Young Jonathan: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9479. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Before I make my contribution on Part 1 of the Employment Standards Legislation Bill I also would just like to acknowledge the work and the support of the officials not only to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety but to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as we went through the process of analysing this bill and heard from submitters from right across New Zealand—employers and employees. I was away when the second reading was heard last Thursday so this is my first opportunity to speak after the select committee process. I just want to acknowledge the members of the committee both from this side of the Chamber and from the other side as well as we have worked to come to a place where we want in particular to protect some of the more vulnerable employees in our country.I want to speak just briefly on the definition that has been articulated here this evening. I think the member opposite Iain Lees-Galloway made the comment that a zero-hour contract was a permanent part-time contract with no fixed hours. I would like to add to that as well because I believe that a zero-hour contract is more than that. It is a permanent part-time contract with no fixed hours and a requirement to be available to the exclusion of other employment opportunities. We need to understand and recognise that right across this Committee every single one of us opposes that definition of what it is. As we went through the select committee process the very principle of this bill that it sought to strengthen was the mutuality of obligation. If there are contracts with no fixed hours that are permanent and part time but have the requirement that the employee be available to the exclusion of other employment opportunities then that is not a mutual obligation committed by the employer to that person.As a committee we looked at these measures and we came back and as the Minister has alluded we strengthened the obligations of the employer and some of these have been spoken about this evening. They have been such that the employer must have a genuine reason based on reasonable grounds for including an availability provision in a contract. In fact if they do not even put an availability provision in an employment agreement they cannot ask a worker to do such. The availability provision provides for the payment of reasonable compensation to the employee for making himself or herself available to perform work under the provision. It is good that we are going to come to an agreement through all of this with the different Supplementary Order Papers that are coming through. I believe that as the Minister and other speakers have said if there are agreed hours and guaranteed hours it is going to do no harm and potentially good in terms of this bill.What I am saying is that all the work that we did in the select committee process that is now in the billin clause 87 new section 67E(3B) and (3C) onwards in terms of putting far greater obligations of reasonable compensation means that an employer cannot expect somebody to be available without a mutual obligation towards that person and that there would be compensation—and reasonable compensation—made available if they ask that employee to do that work. Then the number of hours for which the employee would be required to be available would have to be proportionate to the agreed hours of work. All of these measures are there. They are strong measures and I believe they are achieving some really good outcomes in this area which we understand is called zero-hour contracts.My view is and I am sure that as we come through this whole process of working through the Supplementary Order Papers we will come to a happy place of agreement. We will see that there will be minimum standards of employment that are reflected in what is written even now in the bill before the Committee and then the added Supplementary Order Papers will add to them as well. We will see that there will be opportunities for people to work with flexibility—with the employers; with employees—but that there will not be that ability for the vulnerable to be exploited. I believe that that is a good thing and is a thing that members in this Committee would all agree with. Thank you.