Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) - New Zealand Parliament

3634 Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill 16 May 2009
very significant number of Aucklanders who, as one can imagine, are feeling very
nervous and insecure at the moment, given that the major structural change is occurring
in a time of high unemployment and major economic crisis. I hope that there will be a
fair hearing across the Committee of this issue. I am sure that Nikki Kaye—the new
friend of the worker—will support this new part. The party leaders across the other side
of the Chamber are not here, but if they were they would recognise the value of these
sorts of provisions, as well. As I understand matters, recently they have understood the
value of working with unions in trying to look at employment matters.
New Part 10 proposes a number of important general principles. First and foremost,
those general principles include the idea of being a good employer—that is a very
important principle. It also requires that policies developed under that principle are
available to employees, and that the Auckland Council would report on its compliance
with those policies. We have outlined some of the things that good employers might do,
including the fair and proper treatment of employees, providing good and safe working
conditions, providing equal employment opportunities, recognising the aspirations of
Māori, and making sure that employees of the Auckland Council maintain proper
standards of integrity, conduct, and concern about the public interest. I reinforce that
point, because the people who work for councils provide public services. These people
care about the public services that they provide, which are very, very important things
that affect the day-to-day living of people in Auckland. So we are very aware that those
workers will want to be in a position to provide good-quality services to the public.
The context of this part is very important, and we talked a little about that last night.
Workers are feeling very insecure at the moment. Council employees—employees of
the different councils and of the regional council—are feeling very concerned. Why is
that? The royal commission said some very important things about the staffing issues
related to this important change that is going on. It said it expected current council staff
to form the nucleus of the new organisations. One of the royal commission’s reasons for
adopting its proposed model was “to maintain stability in the council workforce, to
minimise both the personal impacts of reorganisation on council staff and start-up costs
for the new organisation, and to enable key services to be delivered as usual during the
transition”.
The unfortunate thing is that although that statement provided a degree of certainty to
the affected workers, on the other hand the Government has decided that there will be a
rationalisation of council staff, which will start to occur immediately. That means there
will be job losses. The Government is disregarding not only many of the other
recommendations of the royal commission but also the recommendation about
providing security for council staff. In the current economic environment, that is very,
very difficult for people to deal with.
If one looks at how workers in the Public Service are currently being treated by the
Government, one would understand why council workers in Auckland are feeling
insecure. I ask members to look at the level of job cuts that is going on at the moment in
the Public Service. I ask members to look at the fact that those workers are being treated
as second-class workers and are not eligible, for example, for provisions like the 9-day
working fortnight—not that that has actually made a great deal of difference yet. But
Public Service workers are not even eligible for it.
We have already seen a number of attacks by the Government on workers. We have
seen a number of workers lose the right to challenge unfair dismissal. The Government
is now looking at the provisions around holidays. The Minister of Labour has put up a
zero percent increase in the minimum wage, and actually does not agree with pay equity
for women workers. I could go on, but I say those things also mean that workers are
feeling very insecure and nervous.