Lees-Galloway Iain: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 17 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1598. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Is the Government planning to ban zero-hour employment contracts; if not why not?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development)on behalf of theMinister for Workplace Relations and Safety: May I first note for the member that his leader last week claimed that the Minister for Economic Development had responsibility for zero-hour contracts and of course he does not. Although the term zero hours means different things to different people the Government does have concerns with some of the reported aspects of some of the so-called zero-hour contracts and I have asked officials to look into those allegations and report as part of our current review into employment standards. I am primarily concerned with practices where mutual obligations are unbalanced and we will address those as required. However we do not have plans to ban employers and employees from having legitimate casual agreements that suit both parties.Iain Lees-Galloway: Can the Minister describe to the House what he believes a zero-hour contract is and how it differs from a casual agreement?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There have always been legitimate working arrangements called casual employment agreements and these arrangements work as and when required. The employer does not guarantee the individual any work but the individual is also not obliged to accept any work or be exclusively available for that employer. Employment relations of course require mutual obligations; where flexibility is important for both employers and employees casual employment arrangements can strike this balance. However there are sometimes practices where there is a relationship of mutual obligations that are inconsistent with good faith. The sorts of things that the Minister has asked officials to report back on specifically include agreements that unnecessarily restrict lower-skilled workers from undertaking alternative employment; rostering practices including short-notice cancellation of shifts; and also other matters that have been brought to attention in recent times including inappropriate pay deductions such as service station attendants having pay docked for customer theft.Iain Lees-Galloway: Will his proposed changes to the Employment Relations Act require permanent employment agreements to include regular hours of work?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It depends on whether the member is referring to permanent part-time fixed-term and full-time employments and those matters are covered in the law today. What we are talking about specifically here is a certain type of casual contract where perhaps—and I stress again that it is being investigated currently—individuals are having onerous requirements placed on them when their contracts are very much on a casual basis. Those are the things we will be investigating and the Minister does not plan to make announcements today on exactly what changes to the legislation would be made at this time.Iain Lees-Galloway: Does he appreciate that people on zero-hour contracts do not have the flexibility that a casual contract gives them and does he also appreciate that people who are on zero-hour contracts cannot get a loan or a hire purchase agreement because they cannot demonstrate certainty of income or that they have to rearrange childcare from one week to the next or that they suddenly lose hours without any warning? How does that make life better for people on those contracts?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: We are in danger of violently agreeing on this concern and the simple fact of the matter is that we will be investigating these matters. As I said previously there are legitimate casual agreements but it is important that onerous obligations are not placed on employees when they do not have defined hours in which they will be working and that is the exact stuff that we will be investigating.Tim Macindoe: What reports has the Minister seen of other unconventional employment contract arrangements?Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there are reports that are of ministerial responsibility the Hon Steven Joyce.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I saw a report of a particularly strange one just this day. A long-serving self-employed professional was hired for what he describes as a small freelance job. He dutifully carried out the work and provided follow-up notes and also an invoice for payment. The issue in this particular case is that the professional a journalist was not paid. Four months have now passed. Numerous phone calls and emails have been made with apparently no response. This is obviously not a zero-hour contract. It could perhaps be better described as a zero-payment contract—the employer in this case being then leadership aspirant for the Labour Party one Andrew Little the current Labour leader.