Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) - New Zealand Parliament

16 May 2009 Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill 3691
of 6,300 workers. These workers are people—people with families, people with
mortgages, and people who are our neighbours and families. Frankly, it is important that
we get this right. We have raised a legitimate concern about whether the actions of the
Government have put at risk people’s right to paid parental leave. This is something that
is certainly seen as very important on this side of the Chamber, and something that a
number of us on this side of the Chamber campaigned very hard for. That is why this
bill should go to a select committee, so that we can make sure that important things like
people’s right to paid parental leave are not at risk. I would be very glad if they were not
at risk, but there seem to be at least two possible reasons why they may be.
The first of those is the removal of clause 36(1), and the second one is that later in
that same clause there is an explicit reference to continuity of employment for the
purposes of KiwiSaver. There is a principle of statutory interpretation that if one
explicitly refers to one thing, it means that if other things are not explicitly referred to,
they are not covered. At least it has raised some very significant questions. As my friend
and colleague Sue Moroney said, this could be a cock-up or it could be a conspiracy.
Either way, potentially there are risks. A cock-up is highly probable, given the way that
this bill is being rammed through the House. It is entirely possible that this is a cock-up,
and that that is not the intention of the Government. That at least is a little reassuring.
However, it could well be that this is yet another example of attacks on workers and
attacks on women by this Government. As evidence of that, in the last few days this
Government has got rid of the pay and employment equity unit at the Department of
Labour. Why? Does it not matter to people that women are paid fairly for the work they
do? On the conspiracy side of the equation, the fact that we have a Minister of Women’s
Affairs who does not seem to have the slightest idea about anything in her portfolio
area—
Carmel Sepuloni: Who is the Minister?
CAROL BEAUMONT: —I think her name is Pansy Wong. She does not seem to
have any idea of what is going on in her portfolio. We have a Minister of Labour who
seems hell-bent on reducing workers’ rights. We have tried during this debate to make
sure that workers’ rights are looked after. A new part was put up this morning about
personnel provisions. We talked about getting some principles, like good-employer
principles, into this legislation. I want to ask what is wrong with that. Why are members
opposite opposed to good-employer principles? In other local government
amalgamations that have taken place, it has been an absolute cornerstone of the
legislation to make sure that employment rights are centre stage.
Getting it right for the people who work for local authorities is important, not only to
those workers but also to the people in that area in order to make sure that those workers
are able to get on and do their job without worrying that they are going to either lose
their job or have their wages and conditions of employment reduced. Queensland is a
very good example of this. I am holding up now the code of practice, which was agreed
by all parties, to ensure that people were not made redundant, that people’s jobs were
actually guaranteed for 3 years, and that their wages and conditions were fully
guaranteed, as was their right to be represented by unions. Queensland was able to
conduct one of the smoothest local government amalgamations that has been seen. That
is in direct contrast to what happened in South Australia, where a whole lot of people
lost their jobs. There was a lot of nervousness and concern, and, in fact, there were very
significant service provision problems for the people of South Australia, not to mention
the effect that the amalgamation had on the workers and their families.
Frankly, I think it is really important that Steve Chadwick has put up this
amendment, and we should think very seriously about whether you are going to make
sure that people are not disadvantaged.