Kedgley Sue: Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 First of all I would like to thank some of the speakers in the debate in particular Mark Gosche and Helen Duncan who spoke yesterday in support of this bill. They said that when the bill reached the select committee they would listen to the views of New Zealanders. I thank them for that. 
I expected Labour to support this bill because it has made many commitments to being a family-friendly party. Only yesterday or the day before Labour released a family-friendly policy in respect of the State services so it is only logical that Labour would support a bill that seeks to make life a little easier for parents with young children. I agree too with Helen Duncan that this bill should be part of a package of measures to make life easier for parents with young children and the Government has introduced many measures such as paid parental leave childcare increased subsidies etc. which we strongly support and which will complement this particular bill. 
I was surprised by Wayne Mapp’s suggestion that this bill was addressing a problem that does not exist. I wonder where Mr Mapp has been. There has been a long debate in the media in recent times about the extraordinary toll that trying to work full-time and juggle family responsibilities is taking on families today. Is he unaware of this debate that has been raging in the media? Has he not read the various reports that have been put out by for example the Council of Trade Unions and another one here by Victoria University and another one by the Department of Labour? All have put out reports. They have surveyed workers and have found that one of the No 1 issues of concern is the overload; the long hours people are working and the fact that they are under constant stress. This relentless pressure is having a debilitating effect on their families. They are able to spend less and less time with their families. It is corroding their relationships. They are missing out on key milestones in their children’s development. So Mr Mapp’s contention that this is not a problem in the workplace is quite bizarre and I suspect it suggests how out of touch he and the National Party are with social problems in New Zealand. It is extraordinary too that a party that claims to be family-friendly would oppose a simple piece of legislation that tries to make it easier for parents with young families. 
I utterly respect and accept that ACT would oppose this bill. After all ACT members have an ideology of always putting the needs of employers ahead of the needs of employees and they have never pretended to be family-friendly but United Future members do and New Zealand First members do. It is quite extraordinary; they came up with the usual tired old line that was used against paid parental leave and pay equity. They said they could not do that because it would pose such high costs to employers and that it would go against women employees because employers would be worried that it would increase their costs. That is what they said about the paid parental leave bill and other bills and it has not come about. 
This is a very modest bill. It is based on successful UK legislation which has not resulted in employers being taken to an employment tribunal. Nine out of 10 applications in the UK have been utterly successful. More than a million employees in England have successfully used this mechanism. I expect exactly the same thing to happen here. I expect it will be mutually satisfactory for the employer and the employee and that employees will realise that when we have more flexible working hours they will have a more satisfied motivated and productive workforce. So I expect employers to get fully behind this bill just as families and employees already have.