Brownlee Gerry: Holidays Bill — Second Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Holidays Bill — Second Reading 
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GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The National Party recognises that the contribution to this country’s productive economy from working New Zealanders is considerable. We do not in any way wish their conditions of work to be at all draconian. We want to see a working environment where those who do contribute to the economy take their rewards from it just as much as do those who put their capital towards its growth. It does not matter what sort of gloss Mr Tamihere or Margaret Wilson might put on this bill: the workers of this country will pay for it. The bill which has a number of new provisions that perhaps clarify holidays legislation in this country will be most notable for the introduction of a fourth week of annual leave. That fourth week will be paid for by hard-working New Zealanders as this Government—the Labour Government—effectively imposes a wage cap on those workers over the next 4 to 5 years. 
One of the things that have gone a little bit unnoticed by many workers is that the earliest possible date at which a person might qualify for 4 weeks’ holiday is 1 April 2007 which is four Christmases away. I have to tell the House that if a person takes up an employment opportunity on 30 March 2007 that person will not be entitled to his or her fourth week of holiday until after 1 April 2008. So what we will see now is 5 years of wages being ground down in this country as the employers who provide opportunities for income prepare for the additional costs that this bill is likely to impose. 
I can see Government members laughing and saying that no that will not be how it works. But it needs to be seen in this context. Firstly there are about 2 million workers in this country and all of them whether they are currently on 4 weeks’ or 3 weeks’ leave will expect an extra week’s leave. When that is extrapolated out it means that the extra week’s leave for workers in this country is the equivalent of 40000 full-time jobs in any given year; 40000 full-time jobs in any year is the equivalent cost of the 1 week’s extra leave provided by this bill. I ask Government members whether they have been told that that was the cost. I ask Government members whether they have considered what the effect on the economy might be. If one takes a whole city the size of Timaru or Palmerston North or New Plymouth and puts the people in it on holiday for a year the economic cost of that is borne by every worker throughout this country. Every worker throughout the country will pay for those 40000 jobs those 40000 contributions to the economy that will be taken out progressively from 2007. 
We do not in any way begrudge people the opportunity to have quality time with their families and other such things. But we do ask whether people should not have a choice about whether they go on holiday or take additional income. There is no way of looking at this bill without coming to the conclusion that it will be the workers who pay for it. Even Treasury has told the Government that very fact. Cabinet received the information and just decided to ignore it. It decided that it would be a nice bit of spin to tell workers in this country that they will get an extra week’s leave but then fail to tell them that they will have to wait four Christmases to get it. 
I heard one of the lesser lights of the Labour Party say that we were being mean in some way by pointing out that workers will be paying for the extra week’s leave and that as it was the Christmas season we were being particularly mean. Well I think it is a plain tease to hang out the prospect of an extra week’s holiday but to ensure it will be 4 years before anyone qualifies for it. [ 
Interruption 
] Those 4 years will mean that workers in the electorate that Mr Gosche currently represents—and that is only a temporary arrangement—will have their wages stunted and pruned over the next 4 years. It makes sense. Our Minister of Finance is absolutely fixated on growing his surplus to almost extreme lengths at the present time. He tells us that the economy is going absolutely brilliantly and he skites about the fact that New Zealand is now a $17-an-hour economy. There is absolutely no alternative for employers in an economy that is so fixated on containing costs but to prune the wages of their workforce in order to afford as a group those 40000 jobs that no longer will be worked as a result of the extra week’s leave. So we are very concerned about the passage of that part of the bill. 
We also see a huge gap in the legislation in terms of the opportunity that should have been given to workers to trade off their accumulated holiday entitlements for cash. 
We know that numerous people work their weekends work during public holidays work through the whole 12 months and do not take their current entitlement of 2 or 3 weeks’ leave. They quite often end up with accumulated annual leave of maybe 3 to 5 weeks over and above their annual entitlement. Under this bill their choices are simply to take 7 or 8 weeks off work or lose their holiday entitlement. We ask a simple question: why would fit healthy young New Zealanders who are able to survive the year on 11 statutory holidays and say 2 weeks’ holiday not want the opportunity to say they would rather take an extra pay packet and use that money to get rid of a bit of debt or to put it towards the mortgage or towards a deposit on a house? Why should they not have the opportunity to do that? 
This bill fails New Zealand workers in a very significant way. It is a cynical approach to the concept of improving opportunities for workers in this country. I note that it is former union members in the Labour Party who are laughing beneath their jackets at the prospect of their workers having to pay for this extra week’s leave over the next 4 years. I ask workers in this country whether they really believe that 40000 jobs can be effectively taken out of the economy to be paid for by someone without that affecting their wage packets. 
I also ask them to think about how much their wage packets have grown in the last 4 years. They will know that wage growth has been very meagre indeed. I ask them to think about what it will be like over the next 4 years with much much lower wage growth than they have experienced in the past 4 years. The greatest wage growth came during the 1990s under a National Government. From 1995 workers took home more of the money they earned than workers had ever done in any other period in this country’s history. This current Government has not moved workers’ incomes at all. Wage packets have barely kept pace with inflation. They have barely kept pace with the costs of daily life. Now we see this cynical throwing of a fish to the hungry seals—an extra week’s holiday. Well workers will not let themselves be treated in that way. It will be workers who tip this Government out of office for being so cynical and malicious.