Mackey Moana: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Mackey Moana: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I appreciate that National members do not like having to debate employment legislation because they know that what they are doing is absolutely unfair and absolutely not required. The changes that they are making in Part 1 of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) are ideological and there is no other basis for them. 
I start by talking about the provision that removes reinstatement as the primary remedy for personal grievance claims. I will talk about the 90-day issue a bit later on but this bill extends that provision to other people. We have been talking a lot about the first 90 days of employment but what happens when someone gets into the period of employment when they are past the first 90 days something happens and a personal grievance claim is taken? If the employee is deemed to have been unfairly treated—for example if they were dismissed unfairly and the Employment Relations Authority ruled in their favour—it would seem only fair that they could be reinstated in the job they should never have lost in the first place if that was what they wished. This legislation removes that ability. This bill states that when someone gets past that first 90 days all that an employer needs to do is get rid of someone and it does not matter if it is unfair because now the employer will not have to take the employee back even if there is a ruling that the person should never have been dismissed from his or her place of employment. 
In a way this bill almost extends the 90 days in terms of removing that security for employees. It says to those employers out there who want to get rid of someone very easily that they can do it because they will not have to take the person back even if they were wrong in removing the person. I cannot imagine why National thinks that is fair. We know that employment law is all about balance. We have to balance the rights and responsibilities of the employee versus the rights and responsibilities of the employer. National thinks that employees should have to bear all the risk in an employment relationship and that they should have no security in that relationship whereas Labour believes we have to strike a balance in the middle that is fair to employers and employees. Neither side will get everything that it wants. That is part of being in the relationship but Part 1 drastically skews the rights towards the employer against the employee. 
The contribution from Tau Henare just showed how incredibly out of touch this Government is with the reality for workers. He asked why if Labour said unions were now really good in terms of access in the workplace we were fighting the change. We are doing so because that is not the case in every circumstance. This is about a worker’s right to support when something goes wrong in the workplace. It is about a worker’s right to call the union when something happens: when the worker is given an unfair employment choice or is worried about health and safety. National says that workers should not have access to their union without the approval of the person who may well be the problem. It is in those circumstances that the protection of the law is incredibly important and that is what is being removed in Part 1 of this bill. 
We know right now that unions are voluntary organisations and they do not want to get offside with bosses. They do not want to have a bad relationship with employers. They work with employers for their employees and their members and they do so responsibly. But where there is a situation where workers need to have that support National now says they have to get permission to have that support. A lot of people remember when workers had to go and stand off site on the footpath to meet with their union—the people who represented them—whereas for example a big company could bring in hordes of lawyers and no one would say it would need anyone’s permission to have the kind of support it wanted when it came to employment law. A worker who just wants the union organiser to come in give some advice and maybe solve a problem now has to get permission to do that. That is a very very dangerous move in terms of the rights of those workers and their ability to get the help they need in the workplace. It is unfair. It is not needed. At the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee no one could come up with a single instance of where access was a problem. The officials told us that there was no problem. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Yes they could. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: That is not true I say to Mr Woodhouse. When we dug down into it there was no problem. When unions have had to come on site without telling the employer there was a very good reason for it—there was a very good reason for it. 
David Bennett 
: Be truthful. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I am being truthful I say to Mr Bennett. That member should be very very careful because his conduct as the chairman of that select committee was appalling on this legislation—absolutely appalling. Let us talk about the young woman who wrote to us.