Adams Paul: Holidays Bill — First Reading 
Adams Paul: Holidays Bill — First Reading 
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PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 As a small-business owner for some 30-odd years now I feel I can speak on this bill. In this country 95 percent of businesses are small businesses. The difference between words is interesting. A business especially a small business is in reality a person. It is somebody who has stood up to work for himself or herself. I have noticed over the years—especially the more recent years—that most people in a small business are working far longer and harder for far less. Nevertheless this is a bill that will bring a lot of clarity to the Holidays Act—an Act that causes a lot of grief and problems. So unlike National our party is looking at this bill with a little bit more of an open mind and sophisticated view than those parties that would simply oppose it for opposition’s sake. 
We see it as fulfilling two distinct functions. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: It doesn’t help the business community. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: It will. The first function is to clarify existing minimum leave entitlements such as the 3 weeks’ annual leave the 11 paid public holidays and the day in lieu for staff who work on public holidays that fall on a normal working-day. The bill outlines many other provisions that either give statutory effect to case law or codify current practice. To be honest this is an area that most small-business owners struggle with. I personally have struggled with it over the years and have had to seek clarification on a number of issues such as these. So on this particular part and speaking as a small-business owner I welcome that clarification. 
The Holidays Act is in need of an overhaul as it is the source of confusion and conflict between employers and employees. The representatives of both Business New Zealand and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions on the advisory group that consulted over the bill reflected a common desire to see tidy-ups in the holiday legislation. We welcome that. Simplification of holiday provisions would also have an impact on the work of the Department of Labour. Leave entitlements were the subject of 62000 inquiries to the Employment Relations Infoline last year and 68 percent of complaints to the labour inspectorate relate to annual and public holidays. The bill provides a formula for the calculation of holiday pay and this is great. We welcome any move that might help the labour inspectorate to cut down the time it currently takes which is an average of 3 months to investigate potential breaches of employment law. 
The second function of the bill as we see it is agenda based whereby the opportunity to clarify the law is being used by the Government to award new entitlements to workers in line with its traditional philosophy. Like National members we do not want to load additional costs on to businesses given the fact that 95 percent can be defined as small firms employing fewer than 10 staff. So we would like to withhold judgment on those new provisions until we get more information about the costs that employers will face. It is notable that where Business New Zealand in its advisory role departed from the Government it was over the issue of a minimum rate of time and a half for those working on public holidays—equivalent to an alternative day’s leave. It estimates that that will cost employers an additional 1 percent in wages. But we need better information on how many workers already receive these penal rates.  
We would really question sick pay. To give an example when I had a manufacturing business I decided that I would rather have my workers at work than on sick leave so I suggested to them that if they did not use all their sick leave in a year I would pay it out at the end of the year along with their holiday pay. My business’s sick leave entitlement dropped by 80 percent. So I do question sick leave. I understand that as with many laws the principle sounds good but the reality for the small-business person the man and woman dealing with the situation where the rubber meets the road is that many of these things that sound good and are intended to be good—there are no doubts about that—are not used by the employees of the company as they are intended to be used. This is a problem so I would be reluctant to see sick leave provision rolled over to up to 15 days. I know that it would be a huge cost to small businesses. 
I agree with Mr Sowry; he will be pleased to know that I share his concerns about our increasing the costs of small businesses. I do want to see more people becoming small-business owners. I do want to see more employment in this country. There is no doubt that if we increase regulations to such an extent that businesses no longer want to take on staff it would have a detrimental effect on our country and not one that I would like to see. I would welcome legislation that helped small-business owners. They work hard. When I closed my business for Christmas I noticed around my area that all the people who were sweeping the grounds who were tidying up were the owners of small businesses. As we mentioned if the 4 weeks’ leave provision is tied in with this bill United Future will not be supporting it. Many small-business owners would love to have 10 days’ leave in a row let alone 3 weeks or 4 weeks. In reality in the present environment they just do not get holidays. 
The new provision to separate bereavement leave from sick leave also needs further investigation. Again data from the Employment Relations Service shows that 96 percent of agreements covering 93 percent of employees contain specific provisions for bereavement leave. Over half of the agreements covering 40 percent of employees provide for 3 days’ leave but it is likely that many more contain some element of discretion when it comes to bereavement leave. One of the things that I think is missing in this nation and something that I would like to see re-established is the rapport that there used to be many years ago between an employer and his or her staff. Personally I have always had a very good working relationship with my staff. I have had staff work for me for over 25 years. We must allow for good employers to have provisions to retain their staff. If I have good staff I do want to retain them. I do not need a law to tell me how to do that. Likewise I think a bad employer will not retain staff because they should have the freedom and the opportunity to go to a better employer. I think it should be self-regulating in many ways. 
Employers are also targeted by an increase in fines for breaches of the Holidays Act from $500 to as much as $10000 for a company or a body corporate. That would be extremely scary for most small businesses. 
We would want much clearer evidence of the impact of these new provisions before we were prepared to support the bill going beyond the select committee. I have already stated that if Matt Robson’s member’s bill to provide for 4 weeks’ annual leave is considered alongside this bill in the select committee we will certainly oppose it for reasons we will outline when the bill is next debated. But we will vote for the first reading of this bill because we do not want to forgo the opportunity to clarify the current holiday legislation. The onus is on the Government to convince United Future and this Parliament that the new entitlements it proposes will not adversely impact on businesses in this country.