Little Andrew: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6367. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): It will be known to most members of this Parliament that every time the National Government touches a piece of employment legislation either it completely turns it to custard or it takes rights away from working people—that is what it routinely does. It does not necessarily enhance the rights of employers or make it easier or better for them but it always penalises workers. This piece of legislation is a bit like the curate’s egg. I know it is a cliché. Maybe some parts of it are not actually too bad but there is one part of it that is an absolute shocker and it will turn workplaces and those who use part-time workers and casual workers into an utter shambles. I am going to come back to that in a minute but I do want to acknowledge as I said before that there are some parts of this legislation that are maybe not too badon the face of it actually and we will work with the Government and our colleagues in other parties at the select committee to work our way through the bill and make sure we get the best out of it.It is disappointing that the provisions on paid parental leave do not meet the very clear expectations of most New Zealanders that we will have 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. This was in the Sue Moroney legislation—the work that Sue Moroney has championed and has been the vanguard of—but that is all right. It is typical for this Government—just do a little bit sort of put the reel out and just do enough to sort of get the monkey off the back. And it has done that.I am intrigued by this new reference this new provision—this new employment law beast called keeping-in-touch days. I wonder whether this is a bit of self-interest from the National Government. Knowing how far out of touch it is members opposite are now needing to set aside special days to put themselves in touch. I am not going to criticise them for doing it and I am happy to grant them leave for as many days as they need in order to be in touch again because they are desperately out of touch as has been demonstrated so often just in the last few weeks.I want to turn to what I think is the critical part the essential part of this piece of legislation bearing in mind that the Minister who introduced this legislation has gone on record publicly several times to say that it will deal with the evils of zero-hour contracts. Of course we now know that it will not. Anybody who says to the public of New Zealand to the workers of New Zealand that there is now legislation before Parliament that will put to bed the evils of zero-hour contracts is misleading New Zealanders and that is unacceptable.I do not want to turn this into a Committee stage speech but I do want to prevail for a moment on clause 87 and the proposed new sections 67C to 67H because I do not know how a Minister or Cabinet or members doing their job of looking through this legislation before it is even introduced could allow this to get through the approval channels. These are the provisions that are dealing with—or that Government members say will deal with—zero-hour contracts. They provide for hours of work to be provided in an individual agreement or a collective agreement and then they provide for this beast called the availability provision. The worker is required to be available under the employment agreement. It talks about an “availability provision” being “a provision in an employment agreement under which—(a) the employee’s performance of work is conditional on the employer making work available …”—no guarantee of work; it is conditional on the employer making it available—“and (b) there is no obligation on the employer to make work available …”.This takes us back to the 19th century and we are now back into the sort of stuff that Charles Dickens wrote many books about. This is true exploitation and the fact that this could even be contemplated as a reality is a disgrace on that Government. Things have become so bad with the slow and steady erosion of employment law by this Government that expectations on standards are now so low that this Government can write into a piece of legislation and describe what is abject exploitation of working people in this country. And those members opposite are doing it shamelessly and with smug little smirks on their little faces. This is what employment law has come to in New Zealand today.Then the bill goes on. It says that there might be a requirement for compensation but it does not specify what that is. It does not even specify how it is determined and of course we know how that works in the weird world of the National Government. The individual employee is meant to rock on up to the employer and exercise the fullness of their bargaining power by saying: “Oh I want compensation because you haven’t made the work available. Even though you’re not under any obligation to and even though there’s nothing in my employment agreement please pay me compensation.”Those opposite of a mad mind seriously think that this sets an employment standard that we should relish and welcome. It creates no enforceable standard at all. It is the removal of any standards. It is the absence of standards and they have the temerity to introduce this in a piece of legislation called the Employment Standards Legislation Bill.This is an outrage apart from being sheer stupidity. This is the appalling thing about this legislation. If this Parliament is doing its job and if the members opposite have any conscience then this clause this provision cannot survive the legislation-making process as the bill goes through this Parliament. As it goes from here to the select committee if this provision survives in any form at all then that will be an acceptance and an admission that under this Government this Parliament can no longer protect the rights and interests of good hard-working Kiwis. It is acceptable in the realms of employment to have casual employment. We have had it for decades in this country. It is acceptable to have part-time employment—that suits some people. But it has never been acceptable in the hundred and more years of employment legislation and employment regulation to have provisions that allow the sheer exploitation of working people. We have never tolerated that. We have never tolerated it and we should not tolerate it now.I prevail upon the members opposite and the previous speaker from the Government Sarah Dowie who stood up and said: “Yeah sure we’ll work some things out.” Well you have got a lot to work out. You have got a lot to change here. You have got a lot to improve because in its present form thisis nothing other than a sheer and utter disgrace. It has to change if this Parliament wants to hold its head up high and if every member in it wants to hold their head up high and say that we are a Parliament that is about fair and just laws because that is what should guide us.We are a fair people. We are a sensible people and a pragmatic people and we want good employment regulation because we know that alongside the army of very good employers there are the exploitative and the bad employers. Workers look to this Parliament and say: “Make sure that amidst all our employment regulation we cannot be taken advantage of. Make sure when you are passing laws affecting our rights and interests as workers that we cannot be exploited.” It is not too much to ask and it is what workers around New Zealand are asking of this Parliament. They are asking it of every MP in this Parliament and we owe them nothing less.We will support this bill to be scrutinised closely by the select committee but with a very clear expectation that all members of Parliament on that committee including the members of the Government make sure that this bill is something that we can be proud of something that adds to the rights and interests of workers something that helps employers manage their workforces carefully and sensibly and something that does not exploit.