English Bill: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
English Bill: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 July 2008. Volume:648;Page:17034. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Labour forgot about the workers. That is what has happened here. Labour bought back the railway and forgot about the workers. When New Zealand Rail was sold 15 years ago National did not forget about the workers. We made sure that the people who worked for New Zealand Rail at the time could remain as members of the Government superannuation scheme and keep their entitlements even though they were transiting into the employment of a purely private sector employer. It was quite straightforward. Workers who had their entitlements kept them because they had had them for a long time under New Zealand Rail. It was part of the deal. There was never any sense of insecurity for those workers. 
But Labour forgot about the workers. In fact it sounds as though Labour found that out only today after it had signed the deal. Labour goes around the country bleeding from its liberal heart about how fantastic rail is and about all the good things it will do for New Zealand but it forgot that the several thousand people who worked for Toll had entitlements under the Government superannuation scheme and that under the deal Labour has done the workers will lose their entitlements. As of now they have no entitlements; they are gone. Well does that not tell us just what Labour is up to? 
In fact it reminds the House about the original motives for the whole deal around rail. The workers certainly know it was nothing to do with the welfare of the employees of Toll because Labour has shown it was not interested in that. The original motivation for the deal with Toll was purely political. The House may remember Helen Clark at one stage some 6 months ago saying the biggest issue in election year was going to be State assets. Then Labour set out on a set of reckless and expensive political moves to try to make State assets an issue. It decided to intervene at the last minute in the Auckland airport sale. That destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of value. It has made the shares in that blue-chip company virtually unsaleable to anyone except the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Labour tried to turn that sale into a big political issue but that failed. It got headlines for a day or two but those went. So then Helen Clark rang up Michael Cullen said Labour needed to do something else and suggested that he buy back rail. On the urgings of the Prime Minister and the chief adviser in his office Dr Cullen then set out to buy back rail. The result of that is the expenditure of about $1 billion of taxpayers’ capital today—about $1 billion. 
From the way that the Government has gone about this particular purchase one would think that capital was endless. Well it is not. The New Zealand Labour Government cannot put enough classrooms on the site of schools in Queenstown near my electorate because it says it does not have enough money but it can find $1 billion at short notice when the economy is turning down to buy back New Zealand rail. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Unbelievable. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is unbelievable. The motivation was purely political. The Government is trying to dress it up now in terms such as sustainability and the enhancement of public transport. The fact is that the Government does not have any long-term plans for either of those things. The purchase of New Zealand rail or Toll does not change the fundamental fact that it will still need to be subsidised. As my leader pointed out today the trains are coloured red partly because Labour wants the advertising but also because that is the colour of the ink that will flow through the Government’s books as either Labour or National—whichever one is the next Government—struggles hard to recoup some of the taxpayers’ dollars that have been spent. 
When Dr Cullen was sitting down with his open cheque book with Mr Paul Little on the other side of the desk he forgot about the workers because he was so focused on giving Toll Rail everything it wanted for this particular asset—an asset that was not performing very well. The workers have every right to feel aggrieved because Dr Cullen instead of worrying about their entitlements and their security was sitting there with an open cheque book and what happened? Well he wrote out the cheque that Toll asked him to write out and it became bigger last night. Last night in the run-up to the deadline the Government decided to shell out another $18 million on top of the $840 million or so for the assets and the debt that it has already shelled out—another $18 million to actually buy out of a promise it had made in the original deal. In the original deal the Government told Toll that it could have rent-free access to particular warehouses around the rail system and that it could have cut prices on our rail system for the Toll-owned trucking company. Having made that undertaking earlier on Dr Cullen yesterday spent $18 million to $20 million on buying out of that promise. 
That adds up to a figure that is getting towards $900 million for the purchase of New Zealand rail. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The motion being debated here is specific and I believe that the speaker is going well wide of that motion. The motion is about a Supplementary Order Paper and I ask you Mr Deputy Speaker to direct the member to stick to the debating point. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That is an interesting intervention from a Government that is clearly embarrassed by the fact that the Supplementary Order Paper is here at all. I read it earlier this morning and it is entirely consistent with the whole purchase as Mr English is pointing out. The member across the other side of the House does not seem to understand that if there had not been a purchase if there had not been neglect of the workers and if there had not been a failure in the negotiations around this particular purchase or initiative by the Government—not that it is a great initiative I have to say—then we would not be here having this debate. So it is perfectly reasonable that the House consider why this Supplementary Order Paper has to be here. 
After all the sale is a straight commercial sale—or so we thought. But now we find out that the entitlements those workers have had for literally 15 years have somehow been taken off the table. None of those workers right now have the cover they were guaranteed by a National Government 15 years ago. Michael Cullen has taken it away from them. This is about putting it back on the table—about making it legal for the scheme of arrangement that was put in place in 1993 to continue. To suggest somehow that there should be no recital of the history that there should be no consideration of the negotiation and that there should be no questioning of the initial decision by the Government to make the purchase is an utter nonsense. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank Mr Brownlee and I thank Sue Moroney for raising the matter. I ask the Hon Bill English to continue. I tend to agree with Mr Brownlee. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The point is pretty obvious. If the Government is doing a transaction with Toll then the interests of the workers one would have thought would be something that the Labour Government would take into account. [ 
Interruption 
] That is the point I was coming to. What about all the protections Labour says it has put in place as it goes around the country—all the things it says it has done for workers? It has passed vulnerable worker legislation and flexible working hours legislation and it goes around telling everyone it has put up the minimum wage and has encouraged collective bargaining. It has had 9 years to put in place protections for workers yet here we have a large group of workers some of whom are well paid but many of whom are not very well paid who are suddenly vulnerable not to a transaction that someone else is doing but to one that the Government is intimately involved with. That tells us something does it not? 
Whenever the Government is talking about other businesses it is very keen to make sure that workers have widespread protection and businesses and other workers simply have to carry the costs that are imposed by more legislative entitlements. But when the Government is doing its own business transactions it forgets about the workers and overlooks their welfare and security then at the last minute—or after the last minute—expects Parliament to turn round and correct the fact that it has paid no attention to the people who are the heart of the Toll business. I invite the next Government speaker to get up and tell us why the protections that Labour says it has put in place over the last 9 years for workers’ entitlements around business sales did not apply in this case because that is the only reason we need this legislation. I would have thought if there are issues here about vulnerability and entitlements that the frameworks Labour has put in place would protect these people. 
The workers in Toll have learnt the hard way that Labour has long forgotten about their genuine interests. This Government spends more time on trying to talk about who does National’s polls than it does on the facts that the economy is turning down that people are being sacked every day because businesses are running out of money that the Government is the only part of the economy that is actually still growing and that oil prices are $140 a barrel. And in that sense we are with the Greens. This is something on which we do agree with the Greens. The Government’s allies got up today and said it was time that Ministers got out of their BMWs and found out what was going on in the real world. Well I bet the workers of Toll who have built up 25 and 30 years of superannuation entitlements that are now gone would also like Annette King the Minister of Transport to get out of her BMW and find out what is going on in the real world. [ 
Interruption 
] Well the Minister should get up and tell us. She is the person responsible as Minister of Justice for the Electoral Finance Act—an Act that will stop these workers campaigning for their rights unless they register as a third party because they would have to spend over $12000. Annette King should get up and tell us why she should be cruising around in a BMW and be so out of touch with what is going on in the real world that she has supported the Labour Government in buying back New Zealand’s rail company and leaving the workers stranded. 
The Government has said it encourages savings and looks after workers. It has deserted workers it has forgotten their interests and it has put their savings at risk.