It'll be New Year, new workplace laws next year, with the Government confirming on Monday that 90-day trials are back and Fair Pay Agreements will be scrapped.
Cabinet agreed it will introduce legislation by Christmas to reverse both Labour's cornerstone workplace relations moves, but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is moving so quickly to get through his 100-day plan that some crucial policy process has been chucked on the scrapheap too.
The wheels of repeal are spinning and all the Government wants for Christmas is to unwind Labour's workforce laws.
First up, bring back 90-day trials for all businesses, allowing employers to hire and fire within 90 days.
"We want to make it easier for Kiwis to find their first job, we want to make it easier for Kiwis to find their next job, we want to find it easier for Kiwis to get off the benefit and move into work," said Luxon.
Also before the silly season's out, Fair Pay agreements will be on their way out.
"To remove the mandated union deals that are being imposed on Kiwi workplaces," Luxon said.
Newshub was leaked the advice behind that decision and Cabinet went against it.
From here on out, the repeals process will be done sans advice.
Newshub has seen a Cabinet paper that says Cabinet has decided to remove the requirement for Regulatory Impact Statements.
"On issues where we have got our 100-day plan and we have got legislation that we are repealing, we think it is a huge waste of time for everybody to go off and create a Regulatory Impact Statement," Luxon said.
The statements basically model the impact changing the rules will have on, for instance, the Government books, a particular sector of business or a particular community group.
The Prime Minister said though there's no point officials writing them - because his ministers simply won't read them.
"You've got people just working and churning, generating papers that are never going to be read and are not that relevant to the decision being taken," said Luxon.
Labour's Grant Robertson called that "reckless".
"These statements are important for making sure we know what the real costs of these changes are. These are big changes."
Luxon said he's here to do things differently - change the relationship between business and Government.
"You don't just pass on, with all respect to Wellington bureaucrats, making some decisions about how to run a business from Wellington," he said.
Luxon said he does respect public servants.
Minister for Regulation David Seymour has long rallied for better official advice and often relied on it as an Opposition MP to scrutinise Government decisions.
"In some instances, it is important to make laws rapidly because so long as the old laws stay in place, councils or businesses are spending money trying to comply with laws that the Government wants to get rid of," he said on Monday.
He said he didn't believe the Regulatory Impact Statements "are very good".
"I have always said that even when I was responsible for them at the end of the Key Government. That is why I am back to fix them up and they have got a lot worse in the last six years."
Robertson said it's important the public sees the evidence behind policies - even if the Government disagrees with it.
"It's fully in the power of the Government to ignore the advice they get but the public should know what that advice is," he said.
Luxon denied being scared of the statements.
"I am not interested in wasting time."
No time to waste when you've promised to deliver a 100-day plan.
