Source: New Zealand Parliament – Hansard
TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I just wanted to pick up on a couple of the points that the Minister was making there, and I think, in particular, his comment that having the floor will stop any race to the bottom—well, actually, I totally disagree with that, fundamentally, because you set something like that and that then becomes the target—right?—the accepted standard or the level. So rather than allowing free-market decisions to decide on that, basically it’s saying, well, this is the standard and therefore you must comply with that. So I just wanted to touch on that.
What I’ve been picking up on through this debate so far is that it just reflects a lack of practical understanding and the ability to allow for people to just get on and make things happen. In most instances—and in any sector, there will be some challenges—people are prepared to negotiate in good faith and come up with situations that work for them as an employer and for them as an employee, depending on which side of the table they sit on. What we’re seeing here is that it lacks practical flexibility.
The Minister spoke earlier about the intent being to improve conditions—the policy intent, he said, was to improve conditions. You can’t contract out of this. Actually, the ability to improve conditions comes back to, I think, as well, that fundamental tenet of acting in good faith, where both parties genuinely want to make a situation work, they want a best outcome for everyone in that situation, and on that basis are prepared to come up with agreements that work for them. Now, having something like this takes away the ability to have nuanced differences based on particular situations. Mr Uffindell referred to some of that in his contribution, as well, where, actually, across the breadth of New Zealand, we have so many amazing businesses and all sorts of different industries with all sorts of different situations, and this just lacks the practical flexibility to allow for those people to determine what is best for them to improve conditions, as the Minister has stated is the policy intent.
So taking away that ability, and forcing them to come around the table in this really clunky and adversarial-type approach can actually impact on that goodwill and the good faith that is typically present in some of those areas. I’m referring to mainly the smaller industries—not necessarily the big ones, of course, that the Minister might be thinking of more broadly, but, actually the little ones that underpin the economic productivity of the New Zealand business sector. Those ones that are, typically, small businesses owned by individual Kiwis with maybe a few employees and some of the situations that now will not be able to be worked through there where they have to have these “bargaining parties”, as he’s defined.
I’d be interested, actually, in whether the Minister can share his views on any instances or any industries where he’s not aware of employer associations being in place to represent the employer bargaining party and, therefore, having to fall back on the most appropriate. If he could give us an example of that—I’d be interested in whether he can actually do that.
Also, I’m interested in this comment that he just made around the allowance for regional variations—and this was his justification that there was flexibility within it because you could have some regional variation. But, again, that’s a relatively clunky aspect—because how do you then define the “regions” in that instance? You can look at the Auckland example, do it by the territorial authority, the council boundary, but then you end up with situations where hundreds or thousands, tens of thousands, of commuters every day travel into Auckland for their role but they live outside of Auckland—Tuakau, Pōkeno, Te Kauwhata, North Waikato areas—and so, on that basis, are they in or out of those regional variations that he has previously commented on?
So those are a couple of the aspects that, I think, just demonstrate there really isn’t a flexibility and we just don’t need this sort of thing, because it totally takes away and undermines that base premise of good faith that people enter into on their own account. So if I could get some insight, particularly around the regional variations and whether he can demonstrate an example of his understanding of where those bargaining parties might not be there on the employers’ side. Thank you.
