1 December 2003
Four weeks leave progresses with 33 vote majority
Matt Robson’s speech to Parliament on the second reading of the Holidays Bill which will provide four weeks leave for
all.
- In an ad lib, he noted that Australia has had four weeks leave for over 20 years and is far from an economic basket
case. Indeed, he said, four weeks might be the reason their rugby team enjoys such success.
- Following Matt Robson’s speech, NZ First announced that after a torrid caucus meeting, they are supporting the Bill
because it contains four weeks leave. As a result the Bill progresses with a majority of 33 - Ayes 76, Noes 43.
- He observed happily that National is saying that four weeks is all due to the good influence of the Progressives and
their tremendous campaign in support.
- He will seek support for his Supplementary Order Paper bringing four weeks leave into effect from 1 April 2005.
Mr Speaker:
The Holidays Amendment Bill represents another step forward for the plans of the Labour--Progressive coalition and
another step forward for the people of New Zealand. It takes a number of progressive steps in the modernizing and
upgrading of our labour laws.
The bill clarifies and reforms what had become a messy law. It ensures that those who work on public holidays are not
penalised. It clarifies the calculation of annual holiday pay and provides for five days entitlement leave and ensures
that payment for sick and bereavement leave is at relevant daily pay.
The most significant part of the Bill, in the view of the Progressive Party, is of course the provision to increase the
minimum annual holidays entitlement from three weeks to four weeks.
I don't want to irritate anyone, but I must say there was this huge gaping hole on the issue of annual leave
entitlements when this legislation was first presented to the House earlier in the year. As Margaret Wilson has
acknowledged in her speech (delivered by John Tamihere,) this is the most significant reform for low-income workers for
30 years. 1974 was the last time that another week of annual leave was granted to the workforce.
In that time professionals, management and some sections of the highly skilled workforce have long moved to four weeks
and more. So has our greatest trading partner Australia. Members of Parliament with a flexibility of holiday time that
low-income workers do not have now in their majority recognised the unfairness that those who have borne large
sacrifices with the restructuring of the economy, often poorly done and unwisely instituted, are now owed a measure
which will afford them more appropriate rest , recreation and family time to compensate for more than a decade of
rolling back conditions and in particular the 40 hour week.
I'm very proud that the Progressive and Labour parties are now as one on the issue of changing the law for four weeks
leave - although the Progressives continue to advocate bringing it in sooner than 2007. I will do that by the
Supplementary Order Paper in my name which seeks to bring four weeks annual leave into force on 1 April 2005.
It is socially just. Our families are under pressure. All parties state that. United Future , consistently opposed to
this family- friendly, family strengthening reform, state that it is their major plank. Four weeks minimum annual leave
relieve that pressure on families.
I recently attended one night of my youngest son’s school camp. A number of parents had been there for the week. They
had taken that out of their holiday entitlement. One father was a factory worker. He had been with his present job for a
decade. He had 3 weeks annual leave. He gave up one of those to be with his son. He was overjoyed that four weeks annual
minimum leave would come in as that would still leave him with 3 other weeks for his wife and other children. It is to
allow productive workers like him to put adequate time into his children that this measure is aimed. He was disappointed
that he had to wait until April 1 2007. He brightened up when I advised that the Progressives had an amendment to begin
April 1 2005.
When this measure was first introduced by the Progressives only the Greens came out in support. But gradually support
built. From the original 11 votes in this Parliament the Labour Party has added its 52 votes to give a Parliamentary
majority. This turnaround resulted from the massive public support for the measure. This support was generated by a
postcard distribution campaign, workplace meetings and union stopwork meetings, letter writing and a lobbying campaign
of MPs.
In the correspondence that I received I noted how much support came from those who already had four weeks but wanted
that extended to the total workforce. They did not want to deprive the women who cleaned late at night, the assembly
line workers, young parents, women who had broken service n through having children and the many other largely in
low-income positions from having the same benefits.
In economic terms those who decry the cost fail to talk of either the social or economic benefits. What price do you put
on the social benefit of the extra time that parents can spend with their children? What price do you put on the health
of low-income workers? And why do opponents forget to advise that the total increase is not a further 2% of the total
wage bill covering all workers because a large number of employees get four weeks now. The annual net cost will be
around $350 million. They also forget to include the increased spending in the economy because people when on holiday
will spend money on goods and services.
They are silent on the fact that Britain which introduced four weeks for all last year, with cries of economic disaster
pending from their political counterparts in Britain, has actually strengthened its economic position. Why is Australia
not an economic basket case when it has had four weeks for all for twenty years.?
Raising the minimum standard on leave entitlements is vital and critical to New Zealand for many reasons. It is
important if New Zealand is to continue to compete successfully against other countries in the competition to attract
and maintain skilled people. New Zealand has been running current account deficits in each and every year for over
quarter of a century.
Under the progressive coalition government our economy has outperformed the average of the OECD over the past four years
and we're forecast to continue to outperform the average of the OECD over the next few years.
The unemployment rate is now one of the very lowest among that rich group of nations. But we must do still better. But
we'll never export our way out of our inability to pay our way in the world by competing on international markets on the
basis of cheap labour and low costs alone.
That approach would be a losers' approach - a race to the bottom as we attempted to compete with the likes of the
Democratic Republic of Congo on the basis of ever cheaper labour and ever cheaper commodity production.
Congo, Mr Speaker, doesn't have four weeks leave entitlement for its workers. In fact, the vast nation of Congo is a
living experiment for ACT Party policies. You don't have to pay federal tax, or even state taxes, in Congo. Businesses
don't pay company tax either. There are no expensive public education or health systems to burden the consumers and
taxpayers of Kinshasa. I guess you could say it is an ACT Party paradise. No tax, no welfare, no education, no minimum
labour standards and No Hope for the majority.
We have to take a different approach than that. We have to add knowledge, add value and integrate innovation into
everything we export. That is how we are steadily regaining our place in the world. But it isn't just ACT that doesn't
understand the nature of a modern economy. National Party leader Don Brash says any future centre-right coalition
government he leads will change the law and end four weeks leave.
Don Brash has attacked the Progressives' four weeks leave initiative on the grounds that it is - yes, you guessed it, a
cost to business.
But four weeks annual leave is a critical financial issue in the battle to keep low income families in the productive
workforce contributing to New Zealand's economic development.
The financial cost of balancing work and family responsibilities is too high or on the margin of being unaffordable for
many low income two parent families. Four weeks leave is long overdue for this part of the productive workforce and is
vital in the campaign to keep people out of the welfare system and inside the productive workforce.
The fierce opponents of this family-friendly move in National , Act United Future and now unfortunately joined by New
Zealand First, all get four weeks and more. But they will deny it to those who need legislation to get what others more
privileged like the MPs in those anti-family parties, already get.
Don Brash now has the repeal of four weeks minimum annual leave to add alongside his moves to revoke our nuclear free
status and his pledge to sell Kiwibank, the people’s bank popularly known as Jim Anderton’s bank, and other state –owned
assets that he, Mr Prebble and Mr Dunne had previously assisted in selling to the rich at bargain basement prices and
now National and its putative coalition partners of Act and United Future want to repeat the nightmare of the sale of
public assets.
And where is New Zealand First? Fresh from attacking immigrants as their contribution to the season of goodwill they
have now decided they will vote against four weeks annual minimum leave. How do they explain that to the very Kiwi
battlers that they claim to represent? Once again as in 1996 when they campaigned as the party that would throw out
National they join with the parties that sell public assets and cut the conditions of work for the lowest paid workers.
This is a reform in the tradition of the great labour reforms. In one stroke of the pen one extra week of precious
family time will go to New Zealand’s employees who have contributed so much to our economic growth and have seen others
take the reward.
The incorporation of the Progressives four weeks annual minimum leave bill is a reward justly deserved.
I will do my best in the Committee stages to persuade my Labour colleagues to support the introduction on April 1 2005
by voting for the Supplementary Order Paper in my name. I do not want the situation where the reward is denied to those
who if they wait until 1 April 2007 will not have the health they would have had with an earlier introduction.
The bill and its four weeks component is a time for celebration for all fair –minded pro-family New Zealanders.
ENDS