Labour holds fire on ‘fair pay’ laws

Legislation reversing National’s controversial ‘‘fire at will’’ and rest and meal break laws will be signed off this week as Labour moves to implement the last of its 100-day plan.

But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has moved to reassure business Labour is in no rush to pass controversial ‘‘fair pay’’ laws that appear to have contributed to a slump in business confidence.

The Labour caucus has been meeting in Martinborough to nail down the last of its 100-day plan before the return of Parliament next week.

Legislation to introduce fairness in the work place will be finalised on Thursday and introduced before the end of Labour’s first 100 days, on February 2.

A Cabinet committee is expected to sign it off this week, and it will include changes to the previous National government’s fire at will laws, and reversing its rest and meal break legislation.

Ardern said the changes had been well flagged by Labour on the campaign trail and should come as no surprise.

But, as the dop in business confidence threatens another ‘‘winter of discontent’’, she signalled Labour would move more slowly on one of the more contentious aspects of its industrial relations policy, industry-wide fair pay agreements.

Uncertainty over their effect on business has contributed to business unease. In an overture to business, Ardern said Labour acknowledged the need for a collaborative approach on the legislation.

‘‘We long flagged that was something we needed to spend extra time working alongside our union and business communities, so we are putting that on a longer track.’’

Ardern refused to put a schedule on when the fair pay legislation would be introduced but Employment Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has previously put a 12-month timeframe on consultation.

Labour’s fair pay agreements, which could include pay rates, weekend rates and hours, have raised concerns about industrywide strikes and industrial action. But Labour has promised to explicitly rule out such strikes in any legislation.

The changes would set minimum standards across entire industries.

After a summer recess, politics is back in full swing this week as politicians prepare for the traditional Ratana celebrations, followed by the resumption of Parliament.

Ardern is expected to announce a mental health inquiry today and will release Labour’s child poverty package next week, including a new target for reducing child poverty.

That target will go beyond the impact of Labour’s families package, which Treasury had estimated would lift 88,000 children out of poverty before realising it had done its calculations wrong. It also got the last National government’s child poverty figures wrong.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson has revealed he had some choice words for Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf when the error was realised but said it had no impact on Labour’s plans.

Ardern said Labour would be ‘‘very ambitious’’ on child poverty and 88,000 was never a target, just a Treasury projection.

‘‘So what we will do with this package is still reach more than 380,000 families. What we don’t have a clear picture of is how many of those families have children in poverty. So the package is still a solid package, it will not change. All we’ll know is how much further we’ll need to go to hit some of the ambitious targets we have around child poverty.’’

Those targets would be required of this and any future government’s under Labour’s child poverty reduction legislation, she said.