Employment Relations Amendment Bill

In beginning my contribution on Part 2 of this bill, I say I was very remiss yesterday. I was quite excited about getting the call from you, Mr Chairperson Mallard, in your capacity as the Chair for the first time, and I failed to congratulate you on your election to that position. So I take the opportunity now to do that, and I look forward to taking many calls under your chairpersonship and your speakership, in fact.

We are on Part 2 of this ugly—I have to say—bill, which is the first act of this Government under its new term. And, of course, yes, the Government is on the attack against workers. Part 2 is the part that really bothers me. Although much of the destruction is done in Part 1, actually Part 2 is about the way in which all of this destruction is going to be brought about in the workplace.

As Iain Lees-Galloway was saying in his contribution yesterday, it is, unusually, retrospective. We hardly ever deal with retrospective pieces of legislation in this House, but when it comes to attacking the rights of workers, that National Government has no shame. It has no shame. Part 2 is where it makes this retrospective. What Part 2 says is that there is no need to conclude collective bargaining—that there will be no obligation on parties to actually conclude and come to a collective agreement with each other about wages and conditions. And the Government, in its hurry to do that, wants to make sure that collective employment agreement negotiations that are already under way are going to be captured by this legislation.

But in order to understand why the Government has done it this way I think we need to backtrack a little. The history is this. The previous National Government really wanted to pass this piece of legislation about 4 or 5 months ago, but there was one big problem: it lost the numbers. It lost the numbers to pass this legislation because John Banks had to leave Parliament because he is on his way to jail. That is what has actually happened here. The Government wanted to pass this legislation at that point in time, but when Mr Banks had to relinquish his seat in this Parliament, the Government no longer had a majority with which to pass this piece of legislation. That is how bad it is.

The Government’s other support partners at the time would not support it. They would not support it because they know the damage this is going to do to the New Zealand workplace. And they know the damage this is going to do to workers and their families. At a time when we face increasing child poverty in this country, what is the current Government doing? It is moving to ensure that wages will be lowered—that wages will not be able to increase with the cost of living—because there will be no pressure, no legislative requirement on employers to conclude bargaining and to actually have bargaining result in a collective agreement.

Part 2 quite specifically says that it applies to all bargaining, whether the bargaining commenced before, on, or after the commencement of this piece of legislation. So workers who are currently engaged in collective bargaining with their employer are going to suddenly find on the passing of this bill that their employer will not be required to conclude an agreement with them. As we sit here, in New Zealand today workers are undertaking bargaining. A lot of those workers are in the health sector, interestingly enough. A lot of workers in the health sector are undertaking bargaining at the moment. It is those workers whom this Government is after. There are a lot of expired employment agreements happening in the health sector. So right now, as we sit, they are engaged in a bargaining process.

What the law currently says is that there is a requirement to conclude bargaining and for it to result in a collective employment agreement. That is a very rational and sensible thing, which has actually seen New Zealand though quite an interesting period of time. The economy has been in recession, yet there have not been extraordinary outbreaks of workers making unreasonable demands and using this part of the legislation to hold their employers to ransom. We have seen none of that. We have seen absolutely none of it.

I asked a question yesterday, and still have not had an answer from anyone opposite, about where they can cite the example of employees, of workers, making unreasonable demands and getting unreasonable wage increases because of this duty.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just now going to advise the member to come back to Part 2 of the bill, which could not possibly involve questions that were asked yesterday.

The duty to conclude bargaining is what Part 2 actually says can start happening before the Act is even passed through this Parliament. That is the point that I making—that, actually, it is unusual that it is done in this way. Many of those workers are engaging in collective bargaining right now. They are already in that process, and yet this part, Part 2, says that it does not matter that they have already initiated the process or that when they initiated it there was a whole set of different laws in place. This part says that despite that, if they have initiated bargaining before the commencement of this Act, the rules are going to change. The rules are simply going to change midway through their bargaining process on them.

Why would that Government be so bloody-minded about having retrospective legislation? Well, I think the answer is the number of employment negotiations that are under way in the State sector—the sheer number of them. I think health is going to be one of its major targets. We have got the resident medical officers’ multi-employer collective agreement that is being negotiated at the moment. We have got the radiation technologists, who are negotiating their collective agreement at the moment. We have got the stenographers. We have got the clerical and administrative workers in the health sector who are negotiating. We have got the clinical physiologists. Importantly, we have got the nursing one. That is the big one that is coming up. That is where the big dollars are to be saved by this Government, and that is what it is after. It wants to suppress the wages and conditions of nurses working in our public hospitals.

Then we go on to the education sector, and we find that there are a few coming up in that regard as well. I think this is what it is about. The secondary teachers’ collective agreement expires on 30 June 2015, and Government cannot wait to make sure that those teachers are going to face a situation where the cards are all on the employer’s side because there is no duty to actually conclude collective bargaining. It is the teachers, the nurses, the police, the firefighters, and all of the other important public servants whom we rely on for our social services in this country whom that Government is after, and it is absolutely plain in Part 2. The Government is making sure that the nurses’ employment agreement, which is up for negotiation at the moment, will be captured by this removal of the duty to conclude bargaining.

So it is absolutely clear in Part 2. As I said before, it is really unusual for there to be retrospective legislation passed in this Parliament. Why is it that this Government would be so keen that this legislation applies to bargaining already under way? Well, it is clear that it is because of the type of work where that is existing at the moment. I have listened carefully to those Ministers as they have argued about containing the cost of public services. Well, when it comes to our education and health services, that can really mean only one thing. That can mean only that they are after wages.

I am thinking about the wages of the nurses who are going to be affected by Part 2, because Part 2 is going to apply to them even though they have already initiated collective bargaining. Thinking about their wage movements, they have had virtually no wage movements under the National Government. They have had over the course of the last 6 years about a 6 percent increase in their national collective employment agreement. That is less than the rate of inflation, so the nurses have already been paying for the savings that the National Government has been making in its surplus in its bid to make its Budget balance.

Like the previous speaker, Sue Moroney, I too have not had the opportunity yet to congratulate you, Mr Chairperson, on your promotion—I think it is a promotion—to assistant speakership.

I am going to restrict my comments to schedule 2, which is under discussion in this part of the debate in Committee of the whole House. Schedule 2 looks at the consequential amendments to other Acts. In particular, I want to address my comments to the changes to the Wages Protection Act 1983, which are about ensuring that employers can make deductions from the pay of workers who are taking partial strike action. Rather sneakily, this amendment to the parent Act, the Wages Protection Act, actually reduces the amount of notice that an employer has to give to an employee that they have made an overpayment. In the existing Act, it says that it should be 5 days’ notice, but this amendment also makes quite a major adjustment—it says that it will be 1 day’s notice. This is quite aside from the whole discourse around what a partial strike is or how much an overpayment is. That is dealt with in the previous part, but I must make the point that it is absolutely unclear as to how much workers will be losing when they take partial strike action.

What is a partial strike? Lots of people are not clear about it, and certainly it is not tested very well in Part 1 of the Act, but of course we are talking about schedule 2 and Part 2 of it. My understanding from my experience as a former union official, has been that partial strikes have not only been around refusing to work parts of an employment agreement or parts of your normal work but they have also been around things like bending some of the rules, and those rules include things like not wearing the proper uniform, wearing a badge, and wearing different colours from what is described in your employment agreement. Workers have been able to be very creative about their partial strike action. We must remember that strike action occurs only after a vote and it occurs only as a measure of last resort when the negotiations between workers and employers have got to a point where there needs to be a bit of force applied to the relationship with the employer to get it to agree to decent pay increases.

I have seen some really remarkable and interesting partial strikes in my experience as a union organiser. Perhaps the most notable one was when a bunch of workers refused to wear pants—this was about the uniform allowance not being paid. They agreed that because the employer had breached the employment contract by not paying the uniform allowance, they would wear only half the uniform, so they did not wear pants. Fortunately, they all worked behind booths just like this. It was not a problem for any members of the public, but it was certainly embarrassing for the union organiser anyway.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to ask the member to come to not just mentioning Part 2 but actually debating Part 2. It is a really good story, but not relevant.

I was mindful, Mr Chairperson, that yesterday you asked for novelty.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Novel and relevant.

OK. Thank you very much for that. Part 2 and schedule 2 of the amendment bill talks about these changes to the Wages Protection Act. If we look at what the Wages Protection Act was enacted to do, it is actually about protecting wages. I believe that it is a sneaky and sinister attempt to amend the Act by reducing the amount of notice that goes to workers when they are classifying an overpayment when someone takes a partial strike, and that that is an unfair way to do it because there has not been any kind of discussion in the public arena. There have been no submissions on this part of the bill about changing the Wages Protection Act as a consequence of the amendments to the Employment Relations Act. That strikes me as incredibly unfair and as a mockery of the democratic tradition.

I have got a number of points I want to raise, but first I would like to raise an issue around interpretation, which the Minister, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, might be able to help me with. It might be my misunderstanding of the way the bill has been drafted and some of the drafting changes that have been made to it. If he wants to interrupt me, I will happily yield some of my time for him to do so.

In the first clause of schedule 1, which talks about interpretation, there have been changes made since the bill was originally drafted to remove the definition of “2013 Act” and “principal Act” and simply say now that “In this schedule, 2013 Act means the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2013.” If we then move—and I will pick a clause—to, say, clause 2(6), I think, potentially, the drafting changes have made this incredibly confusing. If you look at subclause (6) it now says: “Part 6A of this Act”—which I assume means this Act that we are now debating—“(as it was immediately before the commencement of the 2013 Act)”—i.e., this Act that we are now debating—“continues to apply to the restructurings as if the 2013 Act”—i.e., this Act—“had not been passed.”

The question I have is how can this Act not apply to this Act if it has not been passed? It seems to me that in the changes to the drafting we have actually created quite a circular situation. You may as well remove the clause altogether, potentially. There seems to be a double negative or some other issue around interpretation, because previously it said that the principal Act would continue to apply, effectively, as if this Act had not been passed. But because of the changes to the definitions, we now seem to be in this situation where that clause no longer makes any sense. If we look at the remainder of the schedule—I am happy for the Minister to explain; I may have got that wrong or I might be right, and I am happy for him to explain—it seems to be that there are these clauses all the rest of the way through this particular schedule. If my interpretation of it is incorrect, then he may be able to clear that up. The rest of the schedule, and I think the second schedule as well, does not seem to make any sense. I am happy to allow the Minister to take the floor and I will come back to the rest of my comments, if that would be useful, or I could just then continue with the rest of my comments.

The second question that I have for the Minister, and I hope he will answer this, again comes back to issues of interpretation. I suspect the intention of this clause or some of these clauses—and, again, I am on Part 6A, which relates particularly to vulnerable workers, and again the Minister could correct me if I am wrong—is to ensure that where the restructuring has commenced prior to the passing of this particular piece of legislation, those workers affected by that restructuring that has already commenced would continue to enjoy the same protections they would have had prior to it. My interpretation of it is that this is specifically designed to ensure that that particular part of the Act is not applied retrospectively.

The question around interpretation that I have on that is how you would deem the commencement point for a restructuring. For example, the contracting-out environment in Part 6A primarily, I would suspect, relates to contracting-out environments. If a contract has been put out for tender, for example, but not let at the point that this Act is passed, would that provision apply? Often the restructuring occurs after the contract has been awarded, but from the employee’s perspective the mere putting out of the contract to tender is the point at which the uncertainty and the vulnerability really starts to kick in. Are we looking at this from the perspective of the employer, who does not get the answer until they know whether or not they have been awarded the contract, or of the employee, whose job is put under question the minute the contract they are subject to is put out for tender? The whole purpose of this particular provision is around providing additional certainty to employees in that vulnerable situation, whether they be catering contractors, cleaning contractors, or whomever.

To put a practical context around it, if I could illustrate it by way of example, if a firm currently contracts with one cleaning company to provide the cleaning of its offices and it has fewer than the number of staff who are covered by the exemption, has fewer than that number of staff employed within it—Mr Chair, I am just waiting for the bell to ring. I can see you reaching forward—[Bell rung] If it has fewer than that number of staff, then that would, therefore, mean it would be covered by the exemption. That contract is put out to tender and those staff continue to do their jobs in the intervening period while the contract is put out to tender. A new contract is awarded to a different company, and at that point, of course, the restructuring is well and truly under way.

But, from the staff’s perspective, once they know the contract has been put out to tender in this cleaning company—for example, it could even be that the company that currently does the cleaning contract does not even apply; it might not even be tendering, but it might continue to do the work until the tender has been let—to all intents and purposes for those staff members concerned, the uncertainty is there. The restructuring has begun, they know that there is a new contract, and they do not know whether they are going to be required by the new contractor. Under the Act as it currently exists, my understanding is that they would be protected and they would be covered. Would that continue to apply to them once this amendment has been passed? It would seem to me that this particular clause in the first schedule, clause 2(6), is intended to ensure that if the restructuring was already under way, the exemptions that the bill puts in place would not be applied retrospectively. I think that that particular point of clarification would be a very useful one.

I think that those are probably the two issues of interpretation that I would like further clarification on because, again—just to come back to my first one around the interpretation clause—“this Act” is referred to all the way through, and the striking out happens in clause 2(2), clause 2(3), clause 2(4), and clause 2(5), and basically all the way through. It seems to me—unless I have got it entirely wrong, and the Minister in the chair indicated that he thought I might have and I look forward to his detailed explanation of how I might have that wrong—that we have got a bunch of double negatives in here, which makes the schedules potentially seem quite redundant and certainly do not seem to make any sense. So if he could deal with that, that would be good.

Schedule 2 makes consequential amendments to the State Sector Act and to the Wages Protection Act. It makes changes around strikes within the State sector and the provisions around strikes within the State sector. Then there are what appear to be minor changes to the Wages Protection Act.

I think I will leave my comments at that. I look forward to the Minister’s clarification of those two points, if he is able to do that for us.

I appreciate the honourable member’s intervention and some very good technical questions around the transitional provisions. Can I start with the first matter—the double negative. I have very carefully considered it, and I have checked with my legal experts, that the references to this Act and the 2013 Act are actually correct, and it does not create a double negative. That is probably for reasons that are a little bit above my small legal brain, but I am reassured that there is no tension around making the clause redundant.

The member also raised a very good question in respect of the timing of the new provisions on contracting. “Restructuring” is actually the generic term that is used for contracting out, and it is more likely now because many of the people who are affected by these provisions are now in organisations—very few large organisations now conduct their own cleaning. I can think of one. It was a hospital that I ran. It still does it. But, generally speaking, what we talk about is restructuring, and generically that term is used. It is actually the retendering of a contract that is already contracted out. For example, if I was to retender the contract, and Mr Hipkins was to win it and Mr Nash was to lose it, the timing of that in law would be the awarding of the new contract. Therefore, if that did not occur until after the law became effective, then the new provisions would apply. But if the contract was started and was awarded before the new transitional provision became effective, then it would not.

It is a question of the facts of each individual case, so it is hard to say in all circumstances what would happen, but I am satisfied that the definition of restructuring, as is contained in section 69, is clear enough to make employers—outgoing and incoming—pretty clear about what their obligations are. But thank you for raising it.

I again have a question that I hope the Minister in the chair, Michael Woodhouse, can provide some clarification on. The Minister might like to follow the logic and explain to me whether I have understood it correctly or not. Part 2 refers to the new schedule 1AA that will be inserted into the Act, and that schedule contains new section 8, which states that “Despite section 95B of this Act (as inserted by section 56 of the 2013 Act), an employer must not make a specified deduction of pay in relation to—(a) any partial strike that ended before the commencement of the 2013 Act; or (b) any period of a partial strike that occurred before the commencement of the 2013 Act.” The effect of that new section is that it means that although the proposed strike tax in clause 56 in Part 1 cannot be applied to partial strike action that has already occurred, it can apply to partial strikes already under way from the date of the Act’s coming into effect, which effectively means that workers who have already committed to strike action with no expectation of pay deductions could find themselves penalised.

For me, natural justice is at issue here. If the workers are already engaged in partial strike action and it is of an ongoing nature, the Act comes into effect. They have already committed to that course of action, and they can then be penalised for a decision that was made before the Act was even thought of, or at least certainly before it was being considered by this Parliament. That, to me, raises an issue of natural justice and I am wanting to know whether the Minister is trying to create a precedent here that suggests that natural justice should no longer apply.

I personally see some parallels in a local case in Dunedin North where we had some school buses that were taking students to their nearest State school and not much further but delivering them to other schools in the area. A rule was interpreted differently by the Government that was in the last Parliament, which took away the right of students to travel on that bus unless they were going to the nearest State school. It was an interpretation of the rules that was different from that which had applied before. I am sure that the Minister in the chair is familiar with this example because he had a transport portfolio at the time and I did petition him at some length to consider the natural justice aspects of taking away the right previously enjoyed by students to travel to any school in the city on the school bus, provided it took them only as far as the local State schools.

Effectively, once the rule was reinterpreted, the students were then allowed to travel on the bus if they had the right uniform on and were not allowed to travel on the bus if they did not have the right uniform on. Despite the fact that they had signed up for that school, despite the fact that their parents had invested in the uniforms for that school, and despite the fact that they were engaged in the sports teams at that school, those parents and those children who had invested in that particular school were then told that natural justice did not apply, and, effectively, that they were no longer entitled to travel on that bus—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am now going to interrupt the member and ask him to stop the novel and get back to the relevant. Thank you.

I will come back to the point that I am trying to make, which is one of natural justice. Where there is an expectation of one course of action when an action was initiated and there is a change of understanding—in this case, a change in the law—that can have a very different effect. So in clause 8, the worker who is already committed to strike action with no expectation of pay deductions finds himself penalised. I am wanting to ask the Minister if this was the intention when this was drafted. Was this drafted specifically to punish those workers who had already committed to strike action in order to curtail their existing strike action, or is this an unintended consequence?

I move, That the question be now put.

I have the same sort of confusion that Mr Hipkins and Mr Clark had. Again, I am just a simple boy from the Bay but I am wondering whether the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety can clarify this. This is about new schedule 1AA. We are looking at clause 2(5), “Amendments to Part 6A (Continuity of employment if employees’ work affected by restructuring)”. What it actually says in clause 2(5) of this schedule is: “Subclause (6) applies to restructurings … for which the agreements are concluded before the commencement of the 2013 Act, even if the restructurings they relate to are to take effect after the commencement of the 2013 Act.” For me, I am not too sure what the definition of “concluded” is here. Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act, as you know, is a wide-ranging section and this covers exempt employers and it talks about contractors and contracting out.

The reason why I am focusing on this is that it could have major ramifications because this relates to section 69C of the Act. Depending on what figures you use, between 97 percent and 85 percent of New Zealand companies are actually small to medium sized companies, so the employers are exempt from this. That is about 60 percent of all workers. So what is the definition of “concluded”? Does this actually relate to all restructurings that are concluded going way back when, or does it relate to restructurings that were actually concluded or had started under the 2013 Act? Just a little bit of clarification there would be good.

I would also like to talk about clause 2(7) of new schedule 1AA because, again, it says: “Sections 80, 86, 90, 91, 93, and 94 … apply in relation to strikes and lockouts that commenced before, and continue on or after, the commencement of the 2013 Act …”. I suppose the concern I have about this schedule 1AA is that there is a mixture of retrospectivity and clauses that relate to once the Act had been passed. The inconsistency is, I think, going to make it very difficult for both employers and employees to get their heads round the meaning of this. What I do fear is that in a lot of the cases that are going to go before the Employment Court, these clauses are going to be interpreted through jurisprudence rather than through this legislation, and I think it could be a little bit clearer.

Let me talk about something else as well. Clause 2(1) of new schedule 1AA is called “Amendments to section 4 (Parties to employment relationship to deal with each other in good faith)”. We recognise this is part of the overarching principle under which industrial relations are undertaken. We talk about natural justice and the right of people to actually have the ability to defend themselves and have a fair trial. What this subclause says is: “Despite the amendments made to section 4 of this Act by section 4 of the 2013 Act, section 4 … continues to apply in relation to proposed decisions … (a) if the proposed decision was notified to the employee before the commencement of the 2013 Act; and (b) whether the final decision on that proposal was made before, on, or after the commencement of the 2013 Act.”

So how I am reading this is that if there is a case before the Employment Court at this point in time or when this bill passes into legislation, then you use the old piece of legislation. This is, again, where the confusion arises for me, because what we have here is whole lot of law around disclosure. To me, that sort of cuts to the heart of natural justice. What the new provisions in this legislation say is that an employer does not have to disclose information to an employee around any restructuring if the employer thinks that that may be privileged or may breach the privacy of the person who has applied for that information. So this is where this gets a little bit confusing for me. There are some parts to this schedule that are retrospective and some parts that are not retrospective, but—[Bell rung] Can I just elaborate on this a little bit further because I think it is quite important? Thank you for giving me the right to continue for another 5 minutes, because I think it is important.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: That’s by definition. You don’t need to say that.

I think that that Minister over there, Simon Bridges, who was a Minister of Labour, has actually got off quite easily with his interjections. The reason that that former Minister is interjecting is that I have no doubt, he felt the heat and he needed to get out and jump into the positions of Minister of Energy and Resources and Minister of Transport.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Back—thank you.

Sorry, I just had to respond to the former Minister.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Do not respond to irrelevant interjections.

I am sorry—sorry. I know the Minister is irrelevant.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I think you will find that there are in fact Speakers’ rulings that entitle a member to reply to interjections from another member regardless of whether they are relevant to the topic of the bill. I want an indication from you as to whether, in fact, you are changing those.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member is right, but the fact that one member is disorderly and frivolous does not give another member the right to do the same, so it is a warning to both members.

Sorry, I apologise for that. I should have known better and I should not respond to that member.

The thing that concerns me about what we have got here is that the reason that the Minister gave for the change in this legislation is that it created a whole lot of confusion. That was the reason for this change. There was one case in particular, and it was Vice-Chancellor of Massey University v Wrigley and another, in 2010—in fact, one of the Chair’s former colleagues. There is a whole lot of case law around this. The reason why the Government said it needs to change the legislation is that it created a whole lot of confusion. The way I am reading this is that it does not get rid of the confusion; it just adds to the confusion. One thing that the regulatory impact statement did actually say is that the ministry was unsure of the impact of the old law, which will continue until new cases come on. So the ministry was basically putting up its hands and saying that there was no impact. I just think that this creates a whole lot of confusion because there is a lot of case law around this. I am just really concerned that what we are going to end up with is the courts determining what is relevant and what is not.

I would just like to mention one other point, and again, this is about clause 2(7) in new schedule 1AA. I talked about this subclause earlier, and I should have elaborated a little bit further. We have got paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 2(7), and they contradict each other. One, sublcause (7)(a) is actually saying: “the union or the employer (as the case may be) must give notice in accordance with this Act (as amended … ) on the commencement of the 2013 Act:”. Subclause (7)(b) says: “however, if a notice given by the union or the employer before the commencement of the 2013 Act—(i) complies fully with the notice … no further notice is required:”. Then subparagraph (ii) says that if the notice “complies [only] partly with the notice requirements of this Act … [then] those notice requirements are satisfied by the union or employer providing notice of the additional matters …”, and then the legislation does come into play.

So even one subparagraph above the other we get a whole lot of contradictory statements. My major concern about this is that it is going to provide a whole lot of confusion for the people who need to interpret this legislation, whether they are the employers, or the employers’ lawyers, or the employees, or the unions, or the delegates, or whoever takes the cases. There is a lot of confusion. That confusion will disappear over the space of 2 or 3 years, once the legislation beds in. I think what will happen—

💬 Sue Moroney: They won’t get it right now though.

I agree with that member, who was actually one of the architects of this. What is going to happen, I think, is that we are going to have cases in the Employment Court running in parallel. We are going to have cases in the Employment Court that are supposed to look at the old law and interpret it as per the conditions of the 2013 Act, and then we are going to have cases running in the Employment Court where they are having to look at the new law, and they are going to have to develop case law around that. So not only is the judiciary going to end up with a little bit of confusion—with all due respect to them, because they are intelligent people—but I just see a lot of confusion here.

The other more important thing is that I see a lot of cost as well. The cost of taking one of these cases to the Employment Court is actually quite substantial. Often the only people who end up taking these cases to the Employment Court are unions because the workers cannot afford the cost of it. Before this came in the legal precedents had taken away a lot of the ambiguity. What this does now, especially with the retrospective and current parts, is to add that ambiguity back. That makes the ability of the employee to take a grievance to court just that much more costly when the uncertainty arises, and I think it may just be a greater deterrent. So what I would like to see is actually a definitive answer around: is it going to be retrospective, or once this law is passed, will it just all happen?

I move, That the question be now put.

I have no reluctance at all to accept the question. I do want to make a comment, and that is that what we had earlier was, I think, a very good example of some specific questions being asked, and answers. If that occurs and no new matters are brought up, then I am not at all reluctant to take the closure.