Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Madam Chair thank you very much. We now come to Part 2 of this legislation the Fair Pay Agreements Bill—misnamed according to us. I want to ask some questions of the Minister around clause 11 which outlines the employer's and the employee's bargaining parties presenting the interests of people covered. In subclause (2) the select committee in its wisdom—the majority—made some changes and I just want to get a better understanding of paragraph (a) on the side of the eligible union—that is the employee bargaining party. Originally the wording said may represent a covered employee's interests" despite some Government employees not being members of the union or any other union and there's a similar provision for the employers. So this is kind of making the point that the bargaining party will represent the employee's interests whether or not that particular employee wants them to or not. But the select committee in its wisdom changed that to "covered employees' collective interests". So it's no longer the fact that the bargaining party may represent the employee's interests; it now only has to or may represent the employees' collective interests which of course is a very different thing in the sense that I suppose it underlines the point that this legislation is not interested in the individual employee's wishes and desires or the individual employer's individual wishes and desires. It's very much a collectivist view of the world that must be brought forward.I suppose the point I wanted to make was that I'm intrigued as to how the Minister reconciles the two elements of this part which sets off with great fanfare about freedom of association—it talks about that. It talks about voluntary membership of unions which it asserts and yes nobody has to join a union which is true. But also in the same part it says that regardless of whether you do join a union you will be represented by the union the default union and they will decide what your interests are—and they're collective interests. So it's a little bit odd. Yes you don't have to join a union—it's voluntary—but regardless of whether or not you want it the union will represent you. It reminds me of the old adage that—Maureen Pugh: Democracy is changing!Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —ha ha!—you might not be interested in war but war is interested in you. You might not be interested in a fair pay agreement but a fair pay agreement is interested in you and you will have it whether or not you like it. It reminds me of as a youngster having to have the castor oil. I didn't want it but I had to have it and you know what's good for you. And this party the Labour Party is a party of course that thinks it does know better than individuals. So I'd like the Minister to take us through his logic and his thinking as to how he reconciles voluntary membership and freedom of association these grand statements that this bill makes with the reality that only a couple of clauses along that regardless of whether the individual voluntarily wants to be involved in this fair agreement or not is now immaterial. They will be and there is no voluntary element to it. It is mandatory it is legislated for and then the employer bargaining party and the employee bargaining party don't have to consider the employee's interests—that's actually been taken out by the select committee. It only has to consider—or it may; it doesn't have to even do that but it may—the employees' collective interests. I'd be interested in how the Minister distinguishes between the two between the employee's interests and the employees' collective interests and whether he may be of the view that the employees' collective interests will always be those that are determined by the union. That I suppose might be his view of the world—that the union will always determine what the individual's interests are in any particular matter and that they indeed know best and they are best placed to decide. Obviously we on this of the Chamber would disagree with that proposition but he may have some other definition. So it's an interesting point. What it essentially means is that it is immaterial as to whether an individual employee or an employer wants to be covered by the FPA—they will be once this bill is passed.How on earth that meets with the idea of freedom of association I'm not sure. The Minister might also give us an update or just remind us how he squares freedom of association with the mandatory nature of this bill. Because you know we take it back to the basics. Say you're working in a superette in Hokianga and there are two employees and this is your job and you've figured out the hours that work for you and you've figured out what break works for you and the owner of the business has worked out the cost structure that they can cope with and the cost structure that the community can cope with in terms of you know how much fundamentally the running of the business adds to the cost of the cauliflower and the broccoli and the milk and the bread and the things that are sold by that superette. They've worked it all out and it all works and it's above the minimum wage or it's at the minimum wage set by the Government—they've worked it all out.Now that is not acceptable according to the Minister. Indeed what is proposed by this legislation is that the union which is the collective bargaining party now is there to represent not the employee's interests but the employees' collective interests whatever that is. And it may well be that the weight of the collective interests of the employees right across the country—and there's thousands of them; most of them working for the duopoly companies Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises. Their interests might be "X" and if the interests of the people working up in Hokianga are "Y"—well tough luck because the majority always wins. So that's how it works and that's going to be imposed on the workers and the businesses in Hokianga whether they like it or not. Yet at the same time brandishing his credentials as a great democrat the Minister has the gall to have at the start the big title "freedom of association" and assert that we're all free to do what we like and figure it all out for ourselves. I'd be interested to know how he squares those two things."