Tinetti JanJAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Kia ora koutou to the House. I am absolutely delighted to be here speaking on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill this afternoon. I want to acknowledge the work that the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway has done in bringing this bill to the House in such a short time. We've heard criticism of that short time here this afternoon but this bill—along with the work that our coalition parties did and our New Zealand First and Greens have helped here with—is a really really strong piece of legislation.I'm excited because today we are taking steps to restore fairness and equity to the workplace. We are evening out the playing field in the workplace because over the last few years that playing field became less and less even. Workers have struggled and found it hard in the last few years.We've just heard about the 90-day trial period and that has caused a great amount of controversy over its time. I've just heard a whole lot of arguments about it. I want to acknowledge my colleague Kieran McAnulty when he pointed out that some of the members haven't even read what's in this bill when they're talking about it. But I've just heard the previous member from the other side the Hon Paul Goldsmith talk about the hopes and dreams that the 90-day trials brought to these people. Oh! My mouth just dropped because I'm going to tell you about the hopes and dreams—I wasn't going to tell this story but I'm so incensed that I'm going to tell this story of the hopes and dreams that were dashed under the 90-day trial of one of my former pupils. The hopes and dreams of how he was employed in his very first job under the 90-day trial and the last time I saw him how excited he was that he was providing for his family in that job and how excited he was that he was going forward in that job. On day 89 without any warning he lost that job and two weeks later thinking he'd brought shame to his own whānau he took his life. That's what the hopes and dreams of the 90-day trial period did for that particular pupil. So don't talk to me about hopes and dreams that that trial causes for our young people.Also I've heard about statistics here this afternoon. I've heard about 245000 jobs created in the last two years. Statistics can tell a very skewed story when we hear them like that. Actually let's take another statistic. Statistics New Zealand in September last year said that unemployment was slow to get to acceptable levels. In fact we had slipped to 13th in the OECD. If we had 245000 jobs why was that the case? And what is the quality of those jobs? Actually I heard an invite by the Hon Tim Macindoe over there. I heard that invite for our member here to go to Hamilton. I would give you the same invite to come and visit some of the families—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would love to visit.JAN TINETTI: Oh I'm sorry Madam Deputy Speaker. It's just been part of it today—sorry. I invite the Hon Tim Macindoe to come and visit some of the families that I have worked with over the past few years. Those families have got lower and lower quality of jobs in that time. Those families are taking more and more jobs on and working more and more hours at minimum wage levels while costs are going up through the roof just to survive. Come and visit those families. Come and talk to those families who are taking those jobs on and who never see their families. Mum and dad are team-tagging because they are having to take on so much work just to make ends meet.Come and see those parents who are absolutely shattered after working those hours who have not been allowed to have meal breaks. We've heard about meal breaks here. We've heard Oh that was because of our airline people our traffic controllers." But what it caused was that anyone could be put into a situation where meal breaks were taken from them. That is a right for most of us that we feel we need but meal breaks were taken from these families. I have seen people absolutely shattered after working hours and hours and hours and not having a meal break in that time.Come and see those people that have been told not to come back to work. In one case I had a parent asked not to come back to work the next day because they'd asked about joining the union. Marja Lubeck: All the time.JAN TINETTI: All the time that is happening. So this bill is a good-news story for families. Collective bargaining has the ability and is the best mechanism for increasing wages in this country—increasing wages for our families so that they can be families again. This is what this bill will do and it is good news for the children.Good employees and good employers won't mind these changes. In fact they will welcome them because they are already enacting this. When employers and employees are able to work together on equal terms and treat everyone with dignity and respect everybody benefits. I've been a union member for all of my working career but I have also been an employer over that time too and I encourage any of my employees to join the union. I am incredibly proud that I had a high union density. In fact when I left that job I had 100 percent union density in my staff. The unions are not scary. The unions make the workplace better. My workplace was better because of the strong union involvement in my workplace.Strengthening union involvement and openness is crucial to achieving better conditions for workers in New Zealand. I have seen multiple times when we have brought unions in to support workers—and I'm going to tell a story. When I first went to my last school I got a union member in to look at my teacher-aide wages because I felt they weren't on the right level. I had to pay $20000 in back-pay in that time. That was the best amount of money I have ever spent because I got that back in spades. Union involvement gives our workers what they deserve and a good employer will buy into that. Even some of our most successful companies in this country are finding that having a better working relationship with unions is a strength to their company.What the other side of the House is thinking is going back in time. They talk about us going back in time. But they don't understand that that relationship has moved on plenty over the years. The unions are a fantastic place to support our workers and also our employers. They want to see good working conditions. They want to see good employer-employee relationships.Then I've heard over there about collective bargaining. Another aspect that I've been involved with over the years is that I've been a member leader of collective bargaining for the last 10 years. Negotiating collective agreements is always going to be hard no matter what Government you're working under. It's a hard time. Members' expectations are always going to be higher than what can be afforded to be given out. But it's important that we have an absolute strong commitment to continue on and find a way through. I think of my own situation. I was negotiating on behalf of the principals. If there was no duty to conclude—and this would be the same for any workforce but I'm thinking in particular of the educators—imagine the chaos that would occur and that was the possibility. Before we bring this in that is the possibility and the reality of what could happen now. This bill strengthens so much for workers. It strengthens so much for workers. It makes our country a much more fair and much more equal place. On that I commend this bill to the House."