Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 In speaking to the title I intend to range as widely as I will be allowed over the whole Holidays Act because I am really perplexed about the support for it. We heard tonight in the debate on both Parts 1 and 2 of the bill from the United Future party that it opposed the original bill and I am pleased that it did. I thought that the original bill was wrong. For the life of me I still cannot understand why what someone is entitled to with regard to holiday regimes is not something that is a negotiable part of his or her contract at least at a certain level. I can understand why a general workforce worker who is reasonably low in an operation who does not have much bargaining strength and who needs the union to support him or her maybe does need a back-up bill like this. But what happens when one gets into the senior management levels and people are quite senior in a company—and as we have heard right up to the level of the chief executive of the biggest company in New Zealand—in terms of pay? Does this bill apply to such people? We have not actually been able to get that clear but my colleagues are quite adamant that this legislation will apply to everyone. Someone can be on $2.something million a year and be the chief executive of a massive corporation yet it is the Minister and the Government that will decide what that person is entitled to when he or she either works on a public holiday or is sick when he or she was scheduled to be working on a public holiday—and there are a number of permutations and combinations of that. 
I go back to United Future because I think its support for this legislation is most perplexing. United Future opposed the original bill and its members came along tonight and said that they were not quite sure. They could not make up their minds so they voted eight abstentions. United Future is obviously now the party that abstains on a regular basis. It had eight abstentions and even had to take special calls later in order to get more abstentions added. Then United Future made the ridiculous claim that this bill was like eating a whole elephant by just taking one bite at a time. So we have an absolute white elephant on our hands. That is what United Future openly admitted the original bill was and it voted against it. Now that its members are able to take one bite out of one piece of the elephant’s anatomy—and God knows whereabouts in the elephant’s anatomy they are getting to take that bite from—somehow they have a whole new lease on life. United Future’s argument is that because it can take a bite out of the elephant it will support this absolutely pea-brained legislation. 
I really really want the Minister to take a call to tell us about the level that this legislation stops at within the workforce. If my colleagues are right when they say that it applies right throughout the entire working population that works for an employer that is an outrage. I know that in a lot of companies the employment contract of a senior management person will have a range of specific provisions. The company may want to give such people a substantial amount of vacation as part of the package. It may want to give them a phenomenal level of remuneration as a straight flat rate and to say that that is it. The company may not even want to define how many hours such people are to be in but to have a contract based on outcomes or outputs. But no that cannot apply if we are to read this legislation according to the way it is worded. This Government thinks it knows what is best. 
This legislation was all the creation of Margaret Wilson who by any stretch of the imagination— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: She’s on the right. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: She is not on the right. She is not even on the left. Those on the left cannot find her because she has gone so far off. Margaret Wilson’s views of the world in terms of Eastern Europe have been stamped “Best before 1990”. Even the Eastern Europeans do not believe in the stuff that Margaret Wilson believes in. I think that Kim Il-Sung or whatever his name is still does believe in it and I think that Fidel Castro still does. They are the only two people who do. 
John Key 
: No Fidel Castro doesn’t. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Has he given it up? All right we are down to one. Margaret Wilson has one country supporting her view. It is no wonder the Prime Minister had to pull her out. 
I have heard from the business community—from a number of people at the Employers and Manufacturers Association and so on—that there is a bit of respite now. Paul Swain is quite sensible they said. I said: “Yeah right.” [ 
Interruption 
] It is “Swainy and the boys”—yes there were going to be more people than just Paul Swain involved. Like the Tui advertisement I said: “Yeah right—sensible.” John Tamihere told the business community that the Labour members would not let the left take over their caucus and that they would fix this legislation up. I asked people whether they really believed that and the answer was: “Absolutely. These guys are committed. They will not have the lunatic fringe running the place any more.” The Prime Minister has taken Margaret Wilson out of the play because the business community is so discontent. 
John Key 
: She’s a liability. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes. The Labour members said the legislation would be fixed but what do we see? We will see exactly the same sort of legislation sitting on the statute book with one bite out of an elephant that is the difference. I do not know how that is supposed to fix the situation. How could it have been mucked up so badly in the first place? The Minister will not tell us that. How does this bill fix it? It does not. Why is the Minister not leaving businesses to negotiate it themselves?