Gosche Mark: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Gosche Mark: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15824] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 That speech was made by a dead Opposition leader not by one who is full of vigour and passion but by one who hates unions with vigour like his predecessor did. I was most disappointed. The worst insult he could sling at people on the Government side of the House is that we used to be in unions. Some of us are still in unions and we are proud of it. There is nothing wrong with that. It is as though it is some sort of crime to belong to unions. That was not the case when I last looked at that. One would have to ask oneself whether that was the real National Party position we heard from Dr Brash. I hope we will have speeches from several National members. The latest addition to the spokesperson’s role is Dr Wayne Mapp who is still in nappies as far as industrial relations are concerned. He did not have anything to do with this bill but that is not his fault because he only recently got the hospital pass when Roger Sowry decided to depart from the House. At least Roger Sowry heard the submissions on this bill and heard from employer after employer that the Employment Relations Act was working well. 
Let us go back a little while—not too long ago in history—and look at what the National Party said. We find that Max Bradford—the man who would take away people’s holidays and who is now on a permanent one—said that National would repeal and replace the Act. He was talking about the Employment Relations Act. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: When was that? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: That was in August 2000. National’s then leader Jenny Shipley—National changes leaders and spokespersons so quickly that one needs a list as long as this to keep up with what the National Party’s policies and statements are—swore that National would repeal the legislation as soon as it reclaimed the Treasury benches. That ain’t going to happen in a hurry. The next leader Bill English said he would repeal the legislation because he thought it had too many problems. In October 2003 Don Brash said that most definitely National would scrap the Employment Relations Act. It was reported: “Brash views a less regulated labour market as the key.” John Key said that under National people should expect quite significant changes to be made to the Employment Relations Act and that there had been nothing wrong with the Employment Contracts Act. He should ask the employers and the workers what they think about that. 
We now have Dr Brash saying that he thinks the business community is broadly happy with the Employment Relations Act. So the Act is not the evil that it was but this bill is the evil! National said the Act would drive down productivity drive up unemployment make workers and bosses worse off and make us worse off than the rest of the world. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: What did they say then? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: National said that all of that would be a result of the Employment Relations Act and now Dr Brash says that it is actually working quite well. Every employer who came along to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and Roger Sowry can vouch for this—said that he or she thought the Act was going well. Mr Prebble asked employer after employer what they thought of the Act and they said they thought it was going pretty well and that we did not need to fix it. Some of us have memories that go back for more than 3 minutes and we can remember employer after employer making submissions on the original Employment Relations Bill and saying that it would bring the world to an end unemployment would shoot up strikes would happen more often and productivity would come down. None of that has happened and at least the employers have the honesty to say that that is the case. They are pragmatic honest people in the main and they say that the Act is working pretty well. 
Some employers had some difficulties with this bill. The select committee listened to them and we have come back with a changed and an improved bill. We listened to their concerns about multi-employer collective bargaining and the offending clause is gone. We listened to submission after submission from employers and employees on equal pay. That has been taken out because the select committee did its job and listened to submitters. What does the National Party do in terms of listening? It is impossible to expect people who are dead to listen and that is why the leader of the National Opposition whatever his name is cannot figure out what his position on the bill is or what it will be next week or the week after—and certainly not next year. We will be listening with interest to the outgoing Roger Sowry who got on top of this bill and understood it. He does not agree with every aspect of it but he knows that it contains some good things. He has a smile on his face now because he is getting out of the National caucus. He is going to get a real job in the real world instead of being part of  
Six Feet Under 
 or a New Zealand version of that programme. 
Of course Dr Wayne Mapp who has a law degree knows nothing about the law in respect of employment relations. He did not even know that the previous National Government he was a member of gave workers days in lieu for working on public holidays so he will be able to contribute greatly to this debate on industrial relations! Dr Mapp has not even caught up with what National did when it was last in power so we can expect him to have a different view from that of Dr Brash and Mr Sowry. Then there is the whip who managed to get those dull-faced sleepy people on the Opposition side to come down here to the House to dutifully listen to their leader make a terribly boring speech. Most of them were desperate to keep their eyes open during 10 minutes of what passed for a speech on employment relations law. Simon Power’s great desire was to be the spokesperson on industrial relations. He is terribly disappointed that he got the whip’s job and that Wayne Mapp got the job he had wanted. Wayne Mapp is disappointed because he probably wanted to be given something more important than industrial relations. 
The National members know they are on a loser. The days are gone of National’s tired old mantra of attacking unionists as if they were evil and devilish. Those days are gone just like the National Party’s days are gone. Nobody listens to that sort of nonsense any more. The National Party has no policy in the employment relations area. One minute it says that the Employment Relations Act is evil terrible Third World legislation and then its leader says that now he has had to listen to employers who tell him they are broadly happy with it. National does not have a policy at all other than to come along here to the Chamber to whinge and put us to sleep with boring speeches from its so-called leader. It is just sorrowful what has happened to the National Party. Jenny Shipley was passionate about it; she hated unions with a passion. When Jim Bolger got his rancour up he would have a good go at the unions even though as a former Minister of Labour he knew that pragmatism was much more important than ideology. Of course Bill English has gone on to greener pastures now attacking kindergartens and whatever else he is up to. For poor old National it is like the last one out the door gets the industrial relations job. That job used to be a strong point of National because it used to think that the class war still existed that workers were evil and that unions were even worse. 
However most people have come into the modern age and realise that there has to be legislation that gives some equality to people on both sides of the bargaining table. That is what this bill seeks to do. It defines good faith so that people can understand it and it provides for proper bargaining so that people cannot just turn up and say that they do not want something. That is not good-faith bargaining but it is what the law as it was applied allowed some employers to do. We have defined good faith. We have given clear indications of what an employer can do if he or she wants to dismiss an employee and what the test should be. It is odd that people complain about personal grievance procedures but who opened that up to the lawyers and the ratbags? It was the previous National Government under the Employment Contracts Act. That was one of the worst things that ever happened. We look forward to Wayne Mapp moving an amendment to go back to the days before the Employment Contracts Act and stop all the ratbag advocates who take personal grievances for the fun of it so that they can screw money out of decent employers. We look forward to the National Party putting up a Supplementary Order Paper or an amendment on that one. We will be waiting a very long time for that to occur. National whinges but takes no action and it has no policy or ideas. 
We have done something in this legislation to make the law clearer. We are looking after the most vulnerable workers in New Zealand—those who have been treated like cattle and have been contracted out without any protection of their employment. This bill contains very important legislation and I am very proud of it. I have seen far too many workers be screwed by the system of contracting out. They now have some protection and that is the way it should be. This bill is very good. I thank the other members of the select committee and I look forward to the passage of this bill.