Wilkinson Kate: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Wilkinson Kate: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10503] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the estimates portion of Vote Labour. I want to raise three main issues at this stage but to my mind they are very serious matters and they were raised in the questioning of the Minister during the estimates process in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
I am not quite sure whether the Minister is aware that in the Employment Relations Act there is a very important section. It is not a very big section but it is a pretty important one and it basically states that the Act binds the Crown. Unfortunately that small but crucial section seems to have been ignored or disregarded by the Government. Under the employment relations law nobody not even the Crown is above the law so I would like the Minister in the chair Nanaia Mahuta to comment on a matter that I will now elaborate on a bit more. 
Under our employment relations legislation there is a clear unambiguous provision that a contract or an agreement between persons must not confer on a person a preference because that person is or is not a member of a union. So no preference can be conferred on a person in relation to the terms and conditions of employment because that person is or is not a member of a union. It is quite simple. Members can imagine our surprise at the response when we asked for an explanation of the preference payment of $500 which is taxpayer money that is paid by this Labour Government specifically and only to union members: to members of the Public Service Association. They get a preference payment of $500. The response from the department was quite amazing and actually worrying. Department officials said: “It’s not a preference payment. It’s a payment that’s negotiated by the collective agreement as part of the settlement of that collective agreement.” 
 So we inquired a bit further and asked: “Is this not giving some staff an extra $500 over other staff?”. We were then told: “Well it might not be. It might not be additional.” Then we were told—and it gets worse—that the union members get an extra $500 “not because they are a member of a union; it’s because they’re part of the collective agreement.” We all know that that is absolutely totally and completely absurd because under our labour laws a person cannot be a party to a collective agreement without being a member of a union. So it is a preference payment. It is a preference payment that is prohibited under the Employment Relations Act. That Act does in fact bind the Crown. It does in fact bind the Labour Government and it should be abided by. 
Workers should not have their pay docked merely because they do not belong to a union. In the aged-care sector this Government is using taxpayer money—taxpayer money—to actively recruit New Zealanders to join the unions that provide it with support. The matter is worse than that. People will have read the recent media releases about the dispute between people at district health boards and Spotless Services. I do not intend to get involved in the merits or otherwise of that dispute. It is actually the form of it that is concerning because that dispute reveals that 5 percent of the funding—this is taxpayer funding—will be paid to the union as a bargaining fee. That could be anywhere between $800000 and $1 million and do members know to whom it will be paid? It will be paid to the Service and Food Workers Union. Are we surprised at that when this is the very same union that we are told received some $300000—$350000; $380000—and paid it to the Labour Party no doubt to get the future Minister of Finance Darien Fenton her place in this Parliament? I am concerned about this matter and I really do think the Minister needs to take a stance on it because it is a lot of money it is taxpayer money and we have a duty to ensure that taxpayer money is spent properly and not contrary to the provisions of the law. 
In this department we also have another admission that the department is again flouting other rules this time by handing out $8 million worth of contracts—as my colleague Paula Bennett revealed—without going through the process of tendering. 
Craig Foss 
: Sounds familiar. 
KATE WILKINSON 
: Exactly. Both those instances involve taxpayer money. The rules are there to safeguard that money and those rules should be abided by—they should not be flouted. 
When we have the spending of all of that money we need to ask whether we are getting value for money. In the select committee we asked how productivity is measured; if we are spending all of that money on the public service how do we know we are getting productivity across the public service? Do members know what the answer was? It was: “I don’t think we are in a position to say too much about that at this point.” Frankly I think that is not good enough. We have an issue with regard to productivity and it has been raised in the Minister’s briefing paper. We are not highly up there in the productivity stakes the issue needs to be addressed and an answer that says: “I don’t think we are in a position to say too much about that at this point.” is I think negligent. 
That is not good enough and I would like the Minister in the chair to take a call and be accountable please for the deliberate flouting of the law by the department.