Prebble Richard: Holidays Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Prebble Richard: Holidays Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15395] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf the ACT party to speak to the Holidays Amendment Bill a bill that the ACT party will oppose. According to the explanatory note this bill “implements Government policy by … correcting unintended consequences that have arisen or may arise in applying the Holidays Act …” that was enacted just last year. Apparently it will ensure fairness between employers and employees is maintained when paying employees time and a half for public holidays and requesting proof of sickness or injury in relation to sick leave. I will also move that this bill be sent to the Commerce Committee and not to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
I will now explain why we oppose the bill. Firstly in relation to the statement by the Government I say there should be a requirement as to the accuracy of explanatory notes. The explanatory note of this bill states that there were “unintended consequences”. Members can look at the  
Hansard 
 of last year; they can go into the corridor and get a volume. If they look at volume 614 they will see that the date of the second reading of the Holidays Bill was 4 December. The Minister in charge of the bill the Hon John Tamihere said on behalf of the Minister of Labour that there were 4000 submissions on the bill. Many many submitters predicted all the consequences that have happened under that legislation. But it is not just that. Last year the ACT party went to the trouble—I do not know why we bother—of putting in a minority report on that bill. In that minority report our committee member Deborah Coddington predicted that those matters would happen. Those changes were not unintended consequences. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee changed the Government’s proposals in order to make the bill more radical. 
Why did the committee do that? If members would like to know why I am suggesting changing the committee to which this bill should be sent so that it is relevant it is because the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is made up on the Government side purely of former trade union officials. Mr Gosche was a member of the hotel workers union and Lianne Dalziel I think was also a member of the same union. Helen Duncan was an office holder of the teachers union Lynne Pillay was a former trade union official of the Engineers Union and from the Green Party we have a person who was an official of the unemployed workers union—whatever that could be. I do not know how she can claim to know about sickness and everything else because she has never worked. The serious point I am making is that I have sat on that committee and I have watched those members who have never employed anyone in their lives and not only have no sympathy for employers but are ideologically opposed to them. They put up those absurd amendments even though—and members can see this in  
Hansard 
—the predicted consequences of those amendments were there. 
Quite seriously I say to this House that we should not send any industrial relations bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. That committee is ideological and is not capable of looking at evidence in a dispassionate fashion. I suggest this bill be referred to the Commerce Committee because although it is chaired by a former trade union official Mr Mark Peck I have more respect for his chances of listening to officials than I do in the case of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Mr Mark Peck the Hon Damien O’Connor and Ross Robertson are far more likely to listen to submissions rather than to take the ideological blinkered approach of that committee. If members do not believe that then they should look at the Employment Relations Amendment Bill when it comes back to the House—but I cannot anticipate an order of the day. 
Sue Bradford 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. About half a minute ago I believe the member made a personal reflection against me by saying that I have never worked. That is simply not true. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: That is not a point of order; it is a debating point. 
Sue Bradford 
: It is not a debating point. Do I need to seek leave to make a personal explanation? My understanding was that one had to raise a point of order on things like that right away. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thought that was a debating point but the member can seek leave to make a personal explanation. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You could have pointed out to the member that it is highly unparliamentary to interrupt a speech in order to make a personal explanation that is a debating point. She is inviting me to object to leave being given to her for that. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member is right. Rather than interrupting a speech like that the member should wait until the member has finished his speech if she wants to make an explanation. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: No doubt the member worked very hard on behalf of the unemployed but I still say that from her work history that member is not qualified to look at this matter and is certainly not sympathetic to the interests of small business. The ACT party predicted these consequences on the debate of the Holidays Bill last year. If members read Deborah Coddington’s speech they will find that all these matters were raised. 
Again on behalf of the ACT party I point out to the House that this bill is still very defective. One reason for that is it does not fix the problem of relevant daily pay. What is relevant daily pay? That was a new concept introduced by the select committee and not by the Minister. That ideological select committee decided to introduce a new concept for working out holiday pay. Well what is relevant daily pay? With effect from 1 April it means we no longer calculate holiday pay as we have done for 50 years in this country on the result of one’s ordinary pay—that is the base rate of pay without such things as overtime productivity incentives attendance incentives conditions allowances and other such payments. I put this to the House: why should someone who is not working because he or she is on holiday be entitled to a productivity incentive? Why should someone be entitled to an attendance bonus when that person is not attending? That is how absurd the situation is. Members may ask whether it involves very much money. Yes it does. As the National Party member pointed out Air New Zealand has indicated that the effect of the Holidays Act even before we get to the 4 weeks’ annual leave provision is an additional $17 million on its payroll. The effect on small business has been absolutely devastating. 
We in this party who make no apology for representing the interests of small business cannot support a Holidays Amendment Bill that is not prepared to look at the revolutionary concept that the relevant daily pay that should be used for working out the payment for one’s days off—of course it should be; it has been for 50 years—is one’s ordinary rate of pay. That is an extremely important point and one of the reasons for that is this: it is actually quite easy to calculate holiday pay when one calculates it off one’s ordinary rate of pay. We all—employers and employees—know what our base rate of pay is. But once we decide to include all overtime worked all penal time that may have been collected and all unusual payments—for instance there are some people who still get dirt money and the like—the paperwork now required to keep someone’s record so his or her holiday pay can be worked out is enormous. 
Government members get up—and I heard the Minister for Small Business today—and boast that they will try to reduce red tape for small business. Well I tell Mr Tamihere that if he wants to reduce red tape for small business one simple way of doing that is to go back to a formula of using someone’s ordinary base rate to calculate the payment for holiday time. That would save an enormous amount of administration and it is also just. It would also avoid the enormous arguments that are now happening in every firm around New Zealand. People are saying to their employer that the employer has forgotten about the fact that they received a special “rain” allowance in the last 12 months or that the employer is forgetting about the fact that he or she was generous enough to give them a bonus because they managed to get some goods shipped by Easter. They argue that they are now entitled to be paid that bonus at Christmas not because they have done anything then but because 12 months ago they did something. 
The House can see the absurdity of that. The Commerce Committee I believe would see the absurdity of that. I assure the House that the trade union members that the Labour Government has put on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee have never had to pay a fellow New Zealander out of their own money. No one has ever had to worry about paying the wage bill each week. Not a single employer from the Government side of the House is on that committee; none of those people are on that committee. That committee is so ideological that even though the ACT party—and the National Party to be fair to it—pointed out all the so-called unintended consequences that were raised in about half the 4000 submissions that the committee heard on the Holidays Bill it took no notice of them and put the bill through. That committee should not be given another chance to attempt to do that. I ask the committee to support my amendment to refer this bill to the Commerce Committee.