Peck Mark: Holidays (Four Weeks Annual Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Peck Mark: Holidays (Four Weeks Annual Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on the bill and to congratulate Matt Robson on introducing it. 
Rodney Hide 
: Why didn’t this member do it? 
MARK PECK 
: This member has the next one coming up so Mr Hide should just hold his horses; he will be able to take part in that debate too if he likes. [ 
Interruption 
] Members might well say that but I could not possibly comment. I do want to congratulate the member on bringing this matter to the attention of the House. We will be supporting the bill going to a select committee because it deserves to be debated. 
I say to members opposite that in a past life as a union official I became very very aware of the argument that is going on now. Let me remind people like Sandra Goudie who is sitting on the bench across from me at the present point in time that the very same arguments that were used to decry equal pay for women are used to decry annual holidays. I was at the tail end as a union advocate of the implementation of the steps towards achieving equal pay for women. If we were to say today that we should have differential pay rates because of a person’s gender we would be before the Human Rights Commission and so we should be. There was no economic argument for women to be paid less than men at all. There was not an economic argument in the world. It was about exploiting those workers. It was about their being of lesser value than their male colleagues. There is absolutely no difference between the arguments about holidays and the arguments about equal pay. 
There is an economic argument that says we should not have 4 weeks’ annual leave right now but I see absolutely no reason at all for the issue not to be debated. 
Rodney Hide 
: Why not 6 weeks? 
MARK PECK 
: In some parts of Europe people have 6 weeks right now. I would hazard a guess that some of those who control our companies have more than 6 weeks right now but they see that as their right as stress leave and so on—as if workers do not have to confront those issues. 
Judith Collins 
: Name one. 
MARK PECK 
: This place is one big holiday to that member. Nobody has ever heard of that member over there doing any work at all—not a skerrick of work. The only thing she has ever been able to do is to make inane interjections. Could I give her some delight: she is never going to have to worry about doing any work because from the way that her side of the House is going it will be the irrelevant rump of Parliament very soon as it is replaced by United Future. 
Rodney Hide 
: This speech is stressing me. 
MARK PECK 
: Rodney Hide said that member is stressing him so she had better calm down. A lot of good work has already been done by this Government to start to restore the relative position that workers enjoyed. I am delighted as well to look at the Holidays Act which was brought in by my colleague Margaret Wilson. When I look through the provisions in that bill it is quite clear to me that the legislation promoted by Matt Robson should be considered in tandem with it. I do not believe that the economic argument around the provision of holidays has been properly examined. For people to say it is a cost ignores the other side of the equation and that side of the equation does need to be considered. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.