Submission 'Labour dirty trick' says MP

Glenda Fryer's submission contained a workplace case of 20 years ago involving a National MP. Picture/ Kenny Rodger

"A Labour Party dirty tricks campaign" is being blamed by National MP Judith Collins for dredging up a decades-old dispute involving a restaurant she partly owned.

Auckland City Councillor Glenda Fryer appeared before the transport and industrial relations select committee in Auckland yesterday to speak against a proposed employment bill that would introduce a 90-day probation period for new employees.

In her submission, she spoke of inequalities in the hospitality industry that saw many employees treated unfairly or, in some cases physically abused, by their employers.

To emphasise her point, Cr Fryer cited the case of a female employee sacked from Ponsonby restaurant La Gondola in the mid-1980s.

Ms Collins and her husband, David Wong-Tung, were, at the time, two-thirds owners of the eatery.

Cr Fryer said the dispute began after the employee queried her pay rate with La Gondola's third owner.

She was constructively dismissed when he told her "If she didn't like her rate of pay, she could leave".

Accusations of sexual harassment and physical violence - including a claim the employee was struck in the face with a wine carafe - were levelled in the course of the ensuring employment row.

The employee finally received a "modest" compensation, while the man who hit her with the carafe was convicted of assault in the Auckland District Court.

But Cr Fryer's submission bought accusations of muckraking from National MPs on the committee.

"Frankly, Glenda, that was just a straight smear campaign that you intended to run," the bill's author, Wayne Mapp, said.

The accusation was made again to denials from Cr Fryer.

National Hamilton East MP David Bennett described Cr Fryer's submission as "payback".

"Why does this come up now? That was in the past. It was a totally different [employment] environment."

Ms Collins, who is not on the select committee, later dismissed Cr Fryer's recollections, saying she believed the submission was "a Labour Party set-up, with the connivance of those at the top".

The submission contained numerous errors of fact, including simple matters such as dates, and were "utterly defamatory".

She said Cr Fryer and Prime Minister Helen Clark were long-time friends and the councillor's comments were "typical of the Mallard/Clark dirt machine".

She had spoken to Mr Mapp and would be writing to the Speaker of the House, Margaret Wilson, and the select committee.

She also challenged Cr Fryer to make the same allegations in the public arena, where rules of privilege did not apply.

But Cr Fryer yesterday dismissed suggestions senior Labour members put her up to it and, while she was friends with the Prime Minister, she had not spoken to her in more than six months.

She said the submission was made after she read a Listener interview with Ms Collins where the dispute was mentioned. The article had re-incensed her, 20 years on.

A spokesman for Helen Clark rejected Ms Collins' allegations of muckraking as "pure fiction" and "paranoid nonsense. The Prime Minister is in no way bothered getting involved in a dirty tricks campaign against Judith Collins."