Adams Paul: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Adams Paul: Status of Redundancy Payments Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11567] 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 The point I would like to pick up on—and I agree that the Hon Taito Phillip Field did make some very good and sensible points in his speech—is that when a large business fails in a small community it can also bring devastating results. I agree with that. 
From United Future’s perspective—and we are a true centrist party so we do try to see both sides of the spectrum and try to come with a common-sense middle ground—what we need to understand is that big business is great. We would agree with that and we would support it. But a big business does not just arrive all of a sudden except in some cases when it comes in as an overseas entity. 
 But take for example Stephen Tindall and The Warehouse. That business started in a building that we once shared. He started with only one or two employees and the business gradually grew. Any sporting club that fails to cultivate the youth and stays only with older people eventually dies. 
In this country we need to see the importance of small business. I take the Hon Richard Prebble’s point that over one-third of our population earns their money from outputs now. That will only increase. Much as the Government says that we are the least regulated it is the type of regulations that we are talking about here that is putting the brakes on small business. It is making people less likely to want to employ staff. They would rather employ contractors because they do not want to deal with all these issues. I think that as MPs we have a responsibility to make a fairer level playing field that will not only support people who want to be wage earners but equally will support people who are prepared to take a risk put their house on the line and give it a go. Because if we fail to support those people we will not have the Stephen Tindalls in this nation: the people who are prepared to put everything on the line to serve the population of New Zealand. A business is only there to serve its customers and it rises and falls on its merits and ability to serve its customers well. 
We create difficulties when we continue to bring in legislation that will affect those entrepreneurs who want to go out and work under contract. We say to them that we will give support to the contracts that wage earners have but the contracts that contractors may have with a business in order to get paid will be put aside. Contractors will wait in line after the Inland Revenue Department after the banks and after the redundancy payments. As we have heard a few times we are not talking about workers’ wages or holiday pay—nobody would want to restrict those payments. But redundancy clauses can be put into many packages and whichever way it is viewed it is payment for work that has not been done whereas possibly one-third of the workforce are on an outputs-based income. 
United Future cannot in any way see the fairness or merit in paying people for work that has not been done ahead of paying people for work that has been done. Any leader who does not base his or her efforts on truth compassion and mercy really is in trouble. I seriously ask Mr Peck and those who are supporting this bill to ask themselves whether they are showing compassion and mercy to the entrepreneurs of this country who lay everything on the line to help other people get work. All they are asking for is fair pay for themselves.