Collins Judith: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7324] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I rise to speak against this bill and in particular Part 2. There are many reasons for opposing this bill and there are many reasons for the Minister to want us to just roll over like the United Future party and the Greens and accept this sort of behaviour. One of the things that is very very concerning about this bill—and I note the submission of the New Zealand Law Society which has yet again given a very very good submission—is that it overrides contract law where that contract law is to the benefit of the employee. I say that is wrong. 
Many people have entered into employment contracts—either collective contracts or individual contracts in relation to the more senior members of staff in particular—and they are entitled to know that their contract means what it states. They are entitled to know that where their Minister has been slack and allowed provisions in the contract such as technical redundancy provisions whereby they can be paid compensation they are entitled to the benefit of such clauses because the contract law should be paramount. In respect of that I would have thought that those parties in Parliament that are always bleating on about the rights of the employed would actually look at that issue and consider why they want to take away from employees the rights that they currently have under their contracts. Those particular parties the Labour Party and the Green Party should be ashamed of themselves for supporting this bill. 
The United Future party which was not in fact a party at the time when this bill was introduced should be ashamed of itself because it has promoted itself as the party of common sense. However it has shown no common sense here although it has in many ways tried to uphold some centre-right principles in its allegiance with the Labour Party which has been very difficult for it. Yet here United Future is again saying that the contract law on employment or employees’ rights can be stood over by a Minister who loves to bully people—a Minister who loves to try to shout people down—and that he can just continue to do the same to Public Service Association members. 
That Minister wants to say the Public Service Association and the Council of Trade Unions made submissions. But I say to the Minister that they did not actually agree with his bill. This bill has been rewritten by Supplementary Order Paper 107 which was lodged only yesterday. It is being rushed through Parliament so that the Department for Courts can be merged with the Ministry of Justice because obviously the Prime Minister has lost confidence in either one of her Ministers or both of them. Also the Minister has his eye on any other department or ministry where the chief executive may be doing too well may be trying to get people off benefits or may be trying to stand up to a Minister. 
The employees of every single ministry should be out there considering their situation in terms of the fact that the rights they have won through their contracts are being overridden by legislation that is being rushed through the House after sitting around for 2 years. After 2 years of going nowhere suddenly this legislation is being rushed through without consultation because the Minister does not really want the employees of the ministries to know what is happening. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I notice that some members on the Government side of the Chamber are calling out “2 years”. They think that makes a difference. But the fact is that if they bothered to look at the Supplementary Order Paper that has been introduced they would discover that it makes this a different bill from the one introduced then.