Sabin Mike: Employment Relations (Continuity of Labour) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Employment Relations (Continuity of Labour) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14694. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I will address the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ comments. He should cast his mind back to many decades ago when he was in Government—a Government that he was not trying to take down; I should qualify that—and think about what it is to be a Government backbencher. Was he ever one of those? I think he was. When the Government has a constructive policy objective when it has a hard-working and constructive executive what it also has is a bunch of backbenchers who need to make sure that they can find high quality policy work to put forward into the policy agenda. The reason the Employment Relations (Continuity of Labour) Amendment Bill is a member’s bill speaks volumes of this Government. It speaks volumes of this executive that this bill this quality bill brought forward by a very quality member Jami-Lee Ross finds its way into the House by virtue of a member’s bill.Were it the case that it was a flotsam and jetsam arrangement as we saw under the previous 9 years of Government with Labour propped up by its friends in the Greens—who now are actually front row players and are pulling the strings for the Labour Party—then of course something like this would have been grabbed at and put through as a Government bill because the Labour Government would have struggled so much for its own ideas. But in a well-organised well-constructed team—that is “team” with a “t” an “e” an “a” and an “m”—the member Winston Peters has to understand that this is the appropriate path for a bill of this nature. It is appropriate for the member Jami-Lee Ross who has done a lot of work in this space and has a lot of credibility in this space to advance it. In discussion with caucus the bill made its way on to the members’ ballot agenda and the member has been fortunate enough to have it drawn.I know that it brings some consternation and some concern and some sort of waxing lyrical and hand-wringing from the chardonnay socialists in this place and from the people from the Green Party who are aligned to communist ideals but the reality is that the words “flexible” “fair” and “removing restrictions” are hardly things that the modern New Zealand working environment should be or is afraid of. This idea that those in the Labour Party and in the union movement are the only ones who know how to organise a working relationship and are the only ones who can have the lever the prescriptive ideas and the mechanisms within the employment relationship is a nonsense. The most successful examples in the New Zealand workforce are ones where there is flexibility fairness and removing the sorts of restrictions that can hamstring businesses see them compromised and ultimately affect productivity which one would think is not in the best interests of the worker in the first place. This bill is about dealing with those matters. It is about enhancing the New Zealand employment relationship. It is about getting the appropriate balance.I know that the member Winston Peters loves to lob a few grenades at me across the electorate. I have been spending the last 2 years picking up the cigar butts that he hasleft discarded around the Northland electorate when he has wandered up there to remember how it was for him back in the day. Oh here is a point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With the greatest respect you can if you know nothing speak for a little while about a bill but you have really got to try to reference it. You cannot make allegations that are simply not true as the member knows. He is accusing me—MIKE SABIN: This is not a point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: No he is accusing me of vandalising the community in a way that is totally false. He knows I have never done that and he cannot get away with the allegation that somebody is an environmental vandal. I take offence at that and I want an apology.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I understand—MIKE SABIN: Speaking to the point of order—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well I understand where Mr Peters is coming from. He has taken offence. I just ask the member to withdraw.MIKE SABIN: I withdraw but—Dr Rajen Prasad: Apologise.MIKE SABIN: No I withdraw; I will not apologise on that particular matter. Picking that up it is a shame that the member finds Northland to be something so special in his heart that he should attack this member of Parliament at every opportunity and that he cares so much that he is not even prepared to stand a candidate in the electorate of Northland. I look forward very much to seeing whether the Rt Hon Winston Peters wants to stand as a candidate in Northland so that we can continue this discussion about our interests in Northland on the hustings because I would welcome that opportunity. I would welcome that opportunity.I commend Jami-Lee Ross for the work he does in this place. I commend him for the work he does in policy development. This is a man who cares deeply about this nation but he is also a man who turns his words into some productive policy ideas. I wholeheartedly commend the bill to the House.