Fenton Darien: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10010. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I am very pleased to stand and support this Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill but I must say that I am gobsmacked by that speech by David Bennett. I am almost speechless—although he did not quite manage to put in his best line his best line ever which is: “The Government is not here to make people’s lives better.”Iain Lees-Galloway: That’s right. That’s what he thinks.DARIEN FENTON: That is right—the best line. So the member did not quite meet his standard tonight. I am sure we will go back overHansard and find some other pearls of wisdom but I have never heard so much ridiculous nonsense in all my time in the House. Even 3 years ago when this bill was in front of Parliament I did not hear anything quite so mad and ridiculous from that member who I suspect probably said a whole lot of silly things along the same lines that year. Yes I am gobsmacked.You know 3 years ago the Government did have a chance to do the right thing when this bill was in front of Parliament. They failed by voting down this bill and they are going to do it again tonight. What they are doing by doing that is failing the thousands of workers who have been laid off through no fault of their own often without notice and without compensation to get them through the hard times while they look for another job.I would like to talk about choice and the allegation from the member David Bennett that people should be free to negotiate. Well I have met a lot of workers who have been free to negotiate and who actually have been laid off with nothing. They get no compensation no notice and are expected to try to support their families through the hard times while they look for another job—no sympathy no nothing. It is really humiliating. It is a tragedy a personal tragedy for each of those workers and their families. It does have an awful impact. Anyone who has ever been made redundant—and I am sure that member is going to be made redundant next year—will understand the humiliation of redundancy for them and their families. [Interruption] He is over here. Here is over here.Let us talk about those who can negotiate redundancy pay and why this bill is fair. Let us talk about Lesley Longstone. The incompetence of the Minister of Education meant—Iain Lees-Galloway: Did she get the minimum rate?DARIEN FENTON: No she did not get 4 weeks pay plus 2 weeks for the half a year that she had been there. She got $425000 in a golden handshake because Hekia Parata could not get on with her—$425000. Why is that OK when other workers get nothing? Why is that OK David Bennett? Let us think about some others here. Don Elder—how much did Don Elder get? Don Elder got a quarter of a million dollars extra pay plus gardening leave when he made a botch-up of Solid Energy.Sue Moroney: Unbelievable.DARIEN FENTON: Unbelievable. He got a quarter of a million dollars plus gardening leave—money to stay home and allegedly work—because he made a botch-up of Solid Energy. Then you look at people like Paul Reynolds in Telecom who got $1.75 million in a golden handshake following his departure from Telecom. And Fonterra which we have been talking about tonight—Andrew Little: Facing severe hardship.DARIEN FENTON: Facing severe hardship that is right; he was trying to face the hardship that was coming. Then Fonterra paid its former chief executive Andrew Ferrier $8.2 million in a golden goodbye when he left the cooperative in 2011.This bill is a very very modest measure. The member David Bennett clearly does not understand minimums. He clearly does not support the minimum wage because that is not about telling people what they should be paid that is providing a floor for every worker in New Zealand below which they cannot be paid. That is what this bill will do.The National Government could do the right thing on the eve of the Budget. Tomorrow when it will be boasting about the jobs that it has not created it needs to think about the people who have lost their jobs. It needs to think very hard about that and do something right for a change. It had the chance to support this bill tonight and send it to a select committee.