Woodhouse Michael: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:457. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety):It is my pleasure to take what I expect will be the final call before the vote on the third reading of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge my friend and colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga for moving the third reading motion as I was unable to do so and I appreciate the whip’s indulgence in giving me this final call. This afternoon it was my great privilege as the Minister of Police to attend my first graduation ceremony at the Royal New Zealand Police College in Porirua. I want to congratulate those graduants of Recruit Wing 287 as they are now sworn members of the constabulary in New Zealand.There is a very interesting thing about the New Zealand Police. Those men and women in the New Zealand police force are not allowed to strike. In fact this House legislated against the right of those workers to take industrial action. What this House also did was provide for some flexibility some compensation and some processes of mediation and arbitration in the event that negotiations between them and their employer became protracted. It is the same with the New Zealand Defence Force and a number of other organisations in this country. It is sound it is sensible and it is flexible. Do we hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the other side about that kind of flexibility? Absolutely not. So what I completely fail to understand is why the very pragmatic sensible flexible arrangements that are being proposed in this bill are being so opposed by the Opposition.Mr Seymour in his first intervention on this bill has rather quizzically seen that very moderate changes in his view are getting what he thought I think was an overreaction. Well I think that Mr Seymour needs to get used to that because that is the nature of the industrial relations landscape in this House. Even the most moderate sensible flexible changes will be railed at by the Opposition and we have seen that throughout this debate.For generations similar types of practical accommodations were able to be made where the circumstances required them and we have mentioned those sorts of things such as the night shift nurse in the aged-care home the supervisor at the 24-hour service station and the sole-charge air traffic controller at small airports—very practical solutions which were made unlawful in 2008 by the amendments to this Act. We have heard a lot. We have heard about bus drivers urinating in bottles and about the very important conditions that Mr Twyford described in the forestry sector. Those sorts of things are unlawful now and they will be unlawful in the future. What angers me about the tub-thumping rhetoric by the cloth-cap wearers in the Opposition is that their irrational and incorrect description of flexibility as being the arbitrary removal of tea breaks has created a climate of fear amongst hundreds of thousands of workers in this country—the very workers they claim to represent—and for that the Opposition should be ashamed.I want to turn now to the duty of good faith not requiring a duty to conclude collective bargaining. I want to thank the architects of that clause the fifth Labour Government which introduced that provision when the Employment Relations Act was passed in 2000. It was sensible it worked and for reasons that the National Party and ACT party in Opposition could not fathom it was removed in 2004. Well we are putting it back but we are doing more than that: we are creating very good provisions for the prevention and control of what is called surface bargaining which can be conducted not just by employers but by employees and their representatives. The Employment Relations Authority has to be satisfied that good faith has been undertaken before a decision to conclude the bargaining process is made and that of course for 60 days at least prevents the right to strike. It also prevents the right of an employer to lock workers out. It goes both ways.Finally I want to talk about Part 6A. As a rugby referee when one comes off the field and both teams are pretty unhappy with one’s performance you think you have done a pretty good job and that is certainly the case with Part 6A. The unions are unhappy and the employers are unhappy with what are some moderate sensible changes that I think will actually support the types of workers who support the Labour Party.Mr Hipkins in his intervention asked—and I paraphrase—“What stops a company like say Spotless from structuring its business to create a means to get around Part 6A?”. Well he clearly has not read the bill because exactly those provisions on the effective control of franchise arrangements to prevent such structuring have been put into the bill. It is also noteworthy that those genuinely small organisations—and about 75 percent of the organisations in say cleaning in this country are sole practice or very small family-owned businesses—do have the means or the wherewithal to embark on the responsibilities as set out in Part 6A. Often they are migrants or workers who have been cleaners themselves who have set up their own businesses and are struggling to make them work and who are successful in getting new tenders. They should be protected I think from the obligation—the burden—that would have them comply with Part 6A. These are very sensible very practical and I think appropriate changes to the Employment Relations Act.As I say I think Mr Seymour needs to get used to the fact that even sensible changes to our employment relations and ACC legislation will have the Opposition members up like meerkats. But I support this bill. This is good for our employment relations landscape. It is good for employers it is good for employees and I commend it to the House.