Buried treasures: Government risks another winter of discontent

By KEVIN TAYLOR

December was a big month for business.

That was not because of pre-Christmas retail sales - although the country was happily spending. Instead, businesses faced new laws and proposals and their lobbyists are unhappy.

The ball started rolling in November with a surprise fee on businesses to cover the cost of meeting higher security standards imposed on trade by America.

Then last month the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill was tabled in Parliament, promising new and strengthened obligations around good faith and giving unions more ability to organise workplaces.

It also promises to be bitterly opposed by businesses and lobby groups of all shapes and sizes.

Many business groups - from Business New Zealand to the Hospitality Association to the Business Roundtable - are also angry at the tight February 27 deadline for submissions to the select committee on the bill.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association Northern, which represents 7500 employers, is so angry that it's planning to "take a stand" and ignore the deadline altogether and assemble its submission by March 26.

Also in December, the Holidays Bill - also greeted poorly by business - was passed by Parliament.

It gives all workers a fourth week of annual leave from April 2007 but also introduces a raft of changes from April not seen as business-friendly - like the requirement to pay staff time and a half plus a day in lieu (including those on salaries) for working a statutory holiday.

Not all proposals unveiled last month were seen negatively. A discussion document on fringe benefit tax floated the idea of cutting the rate for company cars from 24 to 20 per cent. Submissions on this are also due late next month.

Last week the Business Herald highlighted areas of concern around employment law reform - from issues of collective bargaining and free-riding to the new holiday rules. The series ended with a comprehensive call from many different business groups to dump the latest set of employment law reforms.

The overwhelming message from business was the Government was interfering in the workplace and their operations - to the ultimate detriment of the country and wealth creation - and that the timing of the proposals stinks.

But a spokeswoman for Labour Minister Margaret Wilson said it was not for her to offer an extension of the select committee deadline for submissions on the employment law changes. The bill was not a new piece of law but an amending bill and the changes had been clearly signalled beforehand.

The minister understood the summer holidays had been taken into account by the select committee and 11 weeks had been provided to make submissions instead of the normal six, said the spokeswoman.

Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson dismissed business complaints as politically motivated and "pathetic".

The employment bill was not buried - it was released in early December before Parliament rose for the year.

"Should we say that nothing can happen now between the 1st of December and the end of January?"

He also questioned the competence of business lobbyists who could not write a submission with three months' notice.

EMA Northern chief executive Alasdair Thompson said the organisation was taking a stand by preparing its submissions on the employment law reform in its own good time. Once finished it would invite MPs to hear them.

The Government's tactics reminded him of the era of former Prime Minister Rob Muldoon.

The deadline was "hopeless" for consulting its membership as most of New Zealand went on holiday at Christmas. "The Government talks about work-life balance - this is the very time of year when people want to work less and have more recreational time.

"It's fine for them - they go on an extended long holiday over the summer and they dump all this stuff out there as though it was ordinary working-week time."

Mr Thompson said the tactics were designed so people did not have enough time to make considered submissions.

Business NZ chief executive Simon Carlaw was equally cynical.

"It is a very convenient basis for bringing in legislation which Government knows will not be popular amongst major sectors of the community - and hoping that it will fade from the public consciousness while everybody is off on holiday or has their eyes set on a cold beer or the beach."

The Government hoped the sting would have gone from the initial reaction to the bill when people returned from the holidays, and then it could start talking about some changes.

But that is not the only Government proposal Business NZ has to deal with early in the new year.

Many of the 17 staff have been back at work since early January without a decent break, writing submissions on all sorts of Government moves.

Submissions with January or February deadlines are being prepared on a bill affecting the electricity and gas industries, a bill setting up a body to decide water use on the Waitaki River, a bill setting a levy on export education and the new border security bill, which sets up the new security levy on US trade.

Why the timing?

Officially, the line from Labour Minister Margaret Wilson is the major workplace law reform changes were tabled in early December because the Government was "still making decisions" until then.

Reform of the Employment Relations Act proved a thorny issue for the Government last year - which probably had more to do with the timing of the reform bill's release in early December than anything else.

Urgency will have been high on the minds of ministers to get the bill tabled as soon as possible so the local government and industrial relations select committee charged with hearing submissions could make an early start.

Thanks to the timing, submissions will start to be heard soon.

The Government envisages the bill will come into force on October 4 this year.

The delay is probably down to the fact that the Cabinet was understood to have been divided on what to do with the Employment Relations Act, particularly around the issue of employee protections in the event of a business's sale or contracting out.

More conservative ministers aligned with business development - including Jim Anderton, Paul Swain and John Tamihere - opposed changes that they saw as too wide-ranging and union-friendly.