Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Mr Speaker—

Would the member like a call?

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: The member would like a call.

I call the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway.

I was under the impression that Amy Adams was midway through her call, but apparently not.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Well, if a member’s not in the House, I can hardly call them.

You can ask. Mr Speaker?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Iain Lees-Galloway.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. If ever there was a bill that was a solution desperately looking for a problem, this is it.

💬 Brett Hudson: That is uncharitable, Iain. That is very uncharitable.

This is it. Well, it might be uncharitable, Mr Hudson, but it’s true, and the most important thing is to always speak the truth about the bills that we are debating in this Chamber.

The member brought this bill claiming that anybody earning over $150,000 a year ought to be able to contract out of taking a personal grievance, which is, essentially, diminishing one of the fundamental rights in our employment law for a huge number of workers. Now, the member suggested that this was only going to apply to senior managers and to chief executives. But the truth is that at that level, a huge number of people who are sort of at the middle-management level, or people who happen to be in industries where the level of pay is perhaps higher than most but who are not in senior management roles, are people who do not necessarily have more power or more cachet than other employees, and they would be swept up by this. There would be a huge amount of pressure put on people who fall into this category of earning more than $150,000 to accept the terms of their employment agreement and to accept the requirement to contract out of being able to take a personal grievance.

Now, what was interesting was that at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—a couple of very interesting things came up at the select committee. One was that the member for Wairarapa stated that he would like to see the threshold actually be reduced to $75,000.

💬 Alastair Scott: That’s right.

That’s right—the member agrees. He would like to see ordinary working people, earning not a lot more than the average wage, being forced to contract out of a—

💬 Alastair Scott: No, it’s an option. It’s a choice.

See? Now, this is where the National Party demonstrate their fundamental lack of understanding of how things work in the real world, because the truth is that for most people out there, they are presented with a contract, they are presented with the terms and conditions of that contract, and it’s “take it or leave it”. Now, if you’re at $75,000—if you’re earning $75,000—there is going to be plenty of competition out there for that job. For the National Party member to say he supports lowering the threshold in this bill to $75,000 and putting ordinary workers under the condition where they would be forced to accept a situation where they would have to contract out of being able to take a personal grievance, I think is a very dire reflection on the National Party’s approach to industrial relations. It just shows that they haven’t seen a single workers’ right that they do not want to undermine, and this is just another example of that, with this particular piece of legislation.

But what was really telling was that at the select committee, Business New Zealand came to submit. Business New Zealand are an organisation that I have a huge amount of respect for. They are helping this Government develop our industrial relations programme and are working very closely with this Government. They came in support of this bill, but they made one particularly interesting comment, and it was that the vast majority of people that the member in charge of this bill says that this bill is supposed to capture—the CEOs, the senior managers, the very high-level people—the vast majority of those people do not—

💬 Brett Hudson: It’s not just the CEOs, Mr Lees-Galloway.

Well, if it’s not just about the CEOs and it’s not just about the senior managers, then, I ask the member, who is it about? Is it about the ordinary workers that the member for Wairarapa would like to see included in the bill? Is that who the National Party wants to see lose the right to take a personal grievance if they are unjustifiably dismissed? Because it sounds awfully like that is what the member wants this bill to be about.

But Business New Zealand came to the select committee and they said, “Look, in the vast majority of cases, chief executives and senior managers do not take a personal grievance. Instead, what they do is they settle differences through other means.” Usually, there is some sort of settlement or payout, they move on, and they go and get a job somewhere else, or whatever happens. But settlement is reached, the arrangement is terminated, and everybody moves on, which is, I think, exactly what the member intends—or at least, that’s what he says he intends, although his intentions have got murkier the longer I’ve been speaking this evening.

But that’s what the member intends this legislation to do—give senior management people the opportunity to terminate their relationship with their employer through means other than using a personal grievance. What it turns out—and Business New Zealand came and told us this at the select committee—is that’s exactly what happens right now. The law allows for that right now.

It’s exactly what happens right now, and this bill is completely pointless because it legislates in order to create something that already exists—and that would be one thing. If it was a bill that just kind of was rather innocuous and didn’t do anything and legislated to confirm something that already happened, then maybe on this side of the House we wouldn’t be so bothered by it. But, of course, what it actually does is it starts this process of undermining workers’ rights and of undermining the principle of being able to take a personal grievance in the event that an employee is unjustifiably dismissed. So it’s not just a bill that kind of doesn’t do anything; it’s actually a bill that can do a lot of harm but doesn’t actually create any good. It doesn’t create anything new. It doesn’t create an opportunity that doesn’t already exist. The senior managers and their employers already do exactly what is envisaged in this legislation, but what it does do is start to undermine workers’ rights.

That is why this side of the House will not be supporting this bill, and that is why we will always champion workers’ rights, we will always enhance workers’ rights. This side of the House—

💬 Brett Hudson: Removing choice—removing choice, Mr Lees-Galloway.

—wants to see—no, we are not removing choice, Mr Hudson, because those people already have the choice. They already have the choice, and Business New Zealand came and told the select committee that they have the choice. The choice already exists. You are not adding any more choice by bringing this bill to the House. You are not adding anything at all. What you are doing is undermining workers’ rights.

Now, on this side of the House, that’s not the way we do things. We enhance workers’ rights. We want to improve the bargaining position of workers in the workplace. We want to ensure that as the economy grows and as we get more productivity, we have an industrial relations framework that ensures that the rewards of that growth, the rewards of that productivity, are shared with all workers, with everybody. And one of the most important ways we can do that is to ensure that we strengthen the position of working people in the workplace.

Now, we’ve had nine years—nine consistent years—of workers’ rights being eroded by the Government. What we don’t need is another member’s bill that is, frankly, silly, that doesn’t do anything constructive, and that only undermines workers’ rights even further. I know that’s the National Party’s modus operandi. I know that’s their reason for existing. It’s why they come to Parliament. Every time we have a National Government, we see workers’ rights steadily or, often, dramatically eroded, but it’s going to stop.

We’ve had it for nine years, and it’s going to stop now, and we’re going to instead start introducing legislation that enhances workers’ rights, improves their pay, and makes working people better off. So as we grow the economy, we’re finally going to have a Government that is going to grow the economy in per capita terms. We’re going to make sure that working people are actually better off as a result of growing that economy.

So I say to members: vote this bill down. Let’s see the end of it, and let’s instead get on with some industrial relations legislation that actually makes people better off.

I just want to give Minister Lees-Galloway a round of applause for that. That was a fantastic contribution, and the last time we were in the House, a fortnight ago, listening to this bill—I’ve never heard my name called out so often. It was a Clayton’s bill, as it was so eloquently referred to, which forced me to come down early to listen to the nonsense that we were hearing on that side of the House.

This is a bill that I can gladly say will be voted down tonight. I’m pleased that it’s waited until the 52nd Parliament to make its way through the House. We had the displeasure of listening to the absolute nonsense as it was going through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The vast majority of people that came in to give their advice in the select committee had a very, very strong opinion on this bill. It was described by one person as a solution looking for the problem, and I think that is an understatement. It was also described as a bugger’s muddle. Seriously—yes, it was. It was considered and spoken to and called “a bugger’s muddle.”

Now, it’s interesting to say the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill—goodness me, that’s a mouthful; if it ever went through, it’d have to be changed—really is a problematic bill. The purpose behind it—we haven’t quite got to substantiate as to why this has even made it as far as it has.

I understand Mr Hudson adopted this bill from Scott Simpson, so you’d sort of think that you’d be humble on it, but he actually seems to be getting right in behind it, and it reminds me of a Jordan Belfort movie—like The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s there purely and simply to look after big city money. In no way does this bill look after the workers and their rights, and, at the end of the day—

💬 Hon Members: It’s not about workers.

It is about the workers. It’s always about those workers, and this member in the House has the audacity to talk about something that’s going to benefit workers when it actually doesn’t do a single thing to benefit workers.

Look, I would like to consider a renaming, certainly in line with The Wolf of Wall Street—maybe “The Worm of Wellington”. He could be the “Brett Belfort” of Wellington, and certainly of this House with a bill like this.

And to suggest that people that earn more money are in a better place to negotiate doesn’t make any sense at all, and I can give you this example. We have had members of this House earning over $300,000 a year go overseas to negotiate, on the behalf of, and in the best interest of, New Zealanders, an agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA), and they said, “This is the best agreement we could get. This is the best negotiation that we can come up with, and no changes can be made.” Now, this is the epitome of negotiators, according to the National Party over there, and yet despite their rhetoric of saying that the bill couldn’t be changed, in four days we had the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to the bill.

—the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is the second reading. Can you come to the bill.

—this is about negotiations, which is part of this bill, and it’s about people that earn higher earnings—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bring it to the bill.

—that can actually negotiate those bills. This is exactly the bill.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak to the bill.

My point being that they were a bugger’s muddle when they came to negotiating that with the higher earners. They couldn’t—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the member doesn’t speak to the bill, I’ll curtail his speech. Will he come back to the bill, please.

The point is that people don’t always get themselves into a position to negotiate their way out of a wet paper bag, and that has been clearly articulated by the lack of negotiations that we’ve seen with the TPPA and the new agreements that have come through.

My point is this: this bill will have a negative impact on doctors, who are in part captured in this organisation of higher earners. We have heard from their medical practitioners’ union, who are extremely concerned. Doctors concentrate on people’s well-being and their health, and they should not be having to worry about whether or not their personal grievance can be negotiated out of a contract.

This bill’s intent is 100 percent designed purely and simply to look after the best interests of big city money, multinational corporations, and those people that aren’t always in the best position to negotiate themselves.

We’re talking about, and looking at, problems that all businesses face around this country. We talk about workplace bullying. Now, it doesn’t matter what age, wage, or where you sit in the scale of things, workplace bullying is a serious problem, and it doesn’t matter who you are; you are susceptible to that. And if somebody is going to harass you or henpeck you or bully you in your workplace, you must be in a position where you can take a personal grievance against that employer or the situation that you’re finding yourself in, otherwise what is the purpose of having workplace relations in the first instance?

And I have to say, when somebody is negotiating their workplace relations with the current rules and regulations, it puts a lot of power in the negotiating process onto the employer. With the 90-day work trial, obviously, if somebody refused to sign out of their personal grievances clause, that actually gives the workplace the power to let them go after 90 days without actually addressing the problem that may or may not be, and that is something that I’ll be discussing with the Minister later on this evening.

We as New Zealand First opposed this at the first reading. We opposed it through the select committee. We had a number of people on the select committee, some of whom I can call out, who were there to eat their lunch, or the lovely biscuits from our chair, Jonathan Young, who I thought did a great job of trying to mediate this. As far as David Bennett was concerned, he really was there for the free biscuits. We would hope to see, and I’m sure we will see, this bill get shot down at the end of this debate. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in the name of my colleague Brett Hudson. I commend him for his initiative in bringing it to this House, and I have to say I am enjoying the discussion that’s been had on both sides of the House in relation to the bill so far.

The first thing to note is, surely, the situations in which this bill, or its provisions, will become relevant—that is to say, if it does become law. It will relate to individual employment agreements. The significance of those is, of course, in the name. So these are individual agreements; these are not collective agreements. These are agreements concluded between two parties, who we should presume, as a starting point, are able and entitled to make contractual arrangements on their own behalf, and that’s something to which I’ll return shortly, in terms of their ability and the presumption that they will, indeed, be able to do so. So that addresses, at least briefly, the aspect of them being individual employment agreements.

Second, as to them being agreements, this, of course, implies in the very term that the parties—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for the dinner break. The House will be resumed at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Members, the House has resumed. Welcome back from the dinner break. When we broke for dinner we were debating the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. Chris Penk had the call. He has eight minutes and 28 seconds.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to resume my contribution on the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. Prior to the dinner break I had mentioned a couple of aspects that seemed to me important regarding the fact that it is specifically individual employment agreements with which this amendment is concerned. In doing so, I began to comment on, and would now like to develop comment on, the fact that this is a choice that needs to be mutual between employers and employees.

Now, if we look at the intent, indeed the purpose, of the parent legislation, namely the Employment Relations Act, those specific provisions are quite specifically, if one views the history of that legislation, designed to ensure that vulnerable workers are protected, and it’s precisely in the context of that need for protection that we consider whether an amendment is justifiable. So the question is: will the people who are affected be vulnerable such that they need that protection, because, as a general principle, this House should pass legislation that is needed, as much as is needed, but no more? So we must always examine the extent of protection, in this case, and ask whether we are giving up something else in exchange for that.

Now, the amount that a person is earning or would earn under such an arrangement is regarded as something of a proxy for their non-vulnerability. I do accept that there are other measures that one might use in terms of valuing employment and indicating the ability of a worker to negotiate.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: You’re out of touch. That’s why you got voted out.

It’s a view that’s not necessarily shared by all across the House. I do appreciate that, and I look forward to the member’s own contribution on the legislation.

Now, it’s also worth noting, of course, what this legislative proposal does not do, specifically in the context of the bill having been introduced with a relatively broad scope in relation to workers or prospective workers who will be earning $150,000 a year. It was originally to have been quite broad in scope but was narrowed—rightly, in my view—to be explicitly not in relation to matters such as harassment, health and safety, and discrimination. It seems to me sensible to contemplate that a person might be in a position to earn high wages but could still be subject to pressure or abuse in those kinds of realms and that we should protect people in any case, whatever the other terms of their employment situation. So that seems to me a sensible carve-out.

In relation to health and safety, of course, it seems to me sensible to have accountability under that, and, of course, that’s not always the case in legislation or proposed legislation. Of course, some are quite happy to pass the buck on occasion, and there may be members in the House who would like to comment on that aspect in relation to other matters that are, or will be, before the House shortly.

I was interested to hear the comments of Mr Lees-Galloway previously in relation to the amendment bill—that it was both pointless and had the potential to do a lot of harm. It seems to me that these are contradictory notions, albeit he tried to justify that view in the sense of saying that it would be a general undermining but at the same time would achieve nothing. So it seems to me that that’s an ideologically motivated point more than anything, given that he went on to say that it doesn’t create opportunity. But, as anyone in this House, or, probably much more likely, in the real world, will know, opportunity has many different forms. Opportunity should also be measured in terms of opportunity cost. And there’s a considerable cost in the threat of litigation of a personal grievance nature; the dreaded “PG”—the dreaded “PG”, ladies and gentlemen, that hangs over the head of many an employer—and the uncertainty that relates to that is a winner only for certain classes of people who thrive on uncertainty, who thrive on conflict, and whose very raison d’être is to create such uncertainty wherever possible and to profit off that, albeit not necessarily in a pecuniary sense.

So it seems to me, having been in a position of practising law where, I am not ashamed to acknowledge, I was sometimes in a position of preparing cases or potential cases for clients where they felt that they had been perhaps entitled and able to bring a meritorious personal grievance case. Some of those were of greater merit than others. Of course, in all cases I represented their opinion, whether employer or employee, diligently, as I am required—indeed, all lawyers are required—but it did seem to me at the time that in some cases it was merely a method or a mechanism of creating uncertainty, creating a disturbance such that it would be easier and better to pay out the disgruntled worker a multiple or, rather, a fraction of the salary that they had been earning until that time.

Now, if a worker is earning as much as $150,000 a year—[Bell rung]—thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker—or, indeed, more and that person exercises the rights that they will have under this legislation, then if they were to bring a personal grievance frivolously—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: They can’t—they cannot bring a personal grievance under this bill.

If they were able to bring a personal grievance, whether justly or not, then it might be a considerable amount of money that they might unjustly—if, indeed, it were an unjust claim—be able to seek from the employer. So it seems to me, in those situations—and I acknowledge with self-consciousness that I was part of that process once upon a time, in my former professional life—that the lawyers are the greatest beneficiaries in such situations, and Heaven forbid that we should do anything that does not keep the lawyers down. We should allow people to contract as freely as possible between themselves, except of course when we consider them to be sufficiently vulnerable that the protection of the law is required.

So it is that these proposals have been made, and I note that there was some commentary at the time that the legislation initially was passing through the early stages of the process, where there was some considerable benefit recognised by people within the various professions on whom this would have some impact, in particular—going back to that point I made before and only touched on briefly, but other colleagues may pick up further—regarding the fact that it is quite narrow in its scope. It’s not ambitious in the sense that it does not seek to limit other rights of employers—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It does—it takes away your rights—

—and it’s specifically the words “other rights” that I think the member opposite may not have heard, and if he did hear that, and if he were—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great pleasure of mine to take a call on this, the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievances Provisions) Amendment Bill. Listening to the member Christopher Penk, who has just spoken, he suffers the flaw that so many National MPs suffer, which is that they just do not get the reality of the employment relationship and employment law. You see, the fundamental problem with this—well, there are two fundamental problems with this bill: one is that it assumes that because you are on an income of $150,000 or more, you have total control over your employment and your daily employment, and the way you go about your business. But that is not the case, and I could probably give names of fitters and sparkies and tradespeople around the country who earn that, or more than that, but who are under the instruction of an employer and do not have control over their workaday life.

The other failure of the National Party who are promoting this bill, in relation to this bill, is that they do not get that this bill removes the ability of somebody earning above that threshold, or at it—any ability at all—to challenge an unfair dismissal. It removes it completely. It takes away the common law right to take a claim of wrongful dismissal. So to help the members opposite, because some of them are new and most of them are ignorant, I am going to traverse the history of the personal grievance jurisdiction in New Zealand.

Here’s the thing: we actually have National to thank for introducing personal grievances, in 1970. In 1970, they introduced the idea of the personal grievance because, even then—a more progressive time for the National Party, admittedly—the post - World War II consensus National Party understood that working people needed to have the ability to challenge unfair dismissal without bankrupting themselves. It was very expensive to take a wrongful dismissal claim, and the remedies available to an hourly-paid worker or to a wage-worker were not that great—maybe a month’s pay, but that was pretty much it. You couldn’t pay your lawyers even if you won and you got a month’s pay. The National Government at the time was concerned about the growing number of strikes that were being taken to support workers who their colleagues thought were unfairly dismissed, and they introduced this law.

The Labour Government of 1972 then rewrote the Industrial Relations Act, as it then was. They beefed it up a little bit, they added a few more provisions in the personal grievance laws, but the personal grievance law became established as the basic rule of fairness in employment, and we’ve had it since then—we’ve had it since then. For nearly 50 years we’ve had this law, and what this bill does is it defines somebody’s rights on the basis of their income. Typical National Party value—it’s not about the human being, it’s not about your employment relationship or the level of control you have or don’t have over it.

The whole reason for the personal grievance law was to recognise that there was an inherent imbalance in the employment relationship: that if you were a worker, in addition to whatever statutory rights you had at the time, you were still subject to the common law duty of the worker to obey—the duty to obey—and the duty to act in good faith and fidelity to your employer, and all those things that were a constraint on the rights of the worker, in many respects. The personal grievance jurisdiction was introduced to bring some balance and fairness, and to allow workers to challenge unfairness if they got sacked unfairly, without bankrupting themselves.

Here’s the interesting thing that the members opposite might like to know, if they haven’t already learnt: the personal grievance jurisdiction at that time, and until 1991, when thanks to that National Government—it was confined to those who were employees under an employment agreement, whether it was collective or individual or whatever. So there was an acceptance that if you were the chief executive, you were in a different situation. I have some sympathy for that argument, but I do not have any sympathy at all for a bill that says your rights—your human rights, your employment rights—are totally defined by the income that you earn and not the reality of your employment situation. That’s the fundamental failure in this bill, that’s why it’s wrong, and that’s why it ought to be voted down, and I’m confident that tonight the House will do exactly that.

This bill makes it worse than the pre-1970 position that workers—and, for that matter, chief executives—were in. Even then, if you were a chief executive or a senior executive and you weren’t a member of a union or part of a collective agreement or an award, as they called them in those days, and had access to the personal grievance procedure, you at least had the right to go to court for a wrongful dismissal claim.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Please don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

Sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker. This bill takes that away—this bill takes that away—the common law right to take a wrongful dismissal claim. I know the ACT Party will be concerned about that, because they are the party of the common law. Members opposite who know anything about the law will be concerned about that as well, because one of the fundamental principles of our system of law is that people do not lose rights just because of the status that they have, and that’s what this bill does—that’s what this bill does. This bill takes away any protection at all for the class of people that it defines. Even if it was confined to chief executives and senior executives, in its current terms this bill would be wrong because it’s unfair—that’s how hopeless this bill is. The author of it isn’t here to defend it and isn’t going to defend it, and did not, when he spoke tonight, provide any defence to it either.

You see, when you look at the submissions that went to the select committee about this, how disappointing it is that organisations like Business New Zealand—of course they welcomed this, because they, like the National Party, want nothing more than just those incremental erosions of workers’ rights. Well, I say this: the Government has changed. This is a new Government and we are going to restore basic rights and basic fairness to every employee, to every worker. They’ve had nine years of having them slowly and incrementally taken off them, and it’s going to change. It’s going to change tonight when this bill gets unceremoniously dumped because it adds nothing, it does nothing, it would discriminate against hard-working employees, and it does nothing for chief executives and other employers.

It is changing. Life is changing, and there is no place for a bill that discriminates against working people, as this bill does. I look forward to the vote in the House tonight, to see this bill sent where it belongs: in the dustbin of history.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I also felt like applauding that last speech. The Green Party, too, is very pleased to continue to oppose this piece of legislation, rather prosaically named Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. I’ve got to say that the lack of elegance in the title is reflected in a lack of elegance in the intent and substance of this bill, unfortunately.

The bill, which is in the name of the National Party member Brett Hudson—normally, I would acknowledge the member for their initiative and luck at getting a bill drawn but, unfortunately, the member whose name this is in was neither the author of the bill nor the one whose name it was in when it was pulled, so I can’t do that. Actually, I do feel a little sorry for him, being stuck with this rather unfortunate bill that is about to, thankfully, go in the rubbish tin this evening.

This bill has been through the select committee process, and in part the bill was improved at the committee. The bill that was first sent to that select committee enabled the employers of people earning over $150,000 not to ever be at risk of having a personal grievance taken against them, even in cases of sexual or racial harassment. Anyone that has been following the world news around Harvey Weinstein and the many, many, many other cases of sexual harassment would recognise the significant risk that was in the bill as it was initially pulled. I do commend the select committee for ruling out removing that right of legal protection for victims of sexual harassment, but it does tell us something about the ideology behind this.

If we acknowledge the extent of the problem of sexual harassment in our workplaces and how it affects people—primarily women—in all strata of the income spectrum, then we actually have to fundamentally recognise that imbalance of power between an employer and a worker that is at the heart of what is so wrong with this piece of legislation. If we need to protect people and give them a right of redress for sexual harassment, then we need to actually acknowledge that they may well be at risk of other malpractice—and I use “mal” broadly—in the workplace.

It’s important, too, to recognise that New Zealand has the second-worst level of bullying in workplaces in the developed world. A survey that was done—I think, last year—found that one in five New Zealand workers had been subjected to bullying. There was a recent survey done this year of senior medical practitioners that also found exceptionally high levels of bullying in their workplaces. So if we are to get on top of that culture and ensure safety for everyone in the workplaces in New Zealand, we need ensure that people have clear avenues for raising those issues and being protected and being able to have redress when things go wrong, and this legislation erodes those protections and those incentives to build positive work environments. I wouldn’t have thought anyone in this House would want that.

I would also like to speak to some of the provisions that were mentioned by the previous speaker on the downside of what happened in select committee. My understanding is that the select committee made some changes that decided to exempt the employer from any obligation to provide the employee with any information about a decision to dismiss them. So now, if this law was to pass, an employer could dismiss somebody earning over $150,000 a year without even giving a reason for it. And the person they were dismissing would not even have the opportunity—which was another change that was made—to be able to comment before that decision was made. It’s just, if you think about that power relationship that we acknowledge—I think you have to acknowledge—exists, that imbalance, and then to remove the right to even get a reason for a dismissal or to be able to comment on that decision to dismiss, it’s pretty clear that this legislation is tipping the scales too far in favour of employers.

I think it was mentioned by a member of the Government side that this would apply only when people were on individual contracts, but my understanding is that in the select committee process there was the decision to enable employees to opt out even when otherwise part of a collective contract. So, again, the protections and efforts to establish a standard, and good employment culture and practice in a workplace, which is often done through a collective agreement, can be undermined by this piece of legislation.

The assumption that we’ve heard is that if somebody’s earning over $150,000 a year, then they’ll automatically have sufficient bargaining power and the necessary skills to negotiate in their own interests, even when we have a culture of severe workplace bullying, even when we’ve had so many cases come to public attention of sexual harassment in the workplace that are experienced by high-income earners. We’ve had those cases, and yet if somebody is—they may have the right to take a sexual harassment claim, but, on average, the Human Rights Commission gets only 50 complaints of sexual harassment a year in this country and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment doesn’t record that data. So, when we know we’ve got one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, we could expect that we have a much higher rate of sexual harassment, and we are not monitoring it and we do not have the systems in place to gather it, and here we are, looking—if that member had had his way—at changing the culture even more to make it more difficult for somebody to take a claim and to be able to be safe in their workplace. So I am very, very pleased indeed to be seeing this going into the rubbish bin.

I would just say, finally, that it is very pleasing to see and hear from members on the Government side, who are acknowledging that imbalance of power and our duty in this place to support positive workplace cultures and employment practices. That means setting some decent standards like we had when the personal grievance legislation was introduced, and protecting those standards so that we can actually make our workplaces that productive, enjoyable place where we all find meaning and get to contribute. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

I understand this is a split call. Andrew Bayly—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be talking to the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. This is, of course, a very interesting bill, and I’ve listened closely to the arguments that have been put forward tonight. I’ve got to say, listening to the Government’s side—and particularly from Labour and New Zealand First—looking through the arguments, I believe there’s a tendency to approach this bill purely from an ideological perspective; namely, they believe that the only type of employment contract that should be persuasive throughout New Zealand should be collective agreements. The second thing is that every employee should have the same type and conditions of employment. Thirdly, there’s a presumption that the State should impose these arrangements through the nature of employment laws that are in operation in New Zealand.

Personally, I’m not particularly persuaded by those arguments. Rather, I believe that we should be approaching this topic more from a principled position. I want to just raise five issues. The first one is: should some employees and employers be in a position to freely enter into arrangements? I note the point—and I just want to highlight the point—that it’s freely negotiated. There is no compulsion. I believe that it should. I believe this is almost a human rights issue and one that is appropriate for New Zealand. The second one is: do we have faith in our employment laws? As they currently stand, I do believe that we should have faith in our employment laws. They operate efficiently and effectively and have up to now.

The third issue I want to raise is: does the bill still adequately protect the rights of employees against illegitimate dismissal? I think there’s a little bit of confusion, and particularly that last speaker, Jan Logie, was particularly confused. The issue under the bill is that you can contract out only of unjustifiable dismissal. That’s the nature of the flexibility around this bill. What this bill does not allow you to contract out of is a whole raft of other issues that may relate to a personal grievance: namely, disadvantage, decriminalisation, sexual harassment, racial harassment, duress, and health and safety, as well as a couple of other provisions. So, in those cases, the employee is still at liberty to take an action against the employer if those situations occur.

Fourthly, does this bill create an element of power imbalance? I’ve heard some of the speakers—and particularly the former leader of the Labour Party—talk at length on this. I don’t believe that that is the case, for the following reasons: first of all, the nature of the employee that is involved in this discussion, and, obviously, it’s defined by an amount earning more than $150,000, which, as many people will know, represents only about 1 percent of all employees in the country.

Secondly, by implication and by association, I think it’s fair to assume those people in that lucky position to be earning more than $150,000 are often highly skilled people, have the ability to negotiate adequately on their behalf, and will willingly do so if they are given the opportunity.

Thirdly, the provisions around the bill require, first of all, if someone wishes to do this, that the employee first receive written advice—must get official advice—from a lawyer and that that lawyer has to certify in writing that they have provided advice to the employee around the nature of the liabilities that they may be entering into and the implications thereof. I think those elements are very, very important in terms of looking at the principles of this bill. I think the last thing is the protections that have been built into the bill around protecting further rights of employees. I think all that goes to make this a commendable bill and worth further discussion.

I call Marja Lubeck—five minutes.

I’m absolutely delighted to take this call on the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. I don’t really know where to start. I know I have only five minutes, but there’s been so much rubbish coming from the other side of the House that it’s really going to leave me short of breath if I want to get everything covered.

The previous speakers on our side of the House have already eloquently covered quite a few of the aspects I wanted to talk about, but we might have to repeat them a few times because they don’t seem to be able to get through their heads as to what is really important in those arguments. Andrew Bayly, the previous speaker, mentioned all of the provisions that you can still challenge a dismissal on. Well, they are only human rights, and just because you narrow a bill to only not be able to challenge an unfair dismissal doesn’t make it a good bill.

This bill, in practice, still lets people in the position of a redundancy, a medical incapacity, or an alleged misconduct when it results in a dismissal be not allowed to challenge that dismissal. Somehow, the argument seems to be that you can consider earning $150,000 a proxy, but for what? The member for Helensville mentioned the proxy. He didn’t actually really explain what that proxy does. Well, I can explain what it doesn’t do. The proxy doesn’t actually take away the complete imbalance of power in the employment relationship.

Section 3 of the Employment Relations Act specifically states that there is an inherent inequality of power, and just taking that away with this bill is completely unacceptable. You can’t just say someone has a choice and that it’s voluntary whether or not you’re going to take up the option of waiving your rights to fair justice and access to justice.

You know, I live in the real world. I’ve worked in the real world. I’ve seen hundreds of instances where people were dealing with that inequality of the power relationship, and they were at the receiving end of it. I can only imagine that had they waived their rights at the beginning of the relationship, when they hadn’t put their mind to the fact that they might get into a situation where they lose their job, they would have been in really, really dire straits.

So saying that people have an option just because they start a new job and can then say, “Oh look, you know, maybe I’ll never get in trouble, whether it’s my fault or someone else’s fault, and maybe I’ll never need this provision.” is totally unfair to a brand new employee. Firstly, they probably don’t put their minds to that fact. Most people that start a new job are starting it very optimistically—like we are here—and very passionately. They never ever think they’re going to get in trouble, whether it’s their own fault or someone else’s, and so that is totally unfair to that person. Secondly, the person that has offered to waive their rights to fair justice or access to justice is in a very pressured environment where there may be other interviewees for that same job that are prepared to waive their rights. So that, again, puts undue pressure on them.

What this bill does, and someone asked—actually, I think it was the member for Helensville who asked, “How is this bill undermining?” If you’ve worked and lived in the real world, you’ve seen those instances of how this bill would be undermining. [Interruption] And, if you give me a second, I will explain it to you. But I guess you don’t want to hear it because it has already been told to you, but you still don’t get it. So, basically, what it means is that employees will be silenced at work regarding concerns they may have, whether that is bullying—and we just heard from the member from the Green Party that that is a massive concern in New Zealand. Whether it is bullying, harassment, equal pay issues, or health and safety concerns, anything that could be considered criticism—even constructive criticism—will go underground. It will stifle workplace engagement and undermine the open, transparent, communicative, and engaged workplace culture that we on this side of the House promote.

Your bill has been called “a dog of a bill”—I read it in the Hansard of the first reading. That’s exactly what it is, and that’s why we oppose it. It’s a clear sign of how much the previous Government disregarded working people’s rights and of how much they were an anti-worker Government. Thank you to all New Zealanders who voted for a change of Government, so that this Government can get to work, reverse the undermining effects made to working people’s conditions we’ve seen over the last nine years, and get some good stuff going on improving things.

Well, that member, Marja Lubeck, hasn’t read the bill. That member has not read the bill. This bill affects only those who are earning over $150,000, for a start. That member earns over $150,000, and is able and capable of negotiating her own contract with any employer. I know she can, I believe she can, I trust she can, because I believe that those people who are earning over $150,000 have the ability and the capability to understand the contracts that they are entering into. In fact, I believe people who earn less than $150,000 also have the ability, the capability, the understanding to negotiate their employment contract.

And, yes, the previous speaker was right: there is pressure from employers on employees—to say, “Are you in or are you not? Do you want to do this or do you want that? Do you want the car? Do you want the superannuation as part of your benefit? Do you want $150,000 or $160,000?” That’s just the way the market works. That’s the way employment contracts work on an individual basis.

See, the difference between that side and this side is this side believes people have the capability, the understanding, the wherewithal to negotiate for themselves. We have trust in the individual. That side thinks that the people of New Zealand, particularly those who are earning over $150,000, are idiots. They don’t understand the contracts that they might enter into! They need the goodness of the Labour Party to help them out negotiating their individual employment contracts! Now, we are all earning over $150,000, and I believe most of us—no, let’s just say all of us, to give the benefit of the doubt—are capable of negotiating with a counter-party an agreement, and I’m talking about employer-employee agreements.

Coming to a couple of points Iain Lees-Galloway made—he had not read the bill, either. The fundamental difference here—

💬 Brett Hudson: He sat on the committee, and he hadn’t read the bill.

But he chose, and I am going to get to choice again, not to read and understand the workings of the bill—the amended bill, after it had gone through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. There were a number of changes that occurred in the select committee, and that was a good process, and I acknowledge the select committee work from both sides in improving the bill. It did need some work, and it has been worked on, and there are some good improvements.

But the fundamental problem Mr Iain Lees-Galloway has is that he does not understand that this is a choice for the employee. There is no obligation. There is no obligation to enter into this agreement. There is no obligation for the employer to force compulsorily the employee to join and create this agreement. It is an option. It is an option. It’s like cream on the cake. It’s like something you can have that you don’t have to have. It’s like dessert. You can have your main meal, you can have a good feed and be looked after well, but this option gives you the dessert—the cream on the cake—if you choose to indulge. That is the fundamental difference that that side has chosen not to listen to. They hear it, but they have chosen not to listen to it.

Now, the way I look at it, it’s like a prenup. Imagine a prenup. Now, that’s an option for those who—[Interruption] It is exactly that. It is an agreement to join together in an employment contract, but you are able, as you are in a marriage situation, to arrange for yourself a prenup, just in case it hits the fan, things don’t work out, and you choose not to be part of—whatever the marriage—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Relationship property Act, mate.

Thank you—the Property (Relationships) Act. You can write this—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I would just caution the member about relevance. Thank you.

Well, my analogy, Madam Assistant Speaker, was that a prenup is the same deal, in going into the Property (Relationships) Act, as this option to create an agreement between the employer and the employee outside of the Employment Relations Act. That’s all that is. It’s just a choice. It’s an option. It’s something that individuals can choose to do if they’re both willing and agreeable—both willing and agreeable. So they’re both here and they’re coming together and they are agreeing. That is the fundamental problem that Mr Iain Lees-Galloway has with this bill, because he has chosen to ignore that fundamental fact.

Just remember, if one is concerned about one party or another, that both parties have to consult—well, at least the employee; correct me if I’m wrong. But they have to take legal advice. They must take legal advice to be part of this mutually agreeable agreement. They can’t just stroll in and, somehow, one be coerced by the other to enter into this agreement. They must take independent legal advice. And, of course, if you’ve got independent legal advice, you’d think that legal advice would be advocating for the employee’s interests—the best interests of the lawyer’s client, the employee. That is also a fundamental point that no one on that side has chosen to read and understand and accept.

Now, coming to some of the points Jan Logie made—I think they were good points, and this is reflecting some of the work that was done in the select committee—it was noted that section 103 the Employment Relations Act 2000, which is what this bill affects directly; the bill should only apply to 103(1)(a). That is what has changed, and that’s the process that went through the select committee, and the result is that those things that are—the employee is still protected from discrimination against the employee, from being discriminated against in the employer’s employment, or from sexual harassment, racial harassment, duress, or being biased against because one is a member of a union. That has been absolutely protected—paragraphs (b) to (j) are totally untouched, totally unaffected by this bill. It only affects section 103(1)(a), and that relates to “that the employee has been unjustifiably dismissed;”, and that is the point. It’s a very narrow part of the Employment Relations Act 2000. It’s only a very narrow part.

There is consent from both sides to opt out, just as there is in a prenup. There’s legal advice that must be taken to ensure that both parties are protected, and the bill enables those who wish to enter into this arrangement to do so. That’s a great thing. Isn’t that a great thing, that people are able to do what they wish to do? They don’t need some nanny State to say, “You are not able to do this. You will take away the State.” That side of the House chooses to take away the option that an individual can have, with an agreement or a relationship with their employer, and that is unfortunate. That is extremely unfortunate.

So this is a very—

💬 Brett Hudson: Tell us how unfortunate.

It is so very unfortunate. Iain Lees-Galloway was right that I advocated and questioned—I asked the question in select committee: is $150,000 the right amount? Is that the right number to consider people able, to be with the capability of, to have the understanding of, and to have the ability to choose for themselves whether to opt in or out of this legislation? And I questioned that, because I think $150,000—personally, I think it’s too high. I think anyone should be opt in or opt out of this—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Rubbish.

Well, you might say “Rubbish.”, but you’re not reading the bill, Mr McAnulty. You have not even listened to a single word I’ve just said about the protections that this bill gives to all employees, whether they’re earning $150,000, $200,000, or $250,000. Those protections are in place, and that is why—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Forgive my ignorance as a newer member of this House, but my understanding of these debates is that the time must be spent debating new information and you’ve got 10 minutes to express new points. However, throughout the course of these 10 minutes, we’ve heard of matters that are completely irrelevant, including the Property (Relationships) Act, and the member just came back to that point now.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I thank the member for her intervention. I will allow the member to continue with his speech if he so wishes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It would be a fine thing if those members on the other side actually read the bill and understood the protections that the bill afforded to all employees, notwithstanding the amount that they earn. I commend this bill to the House.

It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on this Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. This bill was introduced back in 2013, but I am so very, very thankful that it did not make it back to this House until we had a Government in place that actually cares about employees’ rights, so that it can be voted down—and it will be voted down tonight.

This is shambolic. At what point is it OK to take away a person’s choice, because, effectively, that is what this bill does? You might say that they may or may not contract out, but when you need that job, you will take that job, and there will be an imbalance of power—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Takes the choice away.

Absolutely. Employment contracts are a type of relationship agreement. It’s about trust, and an employee should be able to trust that their employer will act in good faith, and this bill completely takes that away. Why should what you earn dictate the rights that you have in the workplace? This Government believes that access to justice is a fundamental right, and a good employer-employee relationship should be about having the ability to negotiate, to have discussions like adults, and to have the ability to work through issues, whether it be through mediation or through a personal grievance process. Surely, having the option to listen to each other’s point of view is a good thing and could actually work towards solving issues. All employees need to have the ability to take a personal grievance; otherwise, we will just see a complete imbalance of power.

So what this bill proposes, it’s ridiculous. Only certain employees would be able to take a personal grievance, based on their pay rate, and I find that unfathomable. I’m an employer—a living-wage employer, at that—and I would never ever agree to having this in any of my contracts for my staff.

💬 Marja Lubeck: No, you don’t—she’s a good employer.

No, and why? Because I value my staff, I value their contribution to my business, and I value their rights as employees. This completely misses the mark when it comes to the “higher earners” argument. This is not just affecting middle or senior management. Think about doctors, lawyers, etc., who should all be able to speak out freely without fear of losing their employment. Also, people working in dangerous jobs—long hours; hard, unsociable hours, at that—they’re not necessarily in a better position to negotiate their contracts just because of their earnings.

This bill is ridiculous. Ninety-day trials already took away people’s rights to take a personal grievance in 2009, and this just extends on that further again. This side of the House will not support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It gives me pleasure to speak on the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. Well, that was quite a mouthful in itself. I want to, firstly, congratulate the member Scott Simpson, who drew this bill initially, because just to draw something out of a ballot takes a bit, so, I guess, from that perspective, he needs to be congratulated on that.

I also want to congratulate the member Brett Hudson, who picked this bill up from Scott Simpson, took it on, took it through the select committee—a select committee, ironically, that no longer exists, funnily enough. So whether they did such a poor job of this bill, or what happened, “Huddo”—whether you destroyed them, I’m not sure; but the very good Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which was at the time chaired by Jonathan Young, no longer exists. But, none the less, the bill got through the select committee and has now come back to the House for its second reading.

I guess there are a few points I want to make. One is that I think it’s disappointing that the members on the other side of the House have chosen to misrepresent what the bill’s intentions were. Whether I agree with those intentions or not is irrelevant. I think the point is that if you’re going to speak on a bill in this House, you really should represent what that bill is about. So I think—sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker, I didn’t really need to bring you into that at all. That was very bad. But I do think that it’s necessary to at least address the factors in this bill.

This bill, for me, is really about personal responsibility and enabling those people who feel they are capable of, I guess, addressing a situation of arranging their own employment relationships—it’s about giving them the opportunity to do that. One of the conditions of that bill is if they’re paid over $150,000 a year, which I think is pretty significant. Ironically, when you look around this House, and we’re all paid that amount, I wonder whether we’d all be capable of negotiating our own contract. I have come to the conclusion—probably not. But we don’t have to. As Andrew Bayly says, we don’t have to because this bill was entirely voluntary. It allowed people, on a voluntary basis, to enter a contract in good faith, with an employer.

I want to get to a few points that were raised by some of the Government speakers, or I guess the speakers in opposition to the bill, in a moment. As I said, it seemed to me that $150,000 was a lot of money. Ironically, it’s raining out there tonight. It’s the first time it’s rained since this Government has come to power, and I think that’s quite interesting. But from the farmers’ point of view, there’s not too many of them that get paid $150,000 a year. They may well be pleased with that rain. Hopefully, it’s raining in some other parts of New Zealand.

I want to speak about some of the points that Iain Lees-Galloway mentioned. I guess I take exception to the way he addressed this side of the House and spent his whole speech, basically, accusing this side of the House of undermining workers’ rights. I heard the last speaker, Jo Luxton, talk about the fact that she’s an employer. I’ve spent my life—and I don’t call myself an employer—working with people in all sorts of industries. I don’t recall a time, for a start, where I’ve ever paid someone the minimum wage, so I’m on her side on that. But I also think that most of the people that I’ve worked with in my lifetime are quite capable of negotiating their own contracts. They’re also quite capable of being looked after. I think it’s an employer’s responsibility—if you call yourself an employer—to look after workers in whatever environment they’re in.

I guess I don’t believe for a minute that I would call myself a worker if I was on $150,000. I’d be calling myself something else. Andrew Little spent the whole of his speech talking about workers under instruction. Well, I don’t think workers, as I know them, are under instruction. If you’ve got a successful business, workers are going to work with you. They’re not going to work under instruction all their life. If you’ve got people under instruction, they’re eventually going to rebel. I don’t blame them, frankly. I think that’s how the world works. So I take exception to the fact that both of those Ministers spent their whole speeches, basically, accusing this side of the House of undermining workers’ rights for the last nine years that this Government was in office. That’s certainly not the case.

An interesting point about the last nine years is that in those nine years those workers incomes or household incomes, ironically, increased by 50 percent.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Rubbish! Flat line.

It’s not a white lie. That’s a fact. You should read the paper as well as the bill. So that’s a very interesting point. They haven’t even read their own information, and I think that’s a bit of a tragedy too.

Whether you agree with this kind of legislation or not I think is irrelevant. I think the point is that we all have the same aspiration in this House, and our aspiration is to create a better life for people—give people an opportunity to grow in whatever they do in life. If some people voluntarily want to accept a contract where they can negotiate their own terms, their own entry and exit, and, I guess, their own life, to some extent, then I think we should give those people that opportunity.

That, for me—and I had no part in the select committee or in the early debates on this bill—I think, from my observation of this bill, is what it was intended to create. It was certainly not compulsory. I think it’s people’s right at a point in life to negotiate, and the point in life that’s been picked in this bill—and whether you agree with that or not is another thing as well—was $150,000. I think it’s essential that we allow people that right. We’re not compulsorily making them do something. We’re not trying to, as Andrew Little and Iain Lees-Galloway both said, undermine the worker or take workers’ rights away. The whole intention of this bill is to try and enable people to get a contract together that allows them to work in an environment that they could enjoy and have some control over. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that when you’re in charge of your own destiny, you’ve actually got some control over your life. You’re not relying on someone else to control it for you.

I think the comment of Jan Logie was that this legislation is designed to suck the lifeblood out of the workplace. That’s absolute nonsense. I think that, clearly, that’s a misrepresentation of the intention of the bill. It’s a misrepresentation of the intention of the two people that brought this bill to the House. I think they did an outstanding job of putting the bill together. As I said earlier, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to agree with the principle of it or agree with everything that happens in it. In this place, we don’t always get to have a say on every part of the legislation that we end up passing. That’s just how a democracy works.

The scale of the job is far too big for us as MPs to be enabled to participate in every part of the putting together of a bill. So some things will always come through, in the course of a bill, that we don’t necessarily like, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the job of this House to pass legislation for the betterment of as many people as we possibly can.

Earlier in my life, I spent some time as a mayor. Ironically, you find a lot of the challenges, or the biggest challenges that I’ve seen in the workplace, relate to Government departments, to public entities. Interestingly, as a mayor you have a chief executive who employs people, and a lot of them are on this sort of a salary. But you have a chief executive who employs people, who then can’t get into the arbitration because they’re directly conflicted. As a mayor you can often end up in arbitration around contracts like this. I, frankly, didn’t enjoy it that much. I think it’s a very difficult situation to be in.

So I can see the point that Brett Hudson brought, when he brought this bill to the House. If you have a contract between two people, it’s very easy to resolve it; the moment you get to arbitration it becomes extremely difficult and, I think, actually, quite challenging. So I think the intention of this bill was to give workers, as Iain Lees-Galloway and Andrew Little called them—I call them something different; probably people—going into employment an opportunity to negotiate their own place in life.

I think, to sum it up, Mr Speaker—I see we’ve had a change since I started. I guess we get to the point where—I think there’s two things. I support the intention of this bill. I object to the fact that we’ve been accused of undermining workers’ rights for the last nine years. I think that’s certainly not what’s gone on. As I said earlier, we’ve got a 50 percent increase in household incomes in those nine years, so we haven’t done too badly. I personally object to the fact that we’re tarred, I guess, with undermining those rights of workers. I think that’s very unfair. I think the previous Government has done a pretty good job in relation to a lot of these things, and created an environment where both employees and employers can enjoy a pretty reasonable sort of a life. So that’s my contribution to this bill. I commend it to the House. May it go wherever it goes.

Amendments recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by majority agreed to.