Zero-hours contracts are history

Yesterday afternoon, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 3), which outlaws zero-hours contracts, passed its third reading. While it hasn't been assented yet, that's just a formality. As of April 1, zero-hours contracts will be history.

This happened because public pressure forced the government to pretend to do something, and the other parties refused to play along with their PR measure and demanded real action. So, in the end the government was forced to amend it to do what it should have done in the first place, and the bill passed unanimously. Its a great example of how we can force progress from National, even on issues where they deeply oppose it. And we should really do that more often.