Twyford Phil: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Twyford Phil: Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:676;Page:21563] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I first came across the Hon Tau Henare in the late 1980s when he was an organiser with the Clerical Workers Union and I was an organiser with the Service and Food Workers Union. We jointly addressed— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: He’s come a lot further than you. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Does Mr Smith really think so? We jointly addressed a new group of union members at a rather flash Auckland hotel. I remember Mr Henare at the hotel persuading these new workers of the benefits of the Clerical Workers Union and what a great redundancy agreement they would be entitled to if they joined the union. It strikes me as very unlikely that the Clerical Workers Union in the 1980s would have been the kind of union that bullied and bludgeoned its members into taking strike action. I invite the member to take a call draw on his personal experiences in the 1980s and tell us how the Clerical Workers Union bullied and bludgeoned its members into taking strike action. I find that very unlikely. But I am happy to be persuaded. I am happy to be contradicted on that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I just remind the member that we are actually in the 21st century not the last century so I ask him to focus on clause 4. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Thank you. We are discussing the purpose of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill which is to require unions to hold a secret vote of their members to approve a strike before undertaking any strike action. My point is—I do have one and it echoes comments that my colleagues have already made—that this bill is essentially a solution looking for a problem. It is a throwback. Looking at the purpose of the bill it is clear that it is a throwback to a bygone era a previous century as you Mr Chairperson said yourself. I think that the political mentality of the member who brought this bill to the House reflects a view of industrial relations that was shaped in the Mangere Bridge dispute and in the BNZ dispute. It is from a bygone age. It no longer exists. The challenges of the 1970s and 1980s are no longer the challenges that face New Zealand workers and that face New Zealand firms and workplaces. 
The bill requires unions to hold a secret ballot of their members to approve a strike and I am completely baffled as to why the member thinks this is enough of a priority to bring a bill to this House and to waste the time of this Parliament the Parliament of New Zealand. Really it is axe grinding on a huge scale. The member is basically trying to make an ideological point about industrial relations in this country. But no one—and I suspect not even the members on his side of the Chamber—has any particular enthusiasm or affection for this cause. 
It reflects a one-sided and old-fashioned view of industrial relations that we should have left behind a long time ago in this country. It plays to some kind of cartoon stereotype of unions and employers in this country that no longer has any basis in reality. But it does tap into a deep anti-union sentiment that runs through some employers in this country. Some parts of the National Party and the right of politics in this country have made it their mission over the last 20 years to drive unions out of the economy and drive them out of New Zealand society. It is all there in the purpose clause. 
The bill is completely oblivious to the real challenges facing New Zealand today. The real challenges are how we raise the productivity of our firms how we increase the skill level of our workers how we involve workers and tap into their creativity and ideas to actually improve the productivity and the innovation in New Zealand workplaces and how we tackle the appalling levels of health and safety. These are the challenges that bedevil New Zealand firms but this bill—