Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
Mallard Trevor: Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:668;Page:15378] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I say to the honourable member Allan Peachey who preceded me that he reminds me of Jekyll and Hyde. He goes to the Education and Science Committee and is a highly competent chair there which is in absolute contrast to what happens when he goes to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. At the Education and Science Committee he is someone who gets the business through and who can work with the Opposition and with his colleagues. He is a highly talented chair using his experience. Then he comes into the House and hears industrial relations legislation being debated and it is as if he was back as the employer in a bulk-funded school and it is pretty pathetic. It is almost like a reversion; he is back in the past back in the Dark Ages. 
It is amazing that Allan Peachey’s colleagues cannot see his talent—the way that he can take on roles. I am not sure what he taught when he was at school. Maybe it was English because he certainly gives the impression of being a drama queen and has an ability to take on different roles and different characters when he comes into the House. 
I have had a bit to do with Allan Peachey recently. I actually think that the reason why Allan Peachey is closer to the truth—but I admire him for his ability to come into the House— 
Chris Tremain 
: Mr Speaker how is this relevant? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: After that Mr Assistant Speaker wants me to narrow my speech. He is intervening on those members’ side but not on ours. That is interesting—[ 
Interruption 
] There was a point of order earlier. It is not that I am referring to it because that would be inappropriate but the member— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Yes the member is referring to it. He must get on with the speech. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I note the wide debate that Allan Peachey was allowed by the Assistant Speaker. I will now focus on this Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) and look at how this legislation fits very well with the attempt being made by John Key and his Government to drive down the conditions of wage earners and salary earners all around the country and in particular in the Mana electorate. 
This bill is focused on poor people. It is designed to drive out the gap between the rich and the poor between the Aussies and the New Zealanders. This is a bill designed by John Key to make sure that his mates do not have to pay decent wages to people who are wage earners and salary earners. These amendments are unfair; they are absolutely unbalanced. In fact they are about as balanced as Allan Peachey’s previous speech. The amendments are unnecessary because our system is working pretty well already. The amendments are ideological. We can tell from where they were announced that ideology not logic was involved. The amendments were announced at the National Party conference. They were hauled out of the blue with promises of consultation that were broken by John Key. 
It is interesting to see how often now John Key is being caught breaking his word. One thing that Kiwis think is important is truthfulness in their leaders. This is a good example of how John Key has been caught being untruthful and not being loyal to his word. He made a commitment on this legislation to go back to people and to talk about it before it was announced and he broke his word. He did that deliberately. 
We have a Prime Minister whose word cannot be relied on—a Prime Minister who time and time again makes a commitment and breaks it. One of the things that Kiwis value in their leaders is that they are people who tell the truth people who are reliable and people who do not break their word. Kiwis also like loyalty from those people. What do we have now? We have hundreds of photos of John Key and Pansy Wong smiling and waving— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask whether we should not just concentrate on what is front of us. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I will be consistent. I ask members to read the suite of Speakers’ rulings on pages 106 and 107 of  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 about what is and what is not in the bill. In the same way that I asked Mr Peachey to draw his analogies into the debate on the bill I ask this member to do the same. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I will focus on Pansy Wong and the changes in the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) that apply to her. This is a four-pronged approach in an attack on job security. A loyal employer someone who was a good manager would not weaken the processes in the way that they are being weakened here and were weakened for Pansy Wong. Arm in arm with Pansy Wong was the Prime Minister going around the ethnic communities until there was a problem and where was his loyalty then? It was a case of “smile and walk away”. The amendments extend the range— 
Sandra Goudie 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I fail to find the relevance of what the member is saying to this bill. I fail to see how he is responding to the fact that we are speaking on this legislation when his comments seem to have no relevance to it whatsoever. I am very concerned about that. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Speaking to the point of order I say the bill has a lot to do with job security processes for dismissal rights to appeal and rights to reinstatement. All of those apply to Pansy Wong. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Members are still expected to discuss the main purpose and contents of the bill. I ask that members do that. If they are making analogies then they must draw them into the main purpose of the bill. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: This bill makes it easier to dismiss people and harder for them to be reinstated. It is absolutely clear that that is part of the purpose of this legislation. We now have a classic case under the existing legislation where Phil Heatley jumped and was reinstated and under this legislation Pansy Wong will go and will not have a hope of being reinstated. Why? Because there is no loyalty on the other side of the House and members opposite do not care about processes as we go forward. 
John Key tried to sell this bill as part of a plan to grow the economy but we all know what the evidence is in this area. In New Zealand we have people who will not change jobs for fear of this legislation. We have what is known internationally as a sticky labour market. We used to have a pretty flexible labour market. In fact I have had debates with some of my colleagues in the past about how our labour market was perhaps too flexible. But people could go from job to job to where they would be valued to where they would be paid more and to the opportunities and that was good for our economy. But this bill says to people that if they are on $100000 it might be worth going to a job paying $110000 but that will be no damned good if they will lose the job in the first 90 days. What sort of security for one’s family is that? It is about the same sort of security that Pansy Wong had and about the same sort of loyalty that Pansy Wong was shown. 
It is clear that there has been no attempt on the part of the Government to close the wage gap with Australia because this legislation is designed to drive down conditions for wage earners and salary earners in New Zealand. It is the intention of this Government to drive down conditions in order to make wage earners and salary earners earn less so that the Government’s mates can make bigger profits. That is a very short-term approach because all the international evidence now shows that when workplaces are working well together—where workers are valued where they are trained where their skills are better where there is a two-way commitment and where workers know their employer will not do the “smile and wave” goodbye or take the “smile and walk away” approach towards them—workplaces become more and more productive. Profits go up and everyone is better off: the owners the managers and the wage earners and salary earners. 
New Zealand already has amongst the most flexible labour laws in the developed world. I think it is fair to say that during the time of Margaret Wilson and when I was the Minister of Labour a pretty deliberate decision was made not to go back to the rules of the 1980s to take a more progressive approach to attempt to get something that New Zealanders could unite behind and to have some consistency in labour relations legislation over a period of time. We had an indication from the National Party even before the election that it also thought that was the case. But what we clearly have now is an approach from National that it wants to drive down the conditions of people around New Zealand. 
It shows gross incompetence on National’s part that it is choosing to progress this legislation and progress other legislation later that takes away peoples’ holidays as it goes into the Mana by-election. People in Mana are among the most disadvantaged and they will be affected the most by this legislation. I do not know whether Gerry Brownlee hates Hekia Parata or whether he is just incompetent—it might be both. It could be both but debating this bill under urgency while going into the Mana by-election is probably the biggest case of incompetence I have seen for a long time.