Peachey Allan: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Peachey Allan: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:668;Page:15377] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 Goodness me what a tirade of hyperbole and exaggeration! I think I said in my first reading speech that in this House during this debate on the Employment Relations Bill (No 2) we are seeing a re-creation of a world that ceased to exist many many years ago. The once-proud Labour Party proud to represent the working class of New Zealand now simply wants to re-create the class wars of the 19th century without recognising just how much the world has changed. 
This legislation is all about greater flexibility and about greater responsibility for workers whether or not they choose to belong to trade unions and employers. I suspect that I am like many probably all members on the Government side of the House and probably like most New Zealanders in that I am getting sick and tired of seeing employers—those people who take out mortgages on their homes to start their businesses and to keep their businesses running and who often go without and whose families often go without to make sure that the workers are first and foremost paid—being kicked around. But then again if we step back to look at them who are these Labour members debating this legislation? They are certainly not the representatives of the working class. 
In fact that begs the question of where the next great working-class leader of the Labour Party is. The party has not had one for 40 years; the one it had then took a long time to develop. Where is the next one? I tell the House that that person will not come from the core membership of the current Labour Party. The core membership of the current Labour Party is no more than a group of trade union officials. I was staggered when this legislation was being debated last time the House sat to hear during Mr Henare’s speech that those people on the other side whom I have heard boasting of having led strikes also continued to take their wages at the same time. I wonder how many New Zealand families tremble at night at the prospect of a bunch of trade union officials who now control the Labour Party taking their husbands and wives fathers and mothers out on strike so they can build a reputation for themselves and so they can get a bit of publicity with absolutely no regard for the good of the working-class people of New Zealand. 
Darien Fenton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thought we were on the second reading of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) and were not talking about the trade union movement and Tau Henare’s strike bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Yes the second reading is the tightest of the three debates and I would ask the member to draw his analogies into the second reading. 
Chris Tremain 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: No I have ruled. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: I will pass just one observation which is that it is interesting to note just how sensitive that crowd over there are to the truth about the real nature of trade unionism in New Zealand and to what that party now represents. Thank you.