Mitchell ClaytonCLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in the third and final reading of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. I've been sitting here quietly reflecting on some of the comments that have been made and I think I might start my contribution from the back and work my way to the front because some of the comments that Mr Woodhouse has made in relation to the flexibility around meal breaks I think are a good place to start.I was part of the last Government when we put through some pretty hefty changes to the Health and Safety in Employment Act to make workplaces more safe and to ensure that workers that were going to put themselves in harm's way came home safely at the end of a day of work or at the end of a week of work. Then after we completed that monumental piece of legislation it was in only a matter of months before the National Party the then Government stripped away the rights of those meal breaks and I remember putting a contribution in this House saying Oh look it's dinner time." In fact I spoke just before six o'clock and the bell went mid-contribution. I said "Well isn't it great that we can actually take the time out to go and have a rest break to go and refresh ourselves and get ourselves back?"—and we have a sedentary job; it's hardly a dangerous job sitting here pushing a few pens around and chastising the lacklustre Opposition.What we had here in the example that was given was in relation to air traffic controllers who now don't have that flexibility to not take a break. That's a perfect example because those people who have that position aren't necessarily putting themselves personally in harm's way; what they are doing is potentially putting tens of thousands of people's lives at risk by not taking those scheduled meal breaks. This legislation that we're putting through today does not stop those employers from organising and structuring those meal breaks to ensure that the employees can take scheduled meal breaks at all but it ensures that they have to within the rules and confines of their obligations as an employer ensure that those workers do take those scheduled meal breaks. There are some schedules there that do point out some of those jobs that need that flexibility where meal breaks may not be quite appropriate and so that flexibility is there but to have meal breaks ensured—that they are taken—is absolutely critical to ensure we have a very safe and healthy working environment.Now I'm going to go back to the start of my contribution where just over a year ago I had the great pleasure of standing with my caucus before the announcement of which parties we were going to coalesce with to make this Government. Everybody was sitting there waiting to hear the words from the Rt Hon Winston Peters—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I'm going to call the member back to the bill. He's spent a few minutes talking about other matters a little bit about the bill and now he's traversing some other historical context. So let's come back to the substance of the bill as it was reported back to the House after the committee of the whole House. Thank you.CLAYTON MITCHELL: The substance is in relation to giving this Government a face for capitalism. So to do that we have to build our economy and build our society from the bottom up something that hasn't been done for a long time. To build our economy from the bottom up is to ensure that the most vulnerable people in our society are looked after. Those people are our workers—largely the unskilled uneducated workforce—who are on low and minimum wages who can sometimes be taken advantage of. This bill does do that. This gives capitalism a face. This provides for those workers who aren't as fortunate as some of those other workers we have.Now getting the balance right over the last 12 months—and it was literally a week before we broke for Christmas that we sat down and we discussed what the 100-day plan was going to look like for a brand new coalition Government—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No. Come back to the substance of the bill. I'm sorry. A third reading debate—Dan Bidois: He hasn't read the bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): —Order!—is often relied upon by the judiciary to establish the intent of this Parliament. I would like you to come back to the substance of the bill. Thank you.CLAYTON MITCHELL: As I was saying the substance of the bill—Andrew Falloon: Don't rely on Clayton Mitchell.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!CLAYTON MITCHELL: —then ensures that we have a multi-employer collective agreement that we have the ability for businesses to opt out of. Whilst we are trying to maintain a Government that is looking after the people at the bottom building our economy from the bottom up sharing that wealth through those workers—which is part of the bill—I have to say that this is an important part. We do not want to see the cost structures of our larger cities and centres around the country imposing those costs on to our regions and our businesses in the provinces. To enable the multi-employer collective agreement to be opted out of by those businesses after they have engaged in meaningful discussion to try the best that they possibly can to come to an agreement around a MECA—a multi-employment collective agreement—then that to us is a very positive outcome.Another very important part of the bill and I've touched on a couple of points already is to do with the access to workplaces. We have heard a lot of fearmongering from both Michael Woodhouse and of course Scott Simpson in relation to unfettered access to workplaces. That's not the case. For those workplaces where they are part of a MECA—a multi-employment collective agreement—those union delegates do have access to those workplaces to ensure that the work conditions that they are in are actually safe and that they are within the rules and regulations of what constitutes a safe and viable workplace. But where there isn't a MECA those delegates must go through the current process and practice of giving fair and reasonable notice. But even if there is a multi-employer collective agreement in place the union members still must fit the test of what is fair and reasonable as far as access goes. They can't show up at midnight and demand to speak to people. It's not the fearmongering that has been pushed by the National Party; it is actually something quite different. So we believe that getting that balance right is something that we are very very conscious of and we have given it a lot of thought to ensure that that actually happens.The public sector and the private sector are two areas that we are aware of where we have to get that balance right too. We understand that the strike action that we've seen over the past 12 months is directly a result of the settings of the previous Government which we want to get right. And yes we have had nurses striking and we've had teachers striking—in fact my kids love it when the teachers strike to be honest. When people are talking doom and gloom it's great to see some people in our society very very pleased about it. But I have to say that that is one way of being heard and if you can have a partial strike to get your point across—and the member across the House there was talking about taking hours off in a day. Well that to me is strike action. Partial striking is where you are doing very subtle things to get your point across like wearing a T-shirt. That is about ensuring we have good productivity to ensure that our businesses can operate fairly. What we've got to make sure of is that we have an environment—a working environment a business environment—that grows productivity and shares wealth amongst all those people—the businesses and the employers and the employees—fairly and equally. And that is something where I believe we have got that balance right.We are going down a very good path when it comes to the 90-day work trials. This is something that in the very early stages myself and Iain Lees-Galloway and a number of officials sat around the table to discuss. I have had the pleasure myself of being in business for 25 years and understand that businesses are looking for good employees and are prepared to spend the money to upskill them to make sure that they can actually grow with them. As their skills increase of course so do the conditions that they work within—their pay conditions increase and other perks come along the way: increases in time off and holidays etc.It's not fair to suggest that employers use the 90-day work trials to get rid of staff—to fire at will as I've had some people say to me. It's actually a way to ensure you have the right balance. The right balance for us is ensuring that the person is a good fit for the environment that they work in. Now currently a small to medium sized enterprise in New Zealand is "under 20 employees". Now that to me I think and New Zealand First believes is something that we need to look at as a Government to see where that sits internationally. But the people in those businesses that are smaller don't have the same sorts of resourcing that larger companies have. They don't have the HR facilities available to them and they don't have the smaller work groups inside their businesses where those people who might not necessarily fit can be relocated to be in a more suitable working environment. It's not about the skill set; it's actually about finding the employees who fit with what we as employers are trying to do.So we commend this bill to the House. We think it's a great balance. We are very very proud to be here today to announce this and I believe we are much better off as a country now that this bill has gone through all three stages in the House."