Dalziel Lianne: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:337] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 As a former Minister of Commerce I shall read the adequacy statement of the regulatory impact statement into the record as I did for a previous bill: “It has not been possible for the Regulatory Impact Analysis Team to undertake an assessment of the adequacy of the Regulatory Impact Analysis and the Regulatory Impact Statement for this proposal within the time frames.” This is the second bill from the National - Maori Party - ACT Government that has not even tried to pay lip-service to the regulatory impact assessment process that is critical to quality regulatory frameworks. This is a Government that was so proud to appoint a Minister for Regulatory Reform yet the first two bills it has introduced into the House do not even meet the benchmarks that were established by the previous Government. It is ridiculous.  
I ask the House how this bill is going to turbocharge the economy. I heard National Party MPs talk about productivity throughout the campaign. What does this do to increase workplace productivity? How is workplace productivity improved when employees do not know whether they will have a job at the end of their first 90 days in the job? How is productivity improved when we let employers off the hook in terms of understanding how to get the best from their workforce?  
From the Department of Labour’s website I got an interesting little document on workplace productivity. It has all of the productivity drivers that have been developed in collaboration between Business New Zealand the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and the Department of Labour. The document refers to building leadership and management organising work networking and collaborating investing in people and skills encouraging innovation and the use of technology creating productive workplace cultures and measuring what matters. It is the productivity driver called “Creating Productive Workplace Cultures” that I thought was really important and it states: “Positive relations between staff teams and managers are the foundation of productive workplaces. A positive work environment motivates people and helps them commit to the organisation. People feel encouraged to ‘go the extra mile’. It’s also important to value people’s insights and experience. Their ideas can help your workplace to do things smarter and better. That means your business will become more innovative and productive over time.” This was developed using real-life examples real business case studies from real businesses increasing productivity on many levels. Not once does it say “Create a climate of fear and put people’s jobs on the line for the first 90 days.” Not once in any of these productivity drivers do we see that suggested.  
National knows that 96 percent of all firms employ fewer than 20 staff. That is why the Labour Government established the portfolio of Minister for Small Business and also the Small Business Advisory Group. When I was Minister for Small Business the Small Business Advisory Group recommended this provision. I agree that the Small Business Advisory Group recommended the provision but I asked the advisory group to think about that and it did because it is a little bit smarter than National would perhaps give it credit for. Although I could not persuade the advisory group to give up on that view it did identify what the real issue was and that was fear of fear itself. Every one of those people had an anecdote or a story about what had happened to their mate’s uncle’s third cousin. Some of them had stories of their own—stories of disappointment of pulling out the cheque book to pay a non-performing staff member who was dragging down the business. But they did not have to pull out the cheque book at all; they just thought they had to do so.  
The National Government in its drive for productivity and its drive to turbocharge the economy says that that is OK and that it is OK for people to think that is the case when the current law already provides for a guide to probation periods that enables people to have a period of time where they are essentially looking out for all the issues that are of concern. I think it is letting employers off the hook not to teach them how to employ staff well from the outset. Employment relationships are all about establishing what the expectations are from both sides of the relationship. National just cannot stand it. The bottom line is that if employers understood what the law currently allows and were able to use it effectively there would be fewer personal grievances and increased productivity. I call that a win-win situation.  
This is an extremely lazy policy and that is because it has not been through any process of scrutiny at all. If the Government was so sure of itself why would it not send this bill to a select committee for that scrutiny? Tau Henare said we needed to get it through quickly to bring it in on time but it does not come into effect until 1 April next year. What do those members mean it has to be rushed through under urgency before Christmas? It is an April Fool’s joke for ordinary workers.  
I remind this House that yesterday was international Human Rights Day and what does the new National Government do to celebrate this day? It takes human rights away from ordinary working New Zealanders as its way of trying to celebrate human rights and that is just ridiculous. Today the New Zealand Government is reducing the rights of workers based solely on the size of the business they work for. We can guarantee that employers would not want to increase their businesses to 21 employees; they would want to keep their number to fewer than 20 so that they could rely on this 3-month “get out of jail free” card. How ambitious is that for New Zealand? I do not think that is very ambitious for New Zealand; it is pathetic. Even Business New Zealand says the process is bad.  
I remind the House of a story we heard back in the 1990s. I remind this House that the Employment Contracts Bill despite Gerry Brownlee’s memory—even though he was not here at the time—actually did go to a select committee. I remember a mother coming to the select committee when the Employment Contracts Bill was before it. She pleaded the case for young people. She said that young people should be supported by an adult if they are going to be disciplined by their employer. She told the story of her son. I cannot remember how old her son was—I think he was 17 or 18 at the time. He was in his first job in a shop in Christchurch. He stayed after work on a Friday night for a few drinks and he was smoking. He flicked some ash on to the carpet and it burnt the carpet. The employer came in at the time and he sacked him instantly on the spot. It was that young man’s first job. He had been looking for a job for a long time. That young man went away from that shop bought a bottle of whiskey drove himself down to a riverside and took his own life. He killed himself because he could not stand the thought of going home and telling his parents that the first job he had ever got had been taken from him just through a foolish act and an employer who was not prepared to listen.  
I know that members will think this is a very extreme example and it is. But anyone in this House who thinks that it is OK to take away rights from the most vulnerable people while pretending that this is for vulnerable people needs to think very carefully about the consequences at the extreme because these are the consequences that will occupy the minds of New Zealanders in the future when we see those cases repeated. Tragically history does repeat itself and we are condemned to those mistakes of the past if we do not learn from them.