8. Employment Relations—Written Employment Agreements and Migrant ExploitationIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and SafetyEmployment Relations—Written Employment Agreements and Migrant Exploitation8. IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Is he concerned that 170000 people working in New Zealand have no written employment agreement?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes I am. This Government expects all employers to comply with the law and that is why I have asked the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment for a report into why these people do not have employment agreements and what can be done to improve compliance.Iain Lees-Galloway: Is he concerned that the industries in which workers are least likely to have a written employment agreement—agriculture forestry fishing construction hospitality and administration—are also the industries that have the highest numbers of migrant workers?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The fact that there might be higher proportions of migrant workers in those industries is no reason to be any more or less concerned. Everybody in this country has a right to have a written employment agreement and that is the expectation that Government sets.Iain Lees-Galloway: Is he concerned that the industries with the worst health and safety records—agriculture forestry and fishing—are also the least likely to provide a written employment agreement and are amongst the highest users of temporary work visas to meet their labour needs?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I repeat the answer to the previous supplementary question. But I would agree to the extent that the lack of a written employment agreement is one of the leading indicators of other minimum employment standards not being met—which is why the Government passed law last year to increase the expectations on employers for documentation and the consequences of not having it.Iain Lees-Galloway: Why is the Government giving rogue employers who pay low wages fail to fulfil their most basic employment duties and fail to provide a safe workplace the option of exploiting migrant workers rather than cleaning up their act?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That is probably a question best levelled at the Minister of Immigration but I am sure what he would say—if he were to answer it—is that that is exactly the expectation that is being laid out to the immigration compliance team. It is why I have asked the labour inspectorate and the immigration compliance team to work more closely together. Access to the international labour market by employers is a privilege not a right and it is one that can be lost.Iain Lees-Galloway: Should he not focus on getting those employers to sort out their employment practices before claiming that young Kiwis are all lazy and on drugs?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I reject the second part of that. No member of this Government has—and I quote the member in his question—said that all Kiwis are lazy". What we have said is that there are barriers to employment that need to be removed one by one and this Government has done more than any to do so. But in terms of the sentiment of the question I do not necessarily disagree with it."