Mapp Wayne: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Holidays Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:16057] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 National is fundamentally disappointed with this effort. It is very much a missed opportunity. The Government knows full well that there are numerous defects and deficiencies with the Holidays Act 2003 but it has chosen to fix up the most trivial issues within the Act. This is truly an example of “Government of trivia”. The Government says that it has five problems—three of them are really big; two of them are really small—and has chosen to fix up the small ones knowing full well that all in the business community want the major problems fixed. 
I guess the Government actually thought because it certainly proclaimed it at the time that business would welcome this bill with open arms saying: “What a responsive Government. Isn’t it wonderful that the Government has appointed Mr Swain as Minister instead of that terrible woman Margaret Wilson.” That is what they expected business people would say— 
John Key 
: Well they did. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: They did not say that. When business people had the opportunity to make submissions they consistently referred to the Government’s complete and total failure to get to grips with the real problems—the three big problems not the two trivial problems. That is why they are so disappointed with the Government and that is why Mr Swain is such a failure as a Minister. If he goes out to the community trumpeting this kind of legislation as an example of his success it will be an epitaph of failure. The bill was and is a missed opportunity. 
I proposed a Supplementary Order Paper that was intended to be a compromise. I took clauses 7 8 and 9 of the Holidays Bill of 2003 which provided the definitions of ordinary pay and I compacted them into a single Supplementary Order Paper that gave the Government an opportunity to fix that problem based on the bill it had introduced into Parliament just 12 months ago. What did the Government do? It just ignored it. 
Even more serious a party that proclaims itself to be a common-sense party did the craven thing. The craven thing in this House is to abstain. People vote parties into this Parliament to express a view. We either support something or we oppose something so the public can judge us by the record. The public will judge the failure of this Government on this bill. How will it judge United Future which simply abstained? Frankly I think that that is a travesty and a betrayal of their electors. United Future will be judged accordingly. 
I know that Mr Adams goes around the North Shore proclaiming himself to be friendly with business and stating he understands the experience of running a small business. He talks to people up and down the North Shore because I have seen him do it. He betrayed those people today and it will get back to them that when United Future members had the opportunity to fix a problem they failed. That is the sort of thing that parties are judged on. 
It is with a degree of sadness that National finds itself having to vote against this bill. While the bill fixes up some things we cannot support a bill that ignores serious and major problems. It would be fundamentally wrong to give an endorsement to a bill that is actually a failure—a failure to recognise serious problems. Every single submitter from the business sector said that the Government had failed—and it has.