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We have a date with redundancy rights

Posted by Darien Fenton on April 9th, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, Sitel workers picketed their workplace protesting about getting sacked without any redundancy pay.  They’re just the latest in a long line of workers who’ve been laid off without any compensation for losing their jobs.  They will be forced to join the dole queue if they can’t find another job – good people who Paula Bennett says are making a “lifestyle choice” by going on the benefit.

banner-500x80My Redundancy Protection Bill is due to have its first reading in the House in early May.  I’ve deliberately postponed the first reading knowing that the NACTs won’t vote for it, but we’re trying to change their mind.  Keep up with the website and watch the Facebook page as well.   There’s action coming in the next week or two.

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Filed under: legislation, redundancy, workforce
14 Comments

Time to Have Your Say about the MMP Referendum

Posted by Lianne Dalziel on April 4th, 2010

I have been appointed to the new select committee established to consider the Electoral Referendum Bill, which was recently introduced, but which hasn’t had its first reading yet.  It is called the Electoral Legislation Committee and it is chaired by Amy Adams, National Party, Selwyn.  I am the deputy chair.  There is a good blend of List MPs and constituency MPs and all parties are represented as follows:

  • Jim  Anderton, Progressive, Wigram
  • John  Boscawen, ACT New Zealand, List
  • Peter  Dunne, United Future, Ohariu
  • Pete  Hodgson, Labour Party, Dunedin North
  • Darren  Hughes, Labour Party, List
  • Rahui  Katene, Maori Party, Te Tai Tonga
  • Hekia Parata, National Party, List
  • Paul Quinn, National Party, List
  • Chris Tremain, National Party, Napier
  • Metiria Turei, Green Party, List

Now that the committee has been established the Electoral Referendum Bill will be referred to us and we will call for submissions. 

I cannot overstate the need for high quality submissions if we are going to get a quality result in terms of the referendum and the rules around third party funding.

Although this Bill covers the referendum, there is another bill that will go to an expanded Justice & Electoral Committee to consider the future electoral finance rules around third party advertising. 

This the point where the two bills coincide and which raises serious concerns about holding this referendum with the election – parallel campaigners will be allowed to advertise in the election campaign and in the referendum campaign ($12,000 threshold for registration).  But registration is where the limitation ends – from that point on these people or groups can spend what they like.

The Minister has said that the registration rules go further than the advertising rules in place for the 1992, 1993 and 1997 referendums, where there was no cap on spending, and no need to register with the Electoral Commission. All that was needed was a promoter statement.  But that was before the Exclusive Brethren showed us what unlimited spending could deliver. 

Some of you will recall the paper bag covered heads of the “list MPs” that featured in Peter Shirtcliff’s campaign – I am positive that he will be much more sophisticated this time. I also think we will see Crosby Textor enter into the campaign as well, and I am equally sure they will donate their time for zip, fully motivated to get rid of a system that does not produce strong, single party governments, that need not compromise anything for anyone.  “Unbridled Power” was a criticism of the system when coined by Geoffrey Palmer – National’s backers think of it as a dream-come-true.

I will post again once the call for submissions is made.  Make sure you are ready and make sure you read the Cabinet papers and the Regulatory Impact Statement for both bills.

Filed under: Electoral Law Reform, Uncategorized, democracy, justice, legislation, politics
63 Comments

EMA scare campaigning

Posted by Darien Fenton on March 7th, 2010

It comes as no surprise to me to learn that the Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) have been slagging off my Redundancy Protection Bill (due for first reading in a couple of months) in their quarterly briefings to members.

I’m told it got quite personal. An acquaintance who attended the EMA briefing where my bill was discussed says that there was a photo of me put up on the power-point with a run-down on my union background, a scary dressing down about the evils of the bill, and a warning of what’s coming should Labour be re-elected to government.

Afterwards, I came across an open letter to me on the web from an EMA member-organisation, written as a result of their attendance at one of these briefings. They were wound up and panicked by the EMA’s representation of my bill – in my view quite unnecessarily.  I feel sorry for them.

The only problem is they didn’t send it to me.  I would gladly have responded to their concerns and issues, just as I would happily front any EMA briefing to have a debate about my bill.

Now I see the EMA is advertising a new workshop, called “Learn restructuring – the easy way” – in other words, how to make workers redundant.

And they’re charging $448 plus GST for the privilege.

Funny thing, though.  According to an 2007 EMA survey on redundancy 66.8% of employers had a redundancy clause in their agreements with workers, of which 42.8% provided for compensation.  The most common formula was 4 weeks compensation for the first year of service and 2 weeks for each year of service after that.

That’s exactly what my bill provides for.

It’s this kind of scare campaigning that unions (and Labour) are often accused of – yet here it is in all of its glory in the Northern EMA – the bosses union.

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Filed under: Employers, legislation, redundancy, union, workforce
6 Comments

Tau’s bill is such a crock

Posted by Darien Fenton on February 24th, 2010

It was bad enough that Roger Douglas’s members bill to bring back youth rates was drawn from the ballot this week, but another bill that was drawn out on the same day is Tau Henare’s bill to impose secret ballots on workers and unions before a strike.

I’m not worried about Tau’s bill at all, because it’s so out of touch with reality.  Tau (who describes himself as an “experienced union organiser”) seems to think nothing’s changed in unions since his days as an paid official for the old Clerical Workers Union, back in the 1980’s.  But the process of requiring secret ballots before strikes is already standard procedure in unions.

Tau’s bill is a pointless waste of time, but I don’t care, because it’s the government’s legislative time he will be disrupting.  That’s got to be good news, because while we’re wasting time on his bill, the government will be slowed in its insatiable appetite to cut workers’ rights.

However, I do wonder if Tau has thought about the costs to the government and business of making it legally compulsory for unions to conduct secret ballots.  If secret ballots are legally required, they must be enforced.  Does that mean going back to the Tau’s good old days when the Department of Labour had to conduct the ballots?

Tau’s bill is a crock, but it should be fun taking it apart.

Filed under: legislation, union, workforce
11 Comments

Company Registration – the Fastest System in the West

Posted by Lianne Dalziel on January 13th, 2010

On the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Survey New Zealand finds itself in the number one position when it comes to company registration – within hours a company can be registered on-line and a tax number issued by IRD.  It was that last feature that truly made our Companies Office the fastest register in the west.

The question is now being asked whether we want to hold on to that status in the face of an apparent loophole, (a loophole that knows no geographic boundaries I might add and which does not solely reside in New Zealand), which enables multiple layers of shelf companies to disguise the identity of the individuals who lie behind transactions that would otherwise be the subject of a high level of scrutiny from international intelligence and law enforcement agencies. 

There is no question that this requires the attention of the government.  In the paper I was indirectly quoted as saying that I thought our current company laws were lax.  In fact I said they were relaxed, which in my view is appropriate.  My husband had to apply for a new driver licence recently because he had lost his old one and he needed to front with two forms of ID – his passport and an official letter showing his address.  We could not possibly want to require that degree of verification of every director of every company in New Zealand.  That’s why I said we needed to apply balance in assessing what risks the current system posed and what the cost-benefit analysis would look like if we were thinking of changing it.

I also made the point that this must be an international issue, because New Zealand is not the only developed nation with a self-certification requirement for registering as directors. 

Now that the world has responded to the threat of money laundering and the financing of terrorism through imposing reporting requirements on financial institutions, then perhaps it is time that the World Bank turns its attention to the company registration systems that may be the next target to hide such activities.

But there are other reasons why I think our government should place this on its agenda now.  Having heard a number of submitters on the Commerce Committee’s Inquiry into Finance Company Failures I am convinced that there are sufficient issues around directors – including ‘celebrity directors’ offering reassurance to unsophisticated investors, directors with a troubled past not known to unsuspecting investors and examples of the use of the corporate veil to disguise related-party transactions – to warrant some strengthening of our laws. 

At the same time I want us to hold on to that World Bank ranking – because it is important that we don’t impose unjustifiable compliance costs on those who know that limited liability is a privilege not a right and who use it to advance their interests in an ethical manner, because they make up the vast majority of NZ businesses and are the lifeblood of our nation’s economic interests.

Filed under: economic, economy, finance, legislation, policy, regulation, select committee
9 Comments

Labour’s position on internet censorship

Posted by Clare Curran on December 31st, 2009

There have been requests for an elaboration on Labour’s position on internet filtering following my previous post two days ago. Here’s what I sent to Tech Liberty lobbyist Thomas Beagle in late July in response to his request about where Labour sits on censoring the internet.

In November 2008 the Labour Government introduced a programme of test filtering on a trial basis blocking access to the approximate 7000 websites, known to deal with exclusively child sexual abuse imagery.

At the time, the Hon David Cunliffe said “The programme intends to contribute to the safety of the public’s online experience by preventing inadvertent access to this type of objectionable material. It also intends to contribute to international efforts against the production of and trade in child sexual abuse imagery.

There are no plans for the programme to be expanded to other types of illegal material.”

He also stated that New Zealand had no intention of following Australia’s legislation of mandatory filtering by ISPs. New Zealand’s response to undesirable material has been an emphasis on education, as demonstrated by Netsafe. The Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act had no legislative authority for website filtering, he said.

The previous Labour Government action was in response to a proposal from ECPAT NZ, part of a global organisation which aims to eliminate child prostitution and pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

There were clear guidelines around privacy protection. The system had been successfully trialled in Sweden.

ISPs joined the programme on a voluntary basis. Labour’s policy hasn’t changed.

I believe there is a need for further discussion within our caucus on these matters. My view is that a voluntary, opt in system for ISPs to a contained filtering programme focussed solely on child sexual abuse is about as far as you’d want to go. I’m keen to learn more about why some of you believe filters don’t work.

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Filed under: Labour Party, children, civil liberties, comms & IT, internet, legislation, protest
27 Comments

Censoring the internet… will NZ follow Oz?

Posted by Clare Curran on December 29th, 2009

Some worrying developments are occurring across the Tasman as Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy presses ahead with his plan to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.

Conroy announced he is making it mandatory for internet service providers (ISPs) to block a secret blacklist of “refused classification” (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.

Legislation to implement the scheme will be introduced before the federal election next year.

The announcement, made in the week before Christmas, has infuriated the Australian online community and spurred a campaign called No Clean Feed calling for a blackout. Another campaign by Get Up is also running. Trevor alerted us to this last night.

The campaign has echoes of the copyright campaign launched here in early 2009 to draw attention to the impact of Section 92A on ISPs which would have been required to cut off users’ internet connections based on accusation of copyright infringement.

The NZ (National) government, after much urging, eventually pulled its finger out and re-worked Section 92A. Legislation is to be brought before Parliament early next year. It requires vigorous scrutiny as copyright is a touchstone issue in the digital era. The NZ legislation is being watched around the world and will impact on other jurisdictions.

NZ, under the previous Labour Government, also introduced a test filtering programme blocking access to the approximate 7000 websites known to deal with exclusively child sexual abuse imagery.

Previous Labour Comms Minister David Cunliffe stated at the time that NZ had no intention of following Australia’s legislation of mandatory filtering of ISPs. NZ’s response to undesirable material has been an emphasis on education, as demonstrated by Netsafe.

In Australia, Stephen Conroy’s proposed laws go a lot further. While initially promoted as a way to block child pornography, the censorship policy has been extended to include a much broader range of material, including sites depicting bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.

He has some strong arguments; that the filtering scheme will not affect speeds on the internet, that the only material being blocked is Refused Classification (RC) material that is already illegal; that there are mechanisms in place for correcting mistakes; and that the filter is not a silver bullet answer to protecting Australian children.

All laudable arguments. There are some points I’d like to make though.

Firstly, any material relating to child abuse is illegal and abhorrent. We support a system that enables ISPs to block this material. We support more work around exploring the best ways to do this.

The NZ system currently works on an “opt in” basis. It’s not mandatory. There are strong arguments against mandatory filtering which must explored. It doesn’t cover encrypted traffic, file sharing, email or chat which is how much of this material is circulated. And motivated people will find ways to circumvent a filter using proxy servers or encrypted tunnels.

Then there’s an argument about to what extent censorship is acceptable in a democratic society. If the censorship goes beyond child sexual abuse, where does it stop? Political sites? Who decides on what gets censored? And how transparent and accountable is that system?

A mature society should largely be able to self censor and know why it’s important. Yes there must be rules. And they should be enforceable. But preventing the sickness of proliferation of child sexual abuse imagery through a voluntary opt in agreement amongst ISPs is one thing. Establishing a blacklist of banned sites that is kept secret from the public and widens beyond child pornography is another.

Last week in Australia, former High Court judge Michael Kirby criticised the Federal Government’s internet censorship agenda, saying it could stop the “Berlin Walls of the future” from being knocked down.

In the last week an anti-censorship protest site www.stephenconroy.com.au was taken down by the Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA) sparking outrage and claims of political censorship.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has allegedly lost thousands of twitter followers in the last few weeks over this issue.

Does this matter?

The online community is vast and spans geography, ethnicity, socio-economic differences, occupations and political affiliations.

But there are strong views on both sides and there are genuine concerns about the amount of unacceptable content available online, especially to our children. Nobody finds that palatable. The question is, what do you do about it?

There must be a line where common sense and the common good prevails. Governments are there to govern after all, by setting and implementing standards.

It seems to me that it’s best to deal with the facts. If you’re going to have a filter, will it work? Will it capture the material that you have identified needs capturing, will the people trafficking in this material be able to circumvent it? And what impact will it have on the ISPs? Will mandatory filtering work better than voluntary filtering?

All questions also relevant to the copyright debate. I wonder where our government sits on these issues right now.

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Filed under: children, civil liberties, comms & IT, copyright, internet, legislation, protest
40 Comments

Super city problems pile up on eve of third bill

Posted by Phil Twyford on December 13th, 2009

The Government’s third Auckland bill is due for its first reading this week. With each new bill and each new decision they seem to create yet more problems.

That is why Phil Goff has today called for the Prime Minister to intervene to sort out Rodney Hide’s mess.

While the Minister of Local Government and fallen perk buster is riding the roller coaster at Universal Studios, and trying in vain to get face-to-face bodybuilding advice from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the super city is turning to custard. Let us count the ways:

  • The Government gave the Local Government Commission an impossible task by allotting only 20 councillors and requiring Rodney and Franklin have their own wards. The result: unequal voting strength between wards, and a right wing gerrymander across the city. Why is it acceptable for the vote of someone who lives in South Auckland to be worth only three-quarters of a vote in rural Rodney?
  • Aucklanders will be woefully under-represented. The super city changes will cut the number of elected officials by half. Ratio of elected representative to population 1: 5,152 1:9,638. (In France there is an elected official for every 120 people, in Germany the ratio is 1:250; in Britain it is 1:2,600.) David Thornton reckons the number of council officials has increased 30% in the last five years. Never mind how difficult it will be to get access to a councillor when something goes wrong. This is a huge shift in power from elected representatives to unelected council staff.
  • The Government’s insistence on two-member wards and only 20 councillors has forced the Local Government Commission to shoe horn suburbs with no community of interest into the same ward. Most striking is the Orakei-Maungakiekie ward which combines the wealthy eastern bays with working class Maungakiekie. Without doubt some communities will be unrepresented on the new council.
  • Aucklanders still do not know whether the local boards will have significant powers. We know they won’t have any legal status or staff. No regulatory functions. No role in transport including local roads or footpaths. The Council will be able to delegate powers down to the boards but not on matters it thinks better dealt with regionally. This is really the litmus test. Without local boards with genuine powers we are staring down the barrel at an all-powerful 20-member Council.
  • Iwi are threatening to boycott the statutory board for Maori. Is it any wonder? It is a talkshop with no decision making powers.
  • The Government is planning to wrap 95% of the Council’s operations including the all important transport agency into seven commercial entities run at arms length from the elected councillors. The public will have precious little chance of holding their elected councillors to account for the work of these entities.  Each of them will have their own CEO and board. How’s that for duplication and silos – two of the things the whole exercise was supposed to reduce.
  • Campaign spending limits that would allow the mayoral candidates to spend $580,000 in the last three months of the campaign. This is in excess of the parliamentary limits and can only benefit the rich and those backed by business.
  • The third bill will strip away the anti-privatisation protections against the sale of Ports of Auckland shares. This follows Hide’s announcement that he will amend the Local  Government Act to allow private ownership of water infrastructure for up to 35 years.

Is it any wonder Franklin, Papakura and northern Rodney are making last minute bids to secede?

The bill is due for its first reading on Tuesday. Aucklanders will have an opportunity to tell the select committee what they think in the New Year. In the mean time John Key would do well to intervene. If he doesn’t his super city project risks going down the gurgler with Rodney Hide’s credibility.

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Filed under: Auckland, legislation, local government
27 Comments

Voting on Easter Sunday Trading Bill

Posted by Grant Robertson on December 9th, 2009

For (59) Adams, Auchinvole, Bakshi, D. Bennett, P. Bennett, Blue, Boscawen, Bridges, Brownlee, Calder, D, Carter, J. Carter, Chadwick, Coleman, Collins, Dean, Douglas, Dunne, Finlayson, Flavell, Foss, Garrett, Gilmore, Goodhew, Goudie, Groser, Guy, Hayes, Henare, Hide, Hutchison, Joyce, Kaye, Key, C.King, Lee, Mapp, Mclay, McCully, Parata, Peachey, Power, Quinn, H.Roy, Ryall, Sharples, L. Smith, N.Smith, Te Heuheu, tisch, Tolley, Tremain, Turia, Upston,Wagner, Wilkinson, Willliamson, Wong, Woodhouse

Against: (62) Anderton, J.Ardern, S.Ardern, Barker, Beaumont, Borrows, Burns, C.Carter, Chauvel, Choudhary, Clendon, Cosgrove, Cunliffe, Curran, Dalziel, Davis, Delahunty, Dyson, English, Fenton, Fitzsimons, Goff, Graham, Hague, Hawkins, Heatley, Hipkins, Hodgson, Horomia, Hughes, Huo, Jones, Katene, Kedgley, A. King, Laban,Lees-Galloway, Locke, Lotu-Iiga, Macindoe, Mackey, Mahuta, Mallard, Moroney, Nash, Norman, O’Connor,Parker, Pillay, Prasad, Ririnui, G.Robertson, R. Robertson, E.Roy, Sepuloni, Shanks, Shearer, Sio, Street, Turei, Twyford, Young.

Hone Harawira did not vote.

So, the three Maori Party members voted for the bill along with all of ACT, Peter Dunne and most of the National caucus and one Labour MP. 9 National MPs voted against, along with one Maori Party MP, all Greens, Jim Anderton and all Labour MPs bar one.

Filed under: legislation
28 Comments

Shop till you drop – again

Posted by Carol Beaumont on December 9th, 2009

Yet another attempt to extend shop trading hours was introduced in the House today. Todd McLay put forward the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 Repeal (Easter Sunday Local Choice) Amendment Bill.  The Bill sought to provide for Council by- laws allowing trading on Easter Sunday in their area.  And of course it was only for areas where people want shops to open (which people?) and of course it was a matter of choice for all – workers, shop owners and local areas.  Yeah right!

We already have one of the most liberal shop trading regimes in the world.  We can shop 361 and half days a year.  Since 1990 that means we can shop 24 hours a day including on 51 out of 52 Sundays and every public holiday except Good Friday, Christmas Day and the morning of Anzac Day.  But that is not enough!   Tourists going to Rotorua on Easter weekend are of course wanting to shop on Easter Sunday and their whole experience of the wonderful cultural and natural environment are spoiled currently by being unable to do so.

Easter is a very significant time for New Zealanders.  It has religious significance, family significance and community significance.  Think here of all the reunions and tournaments that take place at Easter.   Retail workers are not an insignificant group of workers – 270,000 people who also want to share in the events that take place over Easter.   Supposedly they would have a choice whether they will work on Easter Sunday under this legislation because it says workers cannot be required to work on Easter Sunday.  Well as Lynne Pillay said and as many retail workers know it is not an equal relationship between retail workers and their employers. There are many reasons why workers will feel pressured to work if their shop is open.   Most shops have very tight staffing levels, often work is highly casualised with people seeking to get more permanent hours, there are many young workers (65% of workers under 18 years of age work in retail) who often don’t know their rights or are not particularly confident in asserting their rights.  Those who don’t agree know they will be told they aren’t team players and of course many workers feel pressured to work because they know if they don’t that they are putting pressure on their workmates.  Despite what many people think Easter Sunday is not a public holiday so there is not the same reward for working on Easter Sunday.

And 5 minutes ago it was voted down 59 for and 62 against.  A victory!

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Filed under: Uncategorized, legislation, retail
17 Comments

A chance for Kate to do something!

Posted by Darien Fenton on December 1st, 2009

The languid Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson has announced today that employment provisions under Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act are to be reviewed.

Part 6A was passed by Parliament in 2004 and subsequently amended in 2006, with a provision agreed with NZ First that the amendment be reviewed within three years. A review could be good, or it could be horrible. It’s Kate’s chance to do something worthwhile.

I have a special interest in this. I campaigned with my union and in Labour for legislative change to deal with the devastating effects of more than a decade of competitive tendering and the repetitive contracting-out of thousands of low-paid workers. As businesses sought on-going cost reductions, particularly in easily outsourced work, such as cleaning, food services, and orderly and laundry services, the effect on the workers was catastrophic.

Workers lost their jobs, often at short notice, in a process that could be repeated up to four times a year. Contractors sought to win business by reducing hours of employment, pay and conditions, so even where workers continued to be employed by the incoming contractor, they had to do the same (or more) work on less pay and severely reduced hours of work.

Labour implemented Part 6A as a crucial part of improving job security and protection for these low paid, vulnerable workers.  Essentially, it gives workers in particular industries the right to transfer on the same pay and conditions to a new contractor or employer in the event of contracting out or change of employer.

I haven’t sensed any big push by employers to change it – even although when it was first passed in 2004, the hysteria around it was pretty loud. Don Brash promised to dump it in the 2005 election, but by 2008 that had disappeared from National’s manifesto.

Kate says that “the review will consider whether Part 6A has achieved its policy objectives and whether the special protections provided for some workers are relevant within the current business and policy environment, or if there are other ways of achieving the objectives.” It will also look at employee protection provisions that are required to be added to an employment contract when a business is restructuring.

The Minister says that if there is a need for improvement she will be happy to look at suitable amendments.

Here’s two ideas for Kate  :

1.    First and foremost, the provisions in part 6A must not be watered down, but they could be improved.

They could be extended to workers in other industries, where contracting out and restructuring have continued and the workers have been powerless to challenge the inevitable pressure on jobs and pay.

2.    Minimum redundancy notice and pay for all workers should be considered.

Part 6A provides for workers in specific industries who have been transferred to a new employer to bargain redundancy and in the event this cannot be agreed, for the Employment Authority to determine minimum entitlements. But it rules out those workers whose employment agreements expressly exclude redundancy pay. And there are no redundancy protections at all for other workers.

Since Part 6A became law, the recession has seen thousands of workers lose their jobs with little notice and no redundancy pay. The review of Part 6A is a great opportunity to consider implementing minimum redundancy entitlements for all workers.

Will the Minister take the chance?

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Filed under: legislation, redundancy, regulation
12 Comments

Gerry’s biofuels shambles

Posted by Chris Hipkins on November 28th, 2009

Continuing with the theme set this morning by Colin James (see Grant’s post) I’ve found another example of how governments get things wrong when they rush things through. Late last year the newly elected National government rushed through a repeal of Labour’s biofuels obligation under Urgency. The obligation would have meant that the fuel you purchased at the pump would have had to have a certain percentage of biofuels within it. It would have been a useful step in reducing our carbon emissions.

National decided to rush through a repeal, thus pulling the rug out from under the biofuel industry that had been scaling up to take advantage of the new obligation. Labour MPs presented examples during the debate of businesses that would suffer, we presented the cost to NZ in terms of higher carbon emissions, and we argued, as we have with the ETS, that ultimately it should be the polluter that pays.

Gerry Brownlee argued, as National have done with the ETS, that the taxpayer should pay. In this year’s Budget National introduced a Biodiesel Grants Scheme as a partial replacement for the sales obligation. It set aside $36 million in taxpayer subsidies to encourage the production of Biodiesel. So how has it panned out? Well so far they have spent less than $44,000 of that money. In other words, it’s been a total flop. Another example of a bad law rushed through. Another example of National not looking at the evidence of what actually works.

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Filed under: climate change, legislation, transport, urgency
10 Comments

Private Prison Bill passed

Posted by Grant Robertson on November 26th, 2009

Parliament has just passed into law a bill that will allow for the establishment of private prisons in New Zealand.  Labour has strongly opposed this bill on the grounds of both principle and practice.  We believe that the act of taking away someone’s liberty and freedom is one of the most invasive state responsibilities, and as such needs to be handled as a core state role.  Public prisons have a moral accountable to taxpayers to support community safety and to rehabilitate, private prisons have an accountability to their shareholders to make a profit.  If  National really believe that prisons should be run by the private sector, why not the defence force and the police too?

In practice the evidence from around the world is that private prisons have not been more cost effective, and have most certainly not delivered in terms of safety or accountability.  When National last was in government the Auckland Central Remand Prison was run by a company with a dubious history in private prisons.  The result was in fact more costly, and staff on the ground reported that corners were cut.   Practical examples of shortcomings in private prisons from the US, Australia, the UK and Canada have been ignored by National in their headlong rush to drive their privatisation ideology.

As an aside National MPs in the debate showed very little enthusiasm, and did not even take all their speaking slots. They failed to put up any evidence to support the privatisation argument. Sandra Goudie the Select Committee Chair for the Bill said they just wanted to “give it a go”. Sigh. In contrast Dr Pita Sharples gave two very good speeches about the need for more innovative, early intervention approaches. But there is no reason that these approaches have to translate to private management.

For me, the bottom line is that New Zealand has far too many people in prison- one of the worst incarceration rates in the western world. What we need to do is focus on people not getting to prison in the first place. But if we are to have prisons we need them to be publicly controlled to ensure safety and accountability.

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Filed under: justice, law and order, legislation, privatisation
21 Comments

Easter Shopping – here we go again

Posted by Darien Fenton on November 19th, 2009

One of the members’ bills drawn from the ballot today was Todd McClay’s bill to liberalise Easter Shop Trading.   I have been in parliament four years and this is the third such bill, and I don’t imagine this one will be any easier to deal with than the previous bills.

There is a mess around the Shop Trading laws, with different rules for some .  I voted against Easter Sunday trading liberalisation in the last three bills, because retail workers only have 3.5 days in the year where they cannot be obliged to work.    As I said in the third reading debate of the last bill :

“We have a chance in the debate around this bill to put a halt to the increasing demands that we see on workers for more and more hours to be worked. It would be good if this parliament could agree that on one or two days of the year, we can put families before work.”

Todd McClay is talking about choice, but there’s not much choice for the workers.

But MPs do have a choice, because this will probably be a conscience vote.  You’d be surprised to see who voted for and against last time.

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Filed under: legislation
19 Comments

Youse had nine years to do it…..

Posted by Darien Fenton on November 7th, 2009

Or so the refrain from some of the contributors to this blog goes.

It’s true that Labour had nine years in government and there were things we didn’t get around to doing. We can all be critical about that.

Before I became an MP in 2005, I often joined the chorus of frustration that “Labour hadn’t” or “Labour should….”, particularly when it came to fixing obvious problems relating to workers’ rights, even while recognising that Labour had done a lot.

But once I became an MP, I learned that there are only so many House Sitting days, only so many Select Committee days for hearing submissions and that passing laws doesn’t just mean coming up with an idea and barging forward.

I also found out about the realities of numbers. In the 2005 Labour-led government, the truth is that we couldn’t always get the support we needed for the things we wanted to do.

While theoretically, the votes of the Greens and the Maori Party gave the Labour-led government a 1-vote majority in the house, it was unreliable. The Maori Party were often not there in the numbers required to vote full strength because they were off doing other things.

This is not intended as a criticism of them, but an observation about the priorities of small parties, which may be different to Labour’s –  and their responsibilities both within and outside of Parliament.

That meant Labour had to win additional support from NZ First or United Future or both, to give a buffer to legislation we wanted passed. I know that took a lot of effort. I was involved in that effort with the help of then Minister of Labour Ruth Dyson to try to win the numbers for my bill to give minimum wage to contractors.

Time and again, I had to postpone the second reading and committee stages because of the lack of Maori Party votes in the House.

After Taito went Independent, he withdrew his support, and as a result, my bill did not get through in the last parliament and failed in this one.

The point of this post is to say to all and sundry who like the mantra “Labour had nine years…” is that it’s not that easy. I wish it were.

And surely that doesn’t mean that we should never come up with new ideas and policies for the future?

In the next Labour-led government, we will be in the second decade of the 21st century, facing new challenges and a changing country.

Labour’s history in government is one of taking the country forward.

It’s how we do that in the next ten years of a Labour government I’m interested in.

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Filed under: Labour Party, Uncategorized, legislation, policy
36 Comments

Fairness @ Work under National?

Posted by Sue Moroney on November 4th, 2009

Thank goodness I don’t have a fragile ego (if I have one at all). In the past two weeks, the Nats have block-voted against hearing submissions on a petition I championed signed by nearly 16,000 other New Zealanders and they have also introduced a Bill reducing the right for all NZ workers to have a meal break – undoing legislation passed under Labour, based on a members’ bill I drafted.

But this posting is not about my ego, because that’s not the reason I’m am MP (can’t speak for others). I’m not taking it personally. After all “its not about me.”

It is about the thousands of school support staff, social workers and other ordinary fair-minded New Zealanders who the National Government took deliberate action against by block-voting to ensure they didn’t have to justify the axing of pay equity investigations for these hard-working New Zealanders.

And it is about workers who’s health and safety will be put at risk if National goes ahead with its plans to give employers the specific right to require workers to attend to their duties during their meal breaks and rest periods.

It is highly unusual for a select committee to refuse to hear submissions on a petition – particularly one of that size. However, the Nats were prepared to sacrifice the democratic principles of select committee procedures so that they weren’t put in the embarrassing position of having to defend the indefensible.

The Minister of Labour has already admitted that the Pay and Employment Equity Unit was closed down by her against the advice of her Department of Labour officials. Maybe the Nats blocked the hearing of submissions on the petition because they were worried about what the DOL would say in its submission?

Whatever the reason, David Bennett, Jackie Blue, Tau Henare, Allan Peachey and Michael Woodhouse should hang their heads in shame as the MPs who voted to block submissions being heard.

I bet none of them admit to having prevented the petition from being heard the next time the turn up at their local schools for a visit.

As for the right to a meal break at work, I don’t know about you but when I’m flying, I wanna know that the person in the sole-charge regional control tower is well-rested, alert, hydrated and has reasonable blood-sugar levels when they are giving important information to the pilot of my plane.

The Nats though, are passing legislation to ensure that they have to work through meal and rest breaks and in the process are subjecting all other NZ workers to the same possibility.

Not the brighter future they promised really, is it?

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Filed under: Pay Equity, Uncategorized, democracy, education, human rights, labour, legislation, national, select committee
10 Comments

When a break is not a break

Posted by Darien Fenton on October 27th, 2009

The government tabled its Employment Relations (Meals and Rest Breaks) Amendment Bill in the House today.   I’ve had a brief look at it and what it seems to do is :

  1. Remove the requirement for breaks to be half an hour for a meal break and ten minutes for a tea break and replace it with a requirement to “provide the employee with a reasonable opportunity during the employees work period for rest, refreshment and attending to personal matters”.
  2. Provide that the times and duration of the rest and meal breaks are by agreement.
  3. Provide for “compensatory measures” if the employer doesn’t provide rest breaks.
I’m not going to rush to judgement on this, but I am uneasy about any law that leaves things this wide open.   Labour brought in this law for the workers who weren’t getting breaks at all and I can’t see anything in this amended bill that gives me any comfort that we won’t be reverting to the situation we had before the original bill.  I am even more uneasy when I see that the bill has to receive consent by 30 December.  That means more urgency and no chance for anyone to submit on the bill. 
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Filed under: labour, legislation
15 Comments

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