Sue Kedgley’s Third Reading Speech on the Flexible Working Arrangements bill

"This is a simple, light handed piece of legislation, which establishes a new employment right for any employee with caring responsibilities, allowing them to seek changes to their hours or place of work.

But I hope that in years to come we will look back on the Flexible Working Arrangements Bill as a landmark piece of legislation which helped to break down our rigid and inflexible working hours culture, and to usher in new era where flexible working is accepted as the norm rather than the exception; where employers accept that it is in their interest to give employees more say over their working hours, so they can strike a better balance between paid work and family life.

And I hope too that once the new right is established next year, and hopefully extended to all employees when the legislation is reviewed in two years time, it will reduce the chronic stress many employees experience as they seek to juggle the competing demands of paid work and family life, and that in time businesses will embrace flexibility, as a way of making their workplaces more productive and competitive.

All this might sound a trifle Pollyanna-ish, but in the United Kingdom where similar legislation has been in place for four years, it has accelerated the availability of flexible working arrangements, to the point where officials now claim that flexible working is the norm rather than the exception.

In New Zealand, by contrast, the inflexible, 9 to 5 mentality is still very much the norm, and flexible working arrangements are looked upon as a favour--something an employer may grant in exceptional circumstances rather than as a legitimate and productive working arrangement. And while many employers claim they already have flexible workplaces, in practice this often turns out to be little more than the ability to sometimes adjust a lunch break, or go to the dentist—way short of the ongoing changes to working hours that this bill would allow.

Even where they do exist, flexible working arrangements are far more common among white collar workers and managers, than amongst ordinary low paid workers. I hope this bill will change this, and ensure that any worker – no matter how low paid—has the right to seek a change to their start and finish times, or their shifts, or to work compressed weeks and so forth. It will also impose an obligation on employers to seek to accommodate their request wherever they can, providing it won’t be to the detriment of their business.

We have not only an hours driven culture, but also a culture of long and excessive working hours, which became entrenched in the nineties. New Zealanders work among the longest working hours in the world --a fifth of us work more than 50 hours a week, --and 40% of us more than 45 hours a week. No wonder so many of us suffer from chronic stress and what has been called the ‘work, eat, sleep cycle.’

We are only just beginning to realise the high price we pay for our long and inflexible working hours culture, and the debilitating effect long working hours have on people’s lives –in terms of dysfunctional relationships, children who don’t spend enough time with their parents, workplace stress and so forth. The time parents are able to spend with their children has declined steeply over the last few decades, while workplace stress and absenteeism has increased at the same time, and we are in danger of becoming a nation of wage slaves, with no time for our children or our communities.

But the reality is that our rigid long working hours culture is no longer necessary in the 21st century. It’s a straightjacket we need to shed-- now that we have new technologies like the laptop and the cell phone that can keep us in touch with the office without having to actually be there in person.

We have got to get our head around the fact that we don’t all need to work exactly the same hours, and we certainly don’t need to start and finish work at the same time. And many of us can easily do some of our work from home or another location.

If employees were able to vary their working hours, and work more often from home, there would be real social, environmental as well as economic benefits.

We would dramatically reduce congestion, which is caused by all of us rushing like lemmings to get to work at the same time each day, and there would be no need to waste tax payers money building expensive new urban motorways.

CO2 emissions would reduce, as would the amount of oil we consume. Indeed, if the price of oil continues to rise, we might find that encouraging people to work from home is one of the tools governments may use to try reduce our dependence on oil.

When workplaces are more flexible, more women, and older New Zealanders will be able to stay in the workforce, and employers will have access to wider recruitment pool which will help ease skills shortages. Productivity will increase too, as all the research shows that employees who have more control over their working arrangements are more motivated and productive, and so there is less absenteeism, staff turnover, workplace illness etc.


With all of these benefits, it makes sense that Parliament would encourage more flexible working arrangements, and protect employees who want to have more choice about how they balance paid work and family life, by setting up a framework for employees to negotiate variations to their working hours.

In the United Kingdom, where they already have this employment right, 90% of requests have been successfully accommodated. Their Flexible Working Hours legislation is hailed as a success by political parties right across the political spectrum, with all parties seeking to extend its provisions. The Conservative leader David Cameron is a passionate advocate for extending their right, arguing that flexible working arrangements are the key to modernising workplaces and making them more productive and competitive.

Initially UK businesses strenuously opposed the new employment right. But now employer organisations strongly support it. “The right to request flexible working has been well received by employers and encouraged rather than compelled employers to experiment with flexible working practices,” one recent employer review concluded. “Employers who are willing to acknowledge the lives their employees lead outside word, are finding they can fish in a wider pool for labour… And they’re finding the people they recruit are more likely to be motivated and to remain employed in the same firm, when they are allowed to work flexibly.

Obviously, the new employment right, when it comes into effect in July next year, is not going to deliver flexibility overnight. It is just a part of a package of employment rights designed to help people with caring responsibilities balance their work and family responsibilities.

But I hope that as a result of this Bill our rigid, long working hours culture will slowly become a thing of the past, and flexible, results, rather than hours driven, workplaces will become the new norm.

Finally, I would like to thank all the members of the Flexible Working Hours Coalition -- a coalition of more than 50 professional, community groups and unions ranging from Grey Power to Women Lawyers, Parents Centre, the Business and Professional Women, the CTU and most unions –for their unwavering support for this Bill.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ruth Dyson, former Minister of Labour, for her work and support in getting this bill through Parliament. I would also like to thank Mark Gosche, Chair of the Committee, Darien Fenton and others on the committee, for their support, and all of the political parties –the Labour party, the Maori party, New Zealand First, United Future and Gordon Copeland and Taito Phillip Field, for their support for this Bill."