Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Holidays Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15399] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 There can never be any legislation in this Parliament that shows the differences more between the left and the right members of this House than industrial legislation. This legislation has to be another one of those examples and the Hon Richard Prebble was absolutely right when he referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Because sitting across on the Government side would be the absolute straight-out mouthpiece of the trade unions in the form of all the Government members. Not one of them has ever put a dollar of his or her own money at risk. They sit there and go on and on in some way-back distant past sort of “capital versus labour struggle” type of rhetoric that one hears over and over again. 
I want members of this House to just focus on the fact that the past is actually a foreign country. It used to be in New Zealand that businesses were closed on weekends so that workers did not normally go to work at all. It used to be that workers worked Monday to Friday from 9 until 5 and that was it. That is not the case for just about anybody now. Weekend work night work overtime and special rates apply to so many people and the varied circumstances that a number of people choose to work under. 
A constituent of mine and his wife work at a retail outlet and they asked the boss whether they could work weekends and have 2 days off in the middle of the week so that they could head off to their beach place where nobody was around and they could have a lovely quiet time. They would still work normal pay rates on Saturdays and Sundays because for them without children the weekend was a better time to work at their paid employment and they could have their time off sometime in the middle of the week. 
But oh no what we have here is a typical example of the left-wing trade union movement of the Government saying that it knows what is best for workers—not the employers because they are dreadful evil people—and they will impose from the centre a regime. I might even be able to live with that to an extent if they could only get it right. But now we come to the process that they follow and again the Hon Richard Prebble was quite clear. He said that could not be labelled unintended consequences because unintended consequences are things one did not know would happen until after the event. One did not realise that that could be the case; one did not know that that would be the impact of that. 
But as the Hon Richard Prebble made very clear in his speech not only was it brought up in  
Hansard 
 at the time during the debate on the Holidays Bill—and Mark Peck should read  
Hansard 
 Volume 614 for 4 December or at least get someone to read it to him; he should realise that those issues were raised in the Parliament then—it was raised in the minority report of ACT that quite clearly they would be the consequences if the Government boxed on. So this legislation is not some sort of “Holidays Amendment Act” it is a “Botch-up Revisited Act”. That is what this legislation is and the reason the National Party will oppose it is that it does not go anywhere near enough to fix the fundamental flaws of the Holidays Act. That is the reason. We think it is good that the Government is trying to fix up some of the botch-up but a 50 percent botch-up of a 50 percent botch-up does not make it 100 percent correct. It makes it about a 200 percent mess still and that is what this legislation does. 
I shall take members through some examples in the legislation. First it would be worthwhile revisiting how we came about this. When the Holidays Bill was introduced in February 2003 it talked only about ordinary pay. How come? Ordinary pay was fine back then when the first bill was introduced in February 2003. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It was an understood concept. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Ordinary pay was an understood concept. Members on the other side of the House do not remember. When I was driving for Refrigerated Freight Lines and Wattie’s during my university days as a truck driver we got wet money and cover allowance money if the freight on the back had to have a cover. We were paid an extra amount for the cover being on the freight but if the freight was palletised or containerised we did not get that allowance. We are now saying that a percentage of that should be added on for one’s holidays! It has nothing to do with one’s holidays. It has nothing to do with what one is compensated for because those rates were negotiated as a direct payment to the workers for the things they did just that day or depending on whether they got wet while they were unloading their trucks. There are heaps and heaps of what I think are some of the most despicable little clauses to compensate somebody. That is why holiday pay was always based on one’s ordinary-time rate what one’s hourly rate was for working at the job. One was not at work while one was on holiday. One did not have to worry about wet money a cover allowance or anything else because one was on holiday. They were things that were specific to one’s employment. Now we see the left-wing Government saying no it will aggregate all the bits and pieces that people get for specific services along the way and bang them into one big thing called “relevant daily pay”—whatever that means—and then it will make the employer fork that out to people no matter what. 
The best examples I can give for members’ information are a couple that came out of Simpson Grierson’s submission. I think Simpson Grierson did a fantastic job of analysis. The submission states that the bill solves some of the more perverse consequences of the Holidays Act but that unfortunately a number of other deficiencies have not been addressed; employees are still meant to be paid their relevant daily pay when they take a public holiday a day in lieu or a day of sick leave. I have covered all that. Let me take a couple of Simpson Grierson’s examples because I think they are quite relevant: “Joe works a standard 8-hour day—a 40-hour week—plus a late night every Friday. He is paid double time for the Friday night plus a meal allowance.” That sounds fine. “If Joe is sick on a Friday his relevant daily pay will be his standard 8 hours as well as his double time and his meal allowance.” 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: And his meal allowance? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: And his meal allowance! So he is not there and is not working but he has a meal allowance. That is the first of Simpson Grierson’s examples. I want to know whether the Minister thinks that is right because I can see the “Holidays Amendment Bill (No 2)” coming in the week after Labour weekend. We should put a slot aside. I reserve a slot for the Minister’s introduction of the next amendment bill to deal with the unintended consequences of the unintended consequences fix-up! 
There is another example. Members should listen to it because it is a classic: “Mary works every Saturday and is paid double time and a laundry allowance. If Anzac Day falls on a Saturday and she works Mary will be paid the greater of time and a half on her flat rate and time and a half on her allowance or her normal Saturday pay being double time plus her allowance. Of course Mary will also qualify for a day in lieu which if she takes it on a Saturday will have to be paid at double time plus her allowance.” I have to read that again. I want the House to hear it because it is just too good to be true: “Mary works every Saturday and is paid double time and a laundry allowance. If Anzac Day falls on a Saturday and she works Mary will be paid the greater of time and a half on her flat rate and time and a half on her allowance or her normal Saturday pay being double time plus her allowance. Of course Mary will also qualify for a day in lieu which if she takes it on a Saturday will have to be paid at double time plus her allowance.” 
David Parker 
: He’s got it wrong. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Oh the legal expert Mr David Parker that eminent professor of law says Simpson Grierson which has a team of people with more letters after their names than the Russian alphabet and who know employment law better than anybody in this country has got it wrong. I ask Mr Parker why he did not tell Simpson Grierson’s lawyers that they got it wrong when they first came before the select committee and tried to stop the first bill because if he had listened to them then we would not be here making a fix-up to the botch-up that occurred. I say to Mr Parker that he should shut up and listen to some people who know about employment law and who say quite clearly that this fix-up does not do it. For that reason alone the National Party will be voting totally against the bill. We say to the Minister that he should go away and do some work for a change. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Do your homework! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: He should do his homework and come back to the House with a bill that does address the problem. The National Party would then support him.