fund quite a conservative global force has now recognised that the rates of unionisation of workers being able to join together is one of the most effective measures that we have to address inequality because an individual worker up against that boss—and many of those relationships will not be positive experiences. It's just actually too big an imbalance. The way that you address that is by joining together with other working people who have a shared interest in the workplace and by working with your employer having rebalanced that relationship through the strengthened numbers.That's not villainising employers; that's actually making sure that good information can come through from the staff in the workplace to make a better workplace for everyone and a better society for all of us. What we've seen is that since the 1980s is that the top 1 percent—their incomes are now eight times what they are for low-income New Zealanders. It used to be only five times which is bad enough but that has been directly linked to the number of people in unions so we have to do something about it.This is only the first step from the Greens' perspective. You know we would like to see 90-day rules gone entirely. I'm not entirely convinced that they play a positive role at all. When we heard through the submissions on the bill really terrible stories from people who told the select committee about how that rule had been played out for them we heard the characterisation that it was you know possibly young Māori up in Northland who should be grateful that they had this opportunity to get a job somebody who would take a chance on them—because Otherwise why would you?" was the inference—but this rule affects all workers.We heard in the select committee from professional people who were saying that they hadn't been particularly—who were National voters might I also say. Professional people who never thought that that rule would be applied against them found themselves out of a job just the day before the 90-day trial ended with no excuse given. They were lucky enough that they could walk into another job pretty much straight away because they were in a profession that was in demand which is not the same for many other people. But they were very clear that there was no justification for this rule and that it was in some cases being misused and should not be supported—and that was from a National Party member. We heard of people with mental health difficulties struggling and being kicked out in that 90-day trial period and not getting the support from the employers.You hear from the Opposition that this bill is ideological. It's not ideological. This is based on the experiences of working people and the things that they told us—and are repeatedly telling us—would help them be able to keep a job and get decent conditions and have a safe workplace.One of the other points I want to acknowledge around the 90-day trial is that New Zealand has one of the highest turnovers in the developed world between people in and out of work—of employment churn. There are only two countries in the world where people move in and out of employment more often—Dan Bidois: That's called flexibility.JAN LOGIE: —than they do in this country. It is not flexibility and when we have a social welfare system that punishes people for losing their job we have to start looking at these policies in conjunction with our social security system and provide some security for people in our community. What is a job worth if you're not able to keep a roof over your head support yourself sustain your family participate in your community and have a sense of stability? I would argue that if those things are not in place your job is a force that is undermining you and your community. In this House we have a responsibility to think about how we can actually provide a really secure platform for everybody in this country to be able to live their best possible life and be recognised appropriately for the contribution that they make through their paid employment.The whole attitude of "People should be grateful for their job and grateful for what they get." and the sense that businesses are the backbone of this society just ignores the fact that these businesses have people who are doing the work that produces the value that is the backbone of our society. If we ignore their contribution then we all lose. This bill is not perfect but it is a blimmin good start."