Clayton Mitchell New Zealand First MP

Last week in the House, we were finally able to abolish zero hour contracts. After a great sigh of relief, we resume the fight for casual loading in order to provide employers with the incentive to offer employees permanent part-time contracts of employment.

It is not often that all 121 Members of Parliament in the House are able to stand in agreement on a bill. Of course, we spend most of our time debating. But I love those few precious moments where I can look around the House and know that we are, all of us, making the right choice on behalf of the people we represent. And, after countless meetings with workers and their families, many hours spent in Select Committee and plenty of disappointments with the Government, last week provided us with one of those precious moments. Zero hour contracts are finally and truly illegal as of April 1.

To provide employees with further protections and encourage employers to provide permanent part-time employment contracts, New Zealand First has submitted a Supplementary Order Paper calling for casual loading.

With casual loading, an employer would look at the average hourly rate for the particular job advertised and increase that hourly rate by 19 per cent if he or she is only offering a casual employment contract. This bump-up fee would not be present if the employer chose to hire under a permanent part-time employment contract.

The 19 per cent increase comes from a combination of bereft and sick leave, statutory holidays, holiday pay and a loading bonus. The bonus for the employer is in the certainty of having some of this expenditure paid at the beginning of an employment contract, rather than having it go into and sit in a pool.

Casual loading has wide support, but still waits for the Government to see what is – for the rest of us, it's common sense.