I would also like to assure some other honourable members that I made no mistake when I voted against the closure motion. I did not appreciate the ramifications of that vote, but I tell members that I would do it again if I was forced to, but I do not expect we will be put in that position again.
We will support this motion, and it is indeed and extraordinary motion, as one of the Opposition members said, but we are dealing with extraordinary legislation, that most New Zealanders have been waiting for a very, very long time. We know that they want this legislation because they voted for it overwhelmingly at the last election. They voted for Labour, they voted for the Alliance, they voted for the Greens, and all three parties agreed that they would get rid of the employment Contracts Act — that this National Government inflicted on this country — and replace it with worker-friendly legislation. Not only worker-friendly legislation, but legislation that good businesses in this country will relish, because good businesses have suffered at the hands of unscrupulous businesses. Good businesses have been forced to lower their wages and lower their conditions because bad businesses have been able to get away with it under the Employment Contracts Act.
National - the party that claims to stand for family rights - inflicted the employment Contracts Act on this country. Not only was it anti-worker but it was anti-family. It was anti-family because it forced people to work at weekends. It forced both parents out to work because a single adult full-time wage was not enough to bring up a family in decency, and it was also anti-good employer. That legislation fostered a culture of greed, selfishness, and competition. It will take a generation to rebuild a decent society with a strong community spirit and a cooperative ethic. Cooperation is far more important than competition, it is cooperation that builds societies, not competition.
We should have finished this debate an awfully long time ago, but the reason we are still here, in part, is because of all the stupid amendments put up by the Opposition parties. I accept and appreciate what Wyatt Creech said, and he had half the story. But I expect better from him because he should have told the other half of the story, which is that the Opposition has made a farce of this debate. I am impressed that some members of the public are still prepared to come along and listen, but as one of my colleagues said, this is better than live theatre. Why would people go to theatre sports when they can come to this place?
To those people out there who may be listening, and for the young people of this country, who might have a shred of faith that we are capable of conducting democratic debate, I can only say to them that we will do our best to improve the standard of debate in this parliament. Roger Sowry implies that I was being holier than thou. Well, who will start making changes around here if it is not us, because dammit nobody else has made much effort.
The working people of New Zealand and all good employers look forward to burying the Employment Contracts Act, and looking forward to entering a new era of industrial relations. We campaigned for social justice and we will continue to fight for it. For Mr Peters' benefit we also campaigned for animal welfare and we will continue to fight for that. And we look forward to Mr Peters supporting our amendment on that very clause, and, of course, other members of the Opposition, and, for that matter, the Government.
We are also here to fight for low-paid cleaners and other service workers. The most vulnerable workers in our society are particularly Maori, particularly Pacific Islanders, and everyone else who is being ripped off because of the Employment Contracts Act. The Government says it wants to close the gaps. I say to the Government — do it, get on with it. The coalition has until Monday to come up with something better than our proposed clause 66.
We are nobody's lap dog, as somebody in the Opposition said, but blackmail is not our style. It is on the government's conscience not ours. We will wait and see what the Government does about clause 66 and its own policies.
While the coalition is about it I invite it to reflect on the contradiction of seeking to protect working New Zealanders from unscrupulous employers, but, at the same time, continuing to expose those same workers and their families, and the tens of thousands of unemployed who want a job, to unscrupulous forces of globalisation. Dr Jane Kelsey, said, in this week's New Zealand Herald, on the proposed Singapore free-trade agreement, that the Government cannot have it both ways. I quote from the conclusion of her article: "Agreements like these make a mockery of democracy and sovereignty. It is not enough to consult people without telling them the content or say that they can make submissions to the select committee after the agreement is signed".
(Interjection from Winston Peters)
I thought that a man of Mr Peters' experience would understand that international treaties are still a Crown prerogative. After all, he was part of the Crown. There is no vote in this House on international treaties until Keith Locke's International treaties Bill is adopted by this House. I look forward to the Opposition supporting us on that bill so we can have some democracy in this Parliament. But in the meantime, I return to Jane Kelsey's quote, which I will end on, "By then the government has committed itself irrevocably and the Cabinet retains the final say. Labour has to recognise that it can't have global free markets and nation building. The Alliance has to remember what it stands for."
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