Swain Paul: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Swain Paul: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16026] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 The member has asked a couple of questions and I will respond to at least one of them. He asked why we are doing this and why we are not doing that. About 6 weeks ago I indicated that the intent of the bill that is now before the Committee was to fix the unintended consequences of the Holidays Act. A lot of the issues that the member has raised were not unintended consequences. That is the fact of it. This bill attempts to fix the unintended consequences of the Act and that is the matter that is before the Committee. Those matters which I announced 6 weeks ago are providing for no penal rates to be paid for public holidays on top of existing penal rates—there was some confusion about that—and for no public holiday rates to be paid if an employee does not work on that day. There were indications that some people were taking sick leave on a public holiday and then getting time and a half so we indicated that that was not the intention of the Act but was an unintended consequence. Some people said that there was an issue about trying to resolve composite pay rates and the fact that there was not enough time to do that. We had indicated in the legislation that that could be resolved by the middle of next year but a lot of people were saying that a lot of their contracts rolled over until 2007. We said that those negotiations should be allowed to go until 2007 or until the composite agreement was renegotiated. That was the point of that—to give more time to resolve the matter—and that was quite an important issue. 
Then there was the issue about medical certificates. Under the current legislation employers are not allowed to ask for a medical certificate until after an absence of 3 days. I thought that it was important that where there was good reason employers could ask on reasonable grounds for a medical certificate. There were a couple of conditions attached to that—one being that the employer pay for it. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee clarified that by stating that employees should be able to go to a doctor of their choice. I agree with that. The select committee has come back and made some further clarifications. It has stated that penal rates do not include overtime that employees can choose their own doctor as I have said before that employers are only required to pay an employee’s reasonable expenses when requesting a medical certificate and that employees who are asked for a medical certificate and do not provide it without good reason may not be paid sick leave. So the committee has made some clarifications around the provisions for employees to prove that they are sick and that is where we are at on that matter. 
I have added another little minor technical amendment which adds the word “into” after the word “entered” in new clause 2A in the definition of an “existing individual employment agreement”. That is to be consistent with the rest of the bill. 
Finally I should say that as far as support for the bill is concerned my understanding is that the Green Party is not supporting the bill. I presume that I will hear from the Greens in a minute. Their view is probably that the bill goes too far particularly around the medical certificate requirements. That is why I presume they are not supporting the bill though I will wait to hear from them on that. New Zealand First has indicated support for the bill thus far but is currently considering its position I understand. But the United Future members who have some concerns and will have at least one Supplementary Order Paper have said that it is really really important that at least these things happen now and we make progress on them rather than wasting more time. I have always said that it was important that this stuff be resolved before Labour weekend which is not this weekend but the following weekend. In fact Peter Brown made a very very good speech—and I listened to his speech because I think he sometimes gives very very good speeches—saying that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. That was basically the general message that he gave us. It is a position that United Future is taking and I think that it is a principled position to take as well. 
So in the end this bill attempts to resolve the unintended consequences of the legislation that was introduced last year. By and large that legislation was designed to try to make sure that ordinary working people get time and a half when they work on a public holiday. That is a good and fair thing. It will also introduce 4 weeks’ annual leave in 2007 which is another good thing. But there are some minor amendments that need to be made to take away some unintended consequences of the Act and therefore I urge members to consider this bill in that light.