Moroney Sue: Employment Relations (Probationary  Employment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Moroney Sue: Employment Relations (Probationary  Employment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6746] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 That speech was from the member who happily ate the chicken drumsticks from the New Zealand Public Service Association in Hamilton never letting on to them for one minute his views on this particular issue but that is nothing new. I hope that people in Hamilton were listening to the diatribe from that member who said that he was portraying an issue that came forward from a Hamilton business person. Where was that submission before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee? It certainly was not heard before the select committee but there were very very fine submissions that were heard by the select committee. I congratulate those people who felt strongly enough about this issue to come and put their views forward before the select committee. 
It is an interesting time to be debating this Employment Relations (Probationary Period) Amendment Bill because over the last 24 hours we have learnt that many of National’s policies are hidden from public view. Well here is one that is up for consumption by the general public and the public really should know about this. I hope that a lot of people are listening and taking note that when it comes to National Party policy this is the sort of thing that National members come up with. Here is the sort of thing that they want to promote—and it is taking away workers’ rights. 
The issues that are in front of the business community in this country at the moment are around not being able to get the appropriately skilled person in the right place at the right time. What is the National Party’s answer to that? National members came up with this intelligent legislation—not! It is not intelligent legislation—that says to the business community: “We know how to resolve your skills shortage problem. We will just let you give less job security to those people who want to apply for your jobs.” That is not going to work. Lots of business people came along to the select committee and said to us that they did have skills shortages. 
If anyone thinks that this is just an issue that Dr Wayne Mapp is pursuing because this bill happens to be in his name then they need to be very clear that no this is key policy for the National Party. Some of National’s key policy is to take away job security from workers. We have been through this before and we know exactly where the National Party is heading with this bill. Those members want to do away with workers’ rights. If anyone thinks that this is just Dr Wayne Mapp and his bright idea then I will let people know about Don Brash and what he had to say in April 2003. 
Darren Hughes 
: No there’s an injunction; you can’t say that. 
SUE MORONEY 
: No I think that I can say this; this was reported in the media. Don Brash wants to allow employers to sack staff more easily without fear of recourse to the Employment Court. He said: “There should be a trial period”— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair and the House for the dinner break. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Prior to the dinner break I was reminding members that this idea of having no job security for all workers in this country in the first 3 months of their employment was not just an idea that Dr Wayne Mapp had all by himself but an idea that was supported by the National Party at large. I was quoting Don Brash’s view that he wished there could be a trial period of 90 days during which an employer could dismiss an employee without drama and without penalty and just say: “Look this isn’t working out. I’d like you to leave.” Dr Don Brash said: “I regard the present employment laws as highly damaging for small business. If it is very costly and time consuming for an employer to end an employment relationship then of course a rational employer would take care not to hire people perceived as a bit risky—people who might be too young too old or too brown.” 
This is from National Party members who as a whole support this type of approach to reduce workers’ rights. But it is no surprise. It is not surprising from a party whose employment relations policy would have us reproduce the Employment Contracts Act in drag and take workers back to the nasty 1990s. It is not surprising from a party that wishes to make it easy for employers to bargain employees out of their holiday entitlements. It is not surprising from a party that supports revoking the fair Holidays Act amendments. It wants to scrap the workplace safety provisions in the name of saving money and it wants to reverse the protection afforded to vulnerable workers by this Government. 
The scary thing about the Employment Relations (Probationary Employment) Amendment Bill is that it shows upfront and clearly the employment policies National wishes to pursue—those that take away workers’ rights. This is the policy that National members want us to know about. Is that not scary? Imagine the policies they do not want the New Zealand public to know about. I would like the public to contemplate that. This is the thing that they think we ought to know about. Taking away workers’ rights in the current environment is the way the National Party wants to proceed. 
As a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I was very interested in what this 90-day probationary period would mean for rural areas. I was therefore somewhat disturbed to listen to the Federated Farmers submission on this bill. They said to the select committee that basically they had enormous difficulty attracting people out of the urban areas where the labour market is. They said they needed to attract people from those urban areas and that those people had to make a big decision to shift their families and to move to an environment in the rural countryside so that they could become the labour workforce for farmers. 
I asked Federated Farmers whether they had a skills shortage in their sector and they said that they most certainly did. I then asked them whether they thought that members of Federated Farmers would wish to use a probationary period in their employment contracts. The reason I asked was that Dr Wayne Mapp has made quite an issue of this being a voluntary provision and has in fact put an amendment forward for discussion at the select committee. He argued that no employer in his or her right mind who had a skills shortage and a desperate need for labour would contemplate a probationary period. Ms Bennett one of Dr Mapp’s colleagues reiterated that in her speech in this second reading. 
Those members said that employers are not silly and that if they have a skills shortage they will not insist on having a probationary period in their employment contracts. How wrong could they be? Federated Farmers told us that 100 percent of their members—whom they surveyed on this issue of a probationary period bill—would insist on putting a probationary period into their employment contracts. That proved that the assertion from the National Party was wrong. Federated Farmers told the committee members that that assertion was wrong. 
Then the New Zealand Educational Institute came to talk to the committee about its concern about what this probationary period bill would mean for recruiting teachers to rural schools. That is an issue close to my heart. My young children attend a small rural school and I know that recruitment of quality teachers is a key issue. The New Zealand Educational Institute told us that it was not too sure whether boards of trustees would want to include a probationary period in their contracts. However it said that a significant number of boards of trustees in rural areas have farmers as members of their boards. Clearly the Federated Farmers submission was very important in reminding us that this would affect the attraction of quality teachers to rural schools. I come from a background with the Nurses Organisation and I know that for nurses the thought that they would have no job security for the first 3 months of their employment would make a big difference when deciding whether to move from one district health board to another. 
I was also very concerned to hear submissions about how workers would be reluctant to raise genuine health and safety concerns in the first 3 months of their employment if a probationary period was in place. Those submitters were genuinely afraid. In fact cases were presented to the select committee whereby workers had raised health and safety issues and had lost their job as a result. Again this probationary period will be bad in terms of health and safety for workers in their employment. 
One of the overwhelming things that happened at the select committee was that even though the National Party purported that its reason for putting this bill forward was that it wanted to improve the employment situation for young people—young Maori in particular—nobody representing young workers Maori workers or in that case young Maori came forward to support this bill. Groups that came forward to advocate on behalf of those interests did so in order to oppose the bill.