Salesa Jenny; Uffindell SamASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Fakaalofa lahi atu members of Parliament. When we broke for the dinner break we were debating the second reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. The next call is a National Party call.SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Madam Speaker thank you. It's great to be able to rise and speak on this bill. We've heard quite a lot of passion I think from both sides on this. I mean it's something that the Labour Party is very keen to put through and it's something that on this side of the House National and ACT are a lot less keen to put through and something we have already noted that we will get rid of when we come into Government.Hon Kieran McAnulty: Got it in one.SAM UFFINDELL: Very good. Now the attempt here is to impose industry- or occupation-wide collective bargaining agreements. What we believe this will do is reduce flexibility in the workplace.Angela Roberts: What's the next line?SAM UFFINDELL: OK the next line on this is that we think this will make it a lot less competitive for people. This is a bit of a throwback to the days of the 1970s when you had these big industries and the way they liked to do it was roll out industry agreements across the way but we've moved on a fair bit from that now. You know we're 50 years down the track and we're in quite a dynamic nimble economy and people now like to be able to make their own decisions about how they're going to engage in employment agreements.We've noticed that it doesn't take a lot for people to be forced into this and it does make it mandatory across workplaces where there are a huge number of workers. You don't need a big test to pass—1000 employees or 10 percent of the workforce. If you've got a significant workforce like you do in some—you know take hospo or retail for instance; 1000 workers isn't actually that much. You're effectively then forcing everyone else whether they like it or not to come into this arrangement.This isn't about fair pay; this is about the imposition of mandatory conditions on New Zealanders that reduce work flexibility. Flexible labour markets are the foundation of what we want to see here in the 21st century. This undermines that flexibility. Small businesses in New Zealand and in other—I would like to say advanced but I'm not sure we are meeting that test under this current Government—economies around the world they thrive because they can be agile. We live in an agile workplace. We live in a place where people can move between businesses and across borders. Now we know these fair pay agreements (FPAs) are going to be particularly costly and complex for small businesses. Here in New Zealand small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy—they really are. They employ over 600000 people. I can see how in a big big company it might make a bit more sense to have everyone on the same level but to apply it across the board is a massive overreach especially when you bring small businesses into it.My colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith gave the example of supermarkets earlier. You've got your big ones there: you've got Countdown; you've got New World. If they're made to come into these negotiations and you've got someone else you're just a small company in rural New Zealand that employs a couple of people how are those negotiations going to run? Do you think your small business owner is really going to get a say at that table? Because they won't. They won't get it. Small businesses will be left behind and small businesses can't always absorb those additional costs that are going to be placed on them. We know it is going to place additional costs on them. Treasury's own advice to the Government was that there has been minimal identification of empirical evidence for the problem or policy response and from our perspective they are an ideological overreach by Labour.I've got some other good quotes here so I'd like to move on to those too. Some can get angry; others can grin. You take it either way. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has warned there may be some cost to some employees if employers reduce hours of work reduce the size of the workforce or do not hire as many workers in order to remain competitive. Treasury has also warned the proposed system could make structural changes to the labour market and have negative effects on worker conditions employment and productivity. It's very important that when you get given advice that you listen to it. I know that that side of the House and in particular that Minister Michael Wood really wants to drive in an ideological agenda about taking New Zealand back to compulsory workplace unionism but when you've got Treasury and you've got MBIE—and I've got some other good quotes here from Business New Zealand that I'll move on to shortly—you need to listen to them. This rigidity to put a one-size-fits-all approach on our workplaces will reduce our ability to adapt and to innovate. It will weaken our economy at a time it's already incredibly vulnerable.Maureen Pugh: It's going backwards.SAM UFFINDELL: It is going backwards; you're right. Thank you. It's not acceptable that you can keep heaping costs on to businesses. We've already seen we've got inflation running at 7.2 percent—that is six quarters in a row. We've had consistent minimum wage increases. We've had a big bunch of sick days put on. We've got the job tax around the corner. We've now got fair pay agreements around the corner as well and to think that businesses are just these incredibly profitable beasts especially small businesses and it's the small businesses that hire over 600000 workers in New Zealand. You think they can keep absorbing all of these costs? It is a total misconception. We need to understand—and Treasury and MBIE have already identified this—that if we keep pushing along these costs they will get passed on to the customer or the business in order to remain competitive will have to lose staff. That's a dreadful situation to be in. It's not this idyllic utopia you all think it is where businesses are big fat cats and can just keep paying and meeting conditions.We've got some other good pieces here and I'd like to refer to what Business New Zealand has said. They quote that The Government has failed to listen to business concerns and has doubled down on the worst aspects of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill and while under select committee consideration the bill has been made even worse." That's coming from the Business New Zealand chief executive. When you read comments like that and you see the Mood of the Boardroom that came out a couple of weeks ago one can hardly be surprised that this Government is no longer considered competent by the boardroom. Your time is coming because you're not talking to people and when you are it is just a box-ticking exercise. You need to listen when people give you feedback like this.Let me go on. Let's look at what the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) had to say about it: "The Government's report back on the misnamed Fair Pay Agreements"—we particularly like that comment—"demonstrates a failure to listen"—as I've already commented on—"that was also highlighted in the recent Mood of the Boardroom survey says the EMA." This is a direct quote: "What has come back from the select committee process makes things even worse for employers and employees the vast majority of whom will have no say in FPAs if they are introduced". It's more bad news more bad quotes. Here's another one: "Employers must hand over employee details to the negotiating union a potential breach of privacy." so they can collect their info collect their fees. Here's another quote: "Coincidentally those are all examples of collective agreements locking in lowest common denominator pay increases over longer fixed terms and failing to respond to the market and demand. That's what FPAs do for three years." Meanwhile we've seen in the current environment the private sector has been able to respond because they are agile and they are offering increased wage increases. FPAs are a return to a failed collective centralised thinking at a time when we as a small agile New Zealand economy need to be able to be agile and respond to ever-changing ever-demanding global economic instability. This doesn't do that. This is not good for workers. This is not good for businesses. When we come into Government we will get rid of this bill. Therefore as I have stated before the National Party opposes this bill. Thank you."