Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I want to make it clear to the drive-time audience out there listening to me tonight waiting to hear about this bill that this bill—the Holidays Amendment Bill—that we are trying to do a third reading of tonight is really what is referred to out in the business world as a fix-up of the muck-up. I accept that one has to be careful how one says that and I will not say it quickly. It is a fix-up of the muck-up. Last year this Government passed the Holidays Act and it was told at the time that it was a muck-up. That was even mentioned in the minority report of the select committee. The Government was told. United Future the common-sense party even voted against it because it was such a hopeless bill. The Government was told that there would be consequences that would be enormously damaging to business. But did the Government listen? No it did not listen. There was not a mutter not a murmur not a syllable. 
What happened is now legendary. The disastrous results for business in terms of the extra costs that it sustained from that legislation had to be addressed. Margaret Wilson got the sack because the North Korean and Cuban model was not working. Then “Swainy and the boys” were brought in to do the fix-up of the muck-up. Well we have to say to Paul Swain the Minister of Labour that this bill is a very very bad way to fix up a huge muck-up. I shall use United Future’s analogy. United Future members bless them said in the House today and during the Committee stage that they know that this bill does not fix it up properly and that frankly they saw it as taking a bite out of an elephant. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time was United Future’s answer. Well my response to United Future members in the Committee stage was to say: “How does one swallow a dead rat? Whole!”. That is what this bill is; this bill is a dead rat that we are being forced to swallow. 
What I found interesting about the analogy—to take it a little bit further—was that a member from United Future went on about the rights of Brethren about how disappointed he was that his amendment about that issue was not being supported that that was an outrage and that people should support his amendment. It turned out that that issue was not even in this bill! When United Future members took a bite out of the elephant it was the wrong elephant! The elephant that they meant to have a bite from is wandering around blissfully unaware of anything and there is another elephant somewhere with a huge chunk out of his bum that United Future took and he does not know why! That is how informed United Future is on this bill! 
Let us get serious about what this bill actually is supposed to do. It is supposed to say to somebody that if he or she is on leave and gets sick then he or she should not be getting the unbelievably stunningly weighted levels of payment that the Holidays Act entitles that person to. But the most insidious little element in this whole thing is something called equivalent daily pay. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Relevant. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I get equivalent and relevant mixed up. The Minister is correct. I tell members and the drive-time audience listening to this what that relevant daily pay means. Not only—[ 
Interruption 
] They heard that I would be on; there is a big audience out there I can tell members. Not only does a person get his or her basic pay in this relevant daily pay; the Minister says we should add on all the things that the person could be entitled to while he or she is working. I can understand why some workers get extra things. I am a big fan of bonus payments. If people turn in a staggeringly good performance of the job they are supposed to do if they produce thousands more widgets than the manager thought they would they should get a bonus because they achieved fantastic things for the company. I do not ever support some of the things that I used to get when I was a driver for Refrigerated Freight Lines Wattie’s and so on. We used to get wet money and cover money if we had to put tarpaulins on and rope money and all that. 
But this is the rub. The Government said that it would work out a person’s relevant daily pay by taking that person’s basic rate—and that is accepted—then adding on all those things that the person could get in specific circumstances. If a person was working out in the pouring rain the Government would give him or her some relevant daily pay for it—an extra bit. If a person had to put on covers and ropes or have a trailer or other extra conditions the Government would add it in. But here is the nonsense: a driver from that trucking company who is on holiday on the Gold Coast who is sunning himself in sunny Queensland could because of all those extra calculations be paid more than the poor old driver working back here where it is not actually raining and he does not have to use any covers or ropes! 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He may get sweat money. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: He might have sweat money. How bizarre is that? I want to get this clear; I think I have got this right. I understand that the relevant daily pay will be calculated based on the last 4 weeks’ pay. So the incentive is for someone to take vacation time straight after he or she has had a bonus payment. Bonus payments often come as a big spike as Mr Tamihere will tell members. A person’s wages just run along in a flat line then a big spike comes when that person gets a massive bonus. I am sure that John Tamihere as the Minister for Small Business knows how that works in small business. So what will a person do? He or she will take his or her holidays in the 4 weeks after that big spike so that his or her relevant daily pay has a big lump added into it—so the average is fantastic. Why would a person take his or her holidays 5 weeks later when that spike’s effect has gone through? How mad is that? 
Here is the rub. Labour members can go on all they like in the House—and they have—saying National Party members do not know what they are talking about are hopeless and so on. Members should forget about that. What did all of the major employer groups all the major businesses and even some of the Government-owned businesses say? Air New Zealand bless its little heart is owned by the Government because of mismanagement by Michael Cullen and so on in not allowing Singapore to lift the cap and buy in—but never mind it is a Government-owned airline now. It said that the Act was already costing it a fortune and that this amendment bill would not fix it. That is what it said. Heinz-Wattie Carter Holt Harvey—I cannot remember them all; there is a plethora of them—said the same. I would be very happy to yield my time to the Minister so that he could tell us why he did not listen to the plethora of submissions from businesses. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He’s from the unions. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That is right. He comes from the North Korean model side of things. I think I heard him say at one stage that employers were all right but he would not want his daughter to marry one—I think that was his line. Perhaps he said that some of his best friends were employers—although he does not like to say that too often in the Labour caucus. That is what Labour members think of employers—that they are evil and are out there to drive workers into the ground. It is the old cloth-cap Joe Hill 1920s North American railway worker’s view. Well that is not how it works. 
What about the entertainment industry and the hospitality industry which made it quite clear that if this bill was the fix-up of the muck-up then they would literally not be able to open on a public holiday or they would open through the devious means of giving special payments to somebody who was not part of the normal workforce or worse still they would do what they have done up to now which is add a premium to their charges? 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek the leave of the House to table sick leave hours and wages figures from the Alliance meatworks in Nelson which are pertinent to the debate. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am delighted to have 2 minutes and 5 seconds remaining—although it will be less than that now. But I am indebted to my colleague Nick Smith for tabling those figures because they reaffirm what we have heard from a number of various industries—that the cost of the Holidays Act which was put in place by the Government the cost of the muck-up that the Government made has put prices and costs for companies through the ceiling. 
We wanted to see United Future putting the blowtorch to the Government telling the Government that unless it fixed the bill properly it would not have the support of United Future. The Greens are not supporting this legislation New Zealand First is not supporting this legislation and National most certainly is not supporting it. The only way that the Government is getting it through is by relying on United Future. So the power lay in its hands absolutely. Paul Adam’s lame analogy of taking one bite out of an elephant really should be treated with the contempt— 
Simon Power 
: What? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I hear one of my colleagues say “What?”. That is what Mr Adams said—that the whole Holidays Act is an absolute muck-up but this fix-up of the muck-up is the equivalent of taking a bite out of an elephant. Mr Adams then went on to give a long speech about how United Future members supported the view of the Brethren on this legislation and so on— 
Simon Power 
: He was speaking to the wrong bill! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That is right; so he has even taken the bite out of the wrong elephant! But it is sad that United Future did not put the blowtorch to the Government point out that United Future is the party of common sense—although that is very debatable—and tell the Government that what United Future wanted it to do was to fix up the muck-up not just tinker with it. 
Mr Adams used another analogy which I thought was very dangerous in military terms. He said that this bill is taking us one step closer to the target. Well one has to be very careful when one is out on the rifle range because often target ranges have been set up on minefields. If one takes one step forward that may be one’s last step. 
As far as I am concerned I have no respect for a Government that was warned of the consequences—and it was—then comes back and says that they were unintended consequences and that that is what we are fixing up. The bill is a disgrace and National is going to vote against it.