Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I think this Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill was a bill on which a marginal call was made by Labour to support it going to a select committee after a bit of discussion. We have heard the evidence. I think the general view is that it is mostly a relatively harmless bill but that there are some dangers in the bill that we were not cognisant of before it went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and so the marginal call is that we will now oppose the bill. 
I am not going to pretend that this is serious legislation in the way that most of the legislation that comes from Kate Wilkinson is. I am not going to pretend that it is going to make an enormous difference in the lives of workers around the country or that it is going to have them sacked left right and centre in the way that Kate Wilkinson tries to do with her legislation. But we have come to the point that the compliance costs and the extra regulation that flow from this bill are unnecessary and probably more important in the hands of the wrong employers it could lead to extra litigation. Again I am not saying that most employers will be at all affected by this because I think we all know that strikes are relatively rare in New Zealand compared with most countries and actually most employers are satisfied with the ballots that occur. I think we also know that unions are generally very reluctant to get involved in strike action unless they have a clear mandate from their members. If unions think a strike ballot is going to be a close-run thing chances are that the ballot is not even put because people want to have a groundswell and clear support if people are going on strike because it is a very serious thing for the workers involved. 
But in some cases a ballot happens and there is a clear majority. The concern that Labour has involves this legislation being in the hands of unscrupulous employers and I will give the example that always results in Damien O’Connor getting a phone call—the Talleys-AFFCO link. If New Zealand’s worst employer—the only employer to lose a case and be held to be in breach of the Employment Contracts Act—decided to use this sort of legislation in order to stop a strike it could cost a lot of money to the workers involved in legal expenses and that sort of thing to no major benefit. 
The other pretty obvious point I make is that there are no countervailing obligations on employers in this legislation. In most parts of industrial legislation there are countervailing obligations; if there is an obligation for employees or the organisation of employees there is an obligation for employers. In this case I am not sure what the obligation should be. Some of my colleagues have suggested that it may be that shareholders should approve a lockout and take that approach. There is a halfway point that I would possibly be more supportive of if we are going in for a countervailing measure which is that at least the board of directors should make a decision and not a lower-level official in a firm. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Too soft! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: My colleague tells me I am too soft. Actually the whole legislation is rubbish and therefore where the countervailing balance is is probably not so relevant. But there is no countervailing balance in this legislation and to be fair equitable and balanced legislation there should be. 
I think it is fair to say that this legislation has come from someone who wants to fix a problem that does not exist. The only person I can remember being involved in ballot fixing in all my time—far too long—that I have been involved in the union movement from the late 1960s when I first became a— 
Carol Beaumont 
: That was a long time ago. How old are you? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Very generous. There is only one person I can remember who has been involved in any of that sort of allegation. There is one person still involved— 
Carol Beaumont 
: Tau Henare? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —no no—and she I think would be too scared to do it again because she is being pretty closely watched. 
Darien Fenton 
: Don’t look at me when you’re saying that. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No I am not looking at that member but I know that the member knows who I am talking about. 
So Tau Henare is trying to fix a problem that does not exist and really in the last 15 years there has been no evidence of it actually occurring—he is out of touch. It might have been the way he acted when he was the chief bottler for the Northern Clerical Workers Union back in the mid-1980s. That might have been his approach when he was a union official but I am sure if that was his approach that would be inter alia one of the reasons he got the sack when he did. What we have seen here is the revenge of the bottler on the part of Mr Henare. I have witnessed the scar and it is no good his denying it. That member should go outside the House and deny his activities as a bottler and the reason that he lost his job—he could not keep a job as a Northern Clerical Workers Union official. Now he is so upset about it 15 or 25 years later—or however long it has been—he is attempting to get his revenge. Well he should know that now like then if a union official bottles someone that official loses their job. People should not go around trying to take revenge on their old colleagues their old comrades in the way that Tau Henare is doing now. 
Shane Ardern 
: Why doesn’t the member tell us how many times he was sacked as a teacher? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I will absolutely tell members. I have never been sacked as a teacher unlike Tau Henare who was sacked as a union official for inappropriate activity with a bottle.