Key John: Holidays Bill — First Reading 
Key John: Holidays Bill — First Reading 
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JOHN KEY (NZ National—Helensville) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to participate in the first reading of this bill. I have no doubt that no member of this House and no member of the public will be surprised to see this legislation being introduced by this minority Labour Government. I say that because this Government is full of academics and unionists who would not know a job if they fell over one. Those members have never had jobs in the real world. In fact the Government is so out of touch with business that when it made its listing of what Ministers owned we learnt that only one Minister on the Government side of the House owned shares in any company in New Zealand. So it is a bit rich that Government members come in here and introduce legislation that will affect every business in New Zealand when they would not know what a decent job was even if they had one. That is what is happening. No New Zealander is surprised by this bill and I certainly am not surprised by it at all.  
The Minister has heralded this legislation as providing certainty clarity and consistency. 
Hon Annette King 
: Whose back did you climb on? 
JOHN KEY 
: In case the Hon Annette King did not hear me—and she is chipping away out of her retired caravan; there are a number of things we would like to see retired in the Labour Party but a caravan is not one of them—certainty clarity and consistency is what the Minister said that this legislation would provide. Well I will do something that I do not normally do: I will agree with the Minister. I will agree wholeheartedly with the Hon Margaret Wilson the real face of the Labour Party that this legislation certainly will give certainty in terms of compliance costs. Compliance costs will go in one direction if this legislation comes into force—and that is not down. Compliance costs will go up. One hundred and eighty thousand businesses from Kaitaia to Bluff will have a special present from the Hon Margaret Wilson yet again in the form of more compliance costs. There will be consistency all right; not one business will be missed. Not one nook and cranny will go unturned. All businesses will have a minimum of a whopping $7000 and maybe more added on to their bill. That is what will happen.  
This legislation will certainly be anti-employment. There are 400000 New Zealanders of working age on a benefit of some sort 120000 of whom are on the unemployment benefit. I simply pose this question: will this bill add to the likelihood of employment going up? Not a chance! I predict very confidently that when this legislation is passed unemployment will be on the rise and those people without a job who are sitting at home and unable to provide for their families will not be writing letters of thanks and congratulations to this minority Labour Government. They will not be doing that at all. Mr Cosgrove has entered the House and I say that in his home electorate of Waimakariri business will not be thanking him for this bill. There is great certainty here in this bill.  
Dr Cullen has come into this House and said time and time again that businesses in New Zealand do not pay tax. He has said we should not worry about cutting the corporate tax rate because 95 percent of businesses do not pay tax. Well there is a reason that businesses do not pay tax: they do not make money. And they do not make money because that Minister just keeps on wanting to lump compliance costs on them. Businesses do not even have an opportunity to do an honest day’s work and to employ honest New Zealanders because every which way that they turn compliance costs get whacked on them. There will be certainty all right with this legislation—certainty that it is bad. The unemployed want jobs and they do not necessarily want the nice little bits and pieces that this legislation tries to introduce. They just want a job.  
Let me turn to clarity. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: This bill provides that. 
JOHN KEY 
: Well I tell Mr Cosgrove that the bill does provide clarity for me because it once again shows the true face of the real Labour Party not the thing that one sees parading at the knowledge wave conference. Well let me quote the Hon John Tamihere. He said the Labour Party was bullshitting about its social welfare policy. Well he will be making the same statement when he talks about whether this legislation is good for employers. If any Minister says that it is John Tamihere will have to go to the knowledge wave conference once again and correct him or her because that is what any such Minister would be doing. I will not use that term very often in this House because it is a little unparliamentary. But I read that quote in the  
Sunday Star-Times  
and I thought I should just share it with this House.  
Finally there is consistency. There is supposed to be certainty clarity and consistency in this bill. Those were wonderful words from the Minister. I say yes it will be consistently harder to do business in New Zealand.  
Why has this legislation come to the House when it is so bad? That is a pretty good question. Why is it being introduced? 
Lindsay Tisch 
: What’s the answer? 
JOHN KEY 
: I tell Mr Tisch that the answer is that blood is thicker than water. This is just round two of pay-back time for the unions. I stood in this House and spoke at length in the debate on the health and safety in employment legislation. When it was passed I looked to the gallery and I saw that members of the unions were there on their feet applauding. I predict exactly the same thing will happen when this legislation is passed because that is whom it is good for. It is not good for those people who are really trying to employ New Zealanders or for those people who are looking for a job. It is not good for those 120000 unemployed New Zealanders and neither is it good for young people who are working hard in tertiary institutions to get qualifications so that they can get a job. It is not good for any of those people. But it is good for the cronies of the Labour Party and they will be on their feet again in this House and clapping because round two of pay-back time will have happened. Mr Cosgrove knows that that is correct. Even if Mr Cosgrove does not appear to be nodding I bet he is nodding inside because he knows that I am right.  
I want to turn for a moment to some of the specifics of the bill. But before I do that I want to make one simple comment. This legislation will add to one thing in our labour markets—inflexibility. If members know anything about driving an economy forward and making a country better to live in then they will know we need to have flexibility in the employment markets more than anything else. For the benefit of those who have not studied economics at all—in other words the entire Labour Cabinet—I suggest that they look at Japan. They will see Japan has massive inflexibility in its employment legislation. Today it will be proposing a new central bank governor for the Bank of Japan. That will have absolutely no impact like everything else in the last 10 years because Japan has massive inflexibility. That is what we are driving in New Zealand with this bill.  
I will talk for a few moments about the specifics of the bill. In particular let me look at the point relating to sickness which is a real doozy. There is still no requirement for employees to produce evidence of illness in order to use accumulated sick leave. One does not even have show that one is sick in order to carry that leave forward. One does not have to do anything. But I guess that is good for business somehow is it? Businesses all around New Zealand will have people accumulating sick leave from one year to another. Potentially 15 days will be accumulated and that is a massive liability for businesses. Will that make people go out and work?  
I now turn to some of the absolute specifics of the bill in terms of employers having to pay time-and-a-half and a day in lieu. What will that mean to the tourist sector? Hospitality New Zealand told us what it would mean. [ 
Interruption 
] The people from Hospitality New Zealand are wonderful; I know them well and they do a fantastic job. They said in a nutshell that we will receive worse service and it will cost us more. That sounds like a recipe for having a good time on a statutory holiday does it not? That sounds like a good idea! When we go down the road to a pub and ask for a beer the barman will say he or she is actually an employee who is covered under the holidays legislation so our pint of beer will cost $18. That is probably what it will cost. If we ask why is it so expensive the barman will say that because he or she is being paid time-and-a-half and has to have a day off the employer has to employ other people. That is what will happen. That will not make New Zealand competitive and will not drive employment.  
We know why this bill is here in the House. This is a lead-on for Matt Robson’s Trojan Horse of 4 weeks’ holiday. New Zealanders already have 3 weeks and 11 days of holidays and they will get more when that legislation goes through.