Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to stand against this bill. People tuning in might say Well how can you be against extra holidays? Extra holidays are a good thing."Hon Members: Holidays?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Not holidays; sick leave. We've had kind of a strange debate. People from the opposite side of the House Labour members saying such profound observations like "Workers are human beings." Well I don't dispute that. I don't think there's anybody in the House that would dispute the point that workers are human beings and I don't think anybody would suggest that anybody would argue the point. I think all people in this House—and that was a very fine observation; I don't like to be unkind to the member who made it. But the point is that we here all want the best interests of New Zealand workers and New Zealanders generally and if we lived in a perfect world there would be no limits on sick leave and there would be very high minimum wages and everything would be great. The only issue is that ultimately what we have to try and navigate our way through is how businesses can stay profitable and continue to employ people. Now in a free situation there is nothing stopping any business giving any workers as long a leave as they would like but what we're talking about here is legislation ruling a minimum level where they must provide five days at the moment and the proposal in the bill is to double that to 10 days. The concern that we have on this side of the House is that while that may be a very welcome thing—and we can all think of many many instances and many individuals where extra sick leave would be very welcome. The only question is right here right now at a time when New Zealand businesses are struggling—some are; some aren't—and that's been one of the extraordinary elements of this whole COVID saga that many businesses have continued to prosper and some have really struggled and those that really struggle particularly in the hospitality and any tourism-related businesses are finding it very difficult. What this Government has done is add not just one area of cost to businesses not two areas of cost but many many areas of extra costs to businesses. And those costs don't just go to business owners; they filter through to customers because a lot of those costs are passed on but some can't be. And some make it very difficult for people to continue successfully in business. That's why there needs to be care and moderation taken by any Government so as to not make it too difficult for businesses to grow and provide new opportunities for New Zealanders to get work and create their own careers.What I think the mistake that is often made on the other side of the House is to assume that business is all big hugely profitable powerful businesses with very large employees like big supermarket chains and that this is just something that they can absorb and nobody will notice. But of course the reality of New Zealand is that most businesses in New Zealand are small and they have five or 10 employees they're mum or dad operators and they go from GST payment to GST payment. Staying afloat in business can be very very difficult and if you're a tiny little business with three or four employees employees being sick and on sick leave is not an immaterial issue. It can be very difficult for businesses; so this is meaningful in its impact on those businesses. Like I said at the start of this everybody would like to see all New Zealanders have access to as much sick leave as they require. But here in this House legislating at a time such as this just to double sick leave entitlements at the same time as very significantly increasing minimum wages and at the same time as increasing energy costs and increasing petrol levies and a whole lot of other things that the Government is doing is very much taking for granted the ability of those businesses large and small in this country to continue to pay those costs and survive and provide the jobs in order to survive—and also beyond that in order to make the investments in their businesses in order to grow this economy and make us more productive. I suppose the broader theme that we hear from this Government and no doubt we'll hear some more of it in the Budget in the weeks to come is an attitude which says that the role of Government is just to spend more money and pass laws that force private sector employers to spend more money and that is the purpose of it all and isn't it wonderful! But what we don't hear anything about is: how do we grow the broader economy and how do we provide a more productive economy so that we as New Zealanders can generate higher incomes and sustain the living standards that we want to sustain over the long period? I don't hear too much about that at all from any of the legislation coming through. I see a whole lot of legislation providing more insisting that employers do more for employees and I see a whole lot of new spending from this Government. I see a few more taxes coming through higher taxes for individuals and in the petrol sense and I see a whole lot of stuff but the question I ask is: well where is the growth plan and how are we going to actually get this economy back on track and pay the enormous amount of debt that we've taken on over the last year? But perhaps that will be for another day and perhaps we'll hear about that in the Budget—who knows? And on that basis I say: wouldn't it be wonderful if it was a simple matter and a painless matter of doubling sick leave entitlements? If that was the case we'd happily vote for it but we live in a world where there are many businesses large and small across this country that we want to succeed and continue to grow and invest. And if this along with many many other costs that this Government has added to the business sector is all taken into account rather than making it easier for those businesses to thrive and grow and employ—this Government time and time again is making it more difficult for them. And on that basis I oppose this bill."