Fair Pay Agreements Bill

We come now to Part 10, the debate on clauses 204 to 228, “Institutions”, and also Schedule 3, “Application of provisions in Employment Relations Act 2000 relating to Employment Relations Authority”. The question is that Part 10 stand part.

We now come to a particularly iniquitous part of the legislation, clause 218, where we find that the authority may fix terms of the proposed agreement—in fact, they must. So this lays out the legislation where—let’s just run through the logic of it. People are minding their own business, working away either as an employee or owning a small business—an employer minding their own business—and happy with their work, happy with the agility and flexibility that it brings, and lo and behold, a small, tiny group can start a process for this misnamed fair pay agreement process which, once it starts, it never stops. The two sides are forced to engage. If the employers and the employees come up with an agreement, and then the employers, for example, don’t vote for it, they don’t support it, or they decide that they’re not going to engage, they don’t want to engage, what happens?

Well, what happens is, under clause 218, it goes to the authority—the Employment Relations Authority—who are, no doubt, good-spirited Kiwi people doing their best but I don’t think possess unique wisdom and the ability to make correct decisions at every moment. This authority will fix the terms of the proposed agreement. So what we’ve got is an extraordinary circumstance where they will have the power not currently available to courts to fix the terms of large numbers of employees, without input from employers. So what happens is they just decide what it’s going to be, and, if you don’t like it, tough luck, that’s how it’s going to be. And they’re given enormous powers—Eastern European - sized powers—to decide what is going to be in the agreements. And so that’s why we call this bill the “Mandatory Union Deals Bill”, because it is mandatory, you don’t get a choice; it happens.

I mean, just think about the practicalities of this. I mean, retail, for example, there’s an organisation called Retail New Zealand. They’re not employment negotiators. Their role up until now has been to sort of give input into legislation that’s going on. They sort of lobby on behalf of the organisation, they help inform them of what’s going on, they give advice from time to time, but now they might want to set up a whole new agency to negotiate fair pay agreements. They might decide it’s not worth it. And they might only represent half the retailers or some of the retailers, and there are thousands of little retailers out there. I don’t know how far it goes—whether it includes the poor kids who are sort of running a lemon squeeze stall on the street; they’re retailers, but I presume they’re not incorporated. I don’t know about all the dozens and tens of dozens of little caravan people at the farmer’s markets on the weekends—I don’t know whether they’re included, but there are lots of them and they’re selling their little sort of mandarins and things on a Sunday—whether they’re included.

But certainly anybody that has a store—whether it’s Michael Hill, if they’re not getting ram-raided or smashed-and-grabbed—they’re retailers. So all of these disparate groups of people minding their own business, doing their own thing, suddenly have to decide to join forces into an employer’s side of a debate. And they might decide, quite rightly, that they don’t want to; they’ve got better things to do with their life and they’re not going to and they’re not going to be bullied by this Government to do it. But then, the Government comes along and says, “Well, tough luck. We’re going to have the authority set the terms and conditions: what you’re going to pay, how much you’re going to pay.” And the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety will turn around and say, “Oh, well, what are you worried about? There’s a minimum wage in place now, they have to do it. This is no different.” Well, it is different. It’s in addition—it’s on top—and it takes it to another level. It raises the level, raises the base higher. And it includes a whole lot of different areas: whether it’s health and safety briefings, whether it’s research and development, whether it’s superannuation; a whole bunch of things. It lifts up—that’s the purpose of it all is to increase, fundamentally, the pay to workers and their conditions, and inevitably the costs to employers.

Now, when you get back to the fundamentals of all this, we want to see our employees paid more—of course we want New Zealanders to be paid more—but it can’t be based on legislative fiat or just simply the decisions of judges. Ultimately, if it wants to be sustainable, it has to be based on productivity and in competitiveness. And so I suppose the fundamental question I have for the Minister is: why does he think it’s appropriate that the Employment Relations Authority has these new powers currently not available to the courts to fix the terms of large numbers of employees without input from the employers? And is this not an overreach in any judicial terms? And I believe it is, but he might have a better argument, and I’d love to hear it if he does. I think I’ll leave it at that for the time being.

I’m happy to address the couple of points the member the Hon Paul Goldsmith makes in respect of clause 218. There are a couple of points in which he is, point of fact, wrong.

The member claims that the Employment Relations Authority—firstly, the authority rather than the court—does not currently have these abilities. The Employment Relations Authority does currently have the ability to determine collective agreements. It has not been exercised often, but it is a power they have and has recently been exercised. In respect of the ability and capabilities to undertake these duties, the Government has provided specific resourcing the Employment Relations Authority to be able to do so.

The member also claims that clause 218 will function “without the input of employers”. That is not accurate; clause 218 will occur when there has been, effectively, a breakdown—some sort of a stalemate—within the bargaining process. The authority, in determining terms, will take representation from both bargaining sides in this process.

When the member claims that this is “Eastern European”, I’d suggest it’s more like something out of East Sydney. This process is, if anything, comparable to the Fair Work Commission in Australia, which, actually, in some respects, has greater powers in which it determines the minimum terms and conditions across whole sectors without there haven’t been the proceeding bargaining process, as we have proposed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m interested in at which stage the authority might be brought in. I didn’t feel that there was a lot of indication given on this other than the bargaining sides having exhausted all other reasonable alternatives for reaching agreement or for a reasonable period using their best endeavours to identify.

I think back to some of the negotiations that I had over the 23 years that I was negotiating with what was originally the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education and then the Tertiary Education Union. They can be very long and drawn out; I think, in one instance, we went on for two years. And so I’m just interested to know from the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: will the authority tell the parties to go back again if the authority doesn’t feel it has been long enough? What sort of examples could the Minister give of having exhausted all other reasonable alternatives? What length of time might the Minister expect? And, I guess, what sort of incentives and disincentives this might give to either hurry along the negotiations or, conversely, to draw them out if people feel that if they keep refusing to come to any sort of an agreement, then the authority might come in. I guess that there’ll be some precedents set over time, and then each party will get a feel for whether it’s advantageous for them to drag the negotiations on or not.

So I could see the terms that the authority may fix. I could see that they can only make it if they make the determination if they’re satisfied that this impasse had been reached. But I didn’t get any real sense of what would be the threshold. And also, obviously, if there’s been a deliberate or serious breach in the duties of good-faith bargaining—although, good-faith bargaining has been notoriously difficult to actually quantify and decide what is good and what isn’t good-faith bargaining.

So, yeah, I think it would just be useful if we could get a sense from the Minister when he thinks that the authority being involved in making a determination might be triggered, if he has a sense of the timing. Bearing in mind that these now are agreements that are going across the country and across a wide range of employers and employees, and so going backwards and forth, those that are negotiating might think that they are going down the track that is reasonable. And then when they have to go back to their respective constituents might find that that is not found acceptable by the majority of them. So, you know, I can see this being a much longer process.

Thinking back again to the processes I’ve been involved in, it was relatively straightforward but not that straightforward—the union having to go back to the staff in the local polytechnic—but then, as you’ve got different branches across the country, it got more difficult. And so I can see this becoming very convoluted, trying to go back and get, in a timely way, feedback from so many different employees and so many different employers. So, surely, this sort of length of time that might have traditionally been considered that you’ve got to an impasse might actually be considerably longer under a fair pay agreement negotiation, because there are just so many more moving parts and so many more people to consult with and get feedback from. So perhaps if the Minister could give a bit more clarity on how he sees that playing out.

I’m very happy to respond to some of the questions from the member Penny Simmonds. In respect of her last question, she is correct that a fair pay agreement process, with all things being equal, is likely to take longer than a single-employer collective employment agreement bargaining process. That is one of the reasons why we have set the term of a fair pay agreement to be between three and five years, as compared to collective agreements which are between one and three years under the Employment Relations Act, to acknowledge that there is a bit more time involved in the bargaining process.

I do note, in respect of the member’s questions more generally, that “fixing” under clause 218 is a step that will only really occur after quite a lot has already happened: after the parties have been involved in good-faith bargaining for a reasonable time, after reasonable efforts have been made to try and work through the issues themselves, and after one of the parties themselves makes an application to the authority.

There are a couple of important parts within that that go to questions the member asked. As to what is a reasonable time, that will always be fact-specific, dependent on the particular nature of that bargaining, its complexity, the relationships between the parties, and a judgment that the authority will make. I note that this clause 218 is only triggered if a party applies for it, so, by definition, things have got to a point where a party believe that they are just not going to make any further headway by engaging in direct bargaining. That is quite a high threshold. Any party that wants to trigger that is, effectively, themselves recognising that they will no longer have the direct role in helping to set the terms and conditions. So I think a party on either side is only likely to undertake that step if they genuinely believe that the current bargaining process has become relatively fruitless and non-constructive.

The member asks whether the authority can, effectively, make the parties go back and try and work it out further. I direct the member to clause 216, which identifies that the authority must direct use of mediation before making determination of recommendation. So the authority, as it does under the existing Employment Relations Act, has the ability to say to the parties, “Go back to mediation.”, or “Go back to other dispute resolution mechanisms before we will take this issue further.” That’s set out fairly comprehensively in clause 216.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It was 11 May, last year, when the Prime Minister said that “We anticipate we may have three or four of these fair pay agreements”, and it’s become quite obvious, through the debate and over the last wee while, that the unions are gearing up for—quite a few of them are, and so we’re going to have a real influx. At this stage, if I can get the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety to have a look at the tabled amendment 228BI(2), restriction on applying for determination, and the authority may not make any determination on any issue that is currently before the authority—the Employment Relations Authority (ERA), an independent body determining fair pay agreement—where there is, effectively, only one bargaining party that may make decisions on employment matters that are otherwise being heard in other cases. And this clause would remove the likelihood of parties using fair pay agreements in other industries to try and force decisions on other cases that are currently going on before the ERA—if you consider that, thanks.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to get the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety’s view on a number of questions in regard to clauses 208 and 209 under Subpart 2, “Bargaining support services”, as part of Part 10.

My questions—there are about three questions, actually—are in regards to those clauses, and the first aspect is in regards to clause 208, which notes that “A person who wishes to access bargaining support services must contact an office of the department that deals with employment relations issues.” I guess, just building on the comments from my colleague from the ACT Party previously, I think the reality is that we’re going to see a significant increase in volumes in this space. I mean, it’s pretty hard to envisage a scenario where we’re going to get—what was it?—three or four. I think that was reasonably wishful thinking.

But on the basis that we’re going to see a significant increase in volume in regards to this—particularly in rural and provincial New Zealand, where we’ve got a large number of our small businesses that do not have access, potentially, to the support available in urban areas—my question, really, is in regards to what consideration, in regards to clauses 208 and 209, the Minister and officials have given in regards to the provision of support to enable access to those bargaining support services over and above what is currently available. What assessment, if any, has been undertaken in order to quantify, potentially, where they deem the volume and the complexity of those queries to arise geographically and in contrast to the complexities, I think, that are going to evolve from businesses that haven’t been part of this process previously.

You’re going to have a large number of businesses that will be entering into this arrangement that previously would not have been captured because of the legislation and, therefore, that’s going to have a change impact in regards to volume on the departmental services. So a little bit of understanding and clarity in regards to that assessment would be useful.

I guess, the question that logically follows from the conversation around the capacity of the system to be able to deal with an increase in volume is in regards to, you know, the good old thing—and, no surprise, I’ll be raising it—of what are the costs, right? I mean, what’s the implication for the taxpayer in regards to that? Has any assessment been undertaken? Again, I’ve had a review so as not to waste time: is there any assessment for that in the documentation? There isn’t, so hence the question.

Lastly, my question relates to individuals. When I talk about access to those services in particular, the reality of this legislation is we’re going to capture a huge number, or a much wider overview in terms of individuals that are impacted by the legislation. I’m particularly interested for those individuals that have disabilities and those who have intellectual disabilities. I know that my colleague Penny Simmonds noted earlier on in the conversation today around her visit to Abilities Group, which is a disabilities employer on Auckland’s North Shore which employs nearly 200 individuals with intellectual disabilities. They do an absolutely sterling job both for people with disabilities but also for the provision of sustainable employment. My concern about legislation such as this is that while the intent is what it is, the unintended consequences of such legislation in regards to people that are particularly at risk and don’t have the capability that, potentially, other individuals would have in regards to their advocacy under clause 208 in regards to the provision or to obtaining support services—I mean, how is that going to be factored in? You are going to be dealing with a different cohort and a much broader cohort of individuals in regards to this legislation, and I’m really keen to understand what is the depth of thinking that has gone on in regards to that.

Madam Chair, I’ve got a couple more questions, but I think I’ll do those three at the moment, and I’ll come back again. Thank you.

Clause 209 is an important part of Part 10 relating to institutions, because it is about providing proactive support to parties to navigate what is a new process for everyone.

I can provide assurance to all members of the committee that, through decisions taken by the Government in Budget 2021 and Budget 2022, t the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has been provided with resourcing to be able to provide good support. That is via information and education, via specialist support services to ensure that there will be active support and advice available to people before they enter into the fair pay agreement (FPA) process, but also to be able to provide support to people who are actively involved in the bargaining process as well. That is described in clause 209(2), which talks about the different ways in which MBIE will provide that support.

I’m not entirely sure that I do agree with the member Simon Watts that they’ll be a broader cohort than MBIE currently provides support to. MBIE currently provides—through its Employment New Zealand services—support to a very, very wide cross-section of society across both employers and employees, dealing with issues in collective and individual employment relationships. I don’t know if it’ll necessarily be wider, but it will be very important and will need to be specific to FPAs under the terms of clause 209.

Those services are provided quite flexibly, so I’m comfortable that they will work for people in different locales around New Zealand. The services provided by MBIE—including mediation; Employment Relations Authority services—do work on a circuit basis but also increasingly be flexible in terms of phone-based service and the use of Zoom to provide support to people as well.

So, yes, in respect of clauses 208 and 209, I agree with the member that those services will be important for the relatively smooth roll-out of this new process. But I am confident that the range of services that are described in this part, and then have them backed with support from the Government, will considerably assist parties.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question relates both to my last question and also to my colleague Simon Watts’ question. Minister, I’m still trying to get my head around the scale of this, and, no doubt, with your union experience, you will be similarly trying to get your head around the scale. So, therefore, the question I asked last time was very genuine, around what sort of time-scale you thought might elapse before the Employment Relations Authority was brought in by the parties to fix terms. I keep looking back to the times of negotiations and having to deal with perhaps 300-odd staff and the length of time it could take to ensure that the feedback had been received, and that particularly as negotiations go on and people within the negotiating room feel that they’ve sort of traversed all the issues, but then having to go back and sell it to the constituents of each of the respective parties.

I just am really struggling with the sort of time frame that is going to occur here, particularly, as you’ve said, the new processes, the supports, the information, and the education. I recall one of the submissions actually referred to the amount of money that was put aside in the Budget for it, and it seemed a really minor amount in comparison to the numbers that might need to access that support and whether the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, in fact, would have the capacity to provide that support. Because we’ve spent weeks and months going through this, but when this finally is thrust upon employers and employees, that’s when the rubber is going to hit the road and they really will want to know the details of it.

So I didn’t feel that in your answer to my previous question, you gave a real indication of the time frames that we might be looking at for these negotiations to take place, but I wonder if you could just give a little bit more thought to that so that when employers and employees are looking at this process, they understand. Because I think it would be very unfortunate if they go in thinking, “Oh, negotiations will take place, and six months or a year later it might all be done and dusted.”, when, in fact, everything, in terms of the complexity, the newness, the scale of this legislation, and this intent, points to it going on for years, and they may be bitterly disappointed with it. I think back to the Tertiary Education Union and how bitterly disappointed they are after three years and the Reform of Vocational Education process and the Te Pūkenga process. So they went in with very high expectations of everything being wonderful and are now realising that it’s not nearly as wonderful as they thought.

The other part that I wanted to have a wee look at was the effect of the authority fixing the terms. So having gone through the big process, everyone’s had time to be educated and supported and got the information and maybe it’s sort of four years down the track and the negotiations have hit an impasse and most of the employers and employees have forgotten that the process even started back four years ago—although, hopefully, this won’t happen, because we’ll come in and repeal the legislation. However, hypothetically looking at this, four years down the track, the authority is fixing the terms. And they aren’t required, obviously, to submit to the authority for a compliance assessment, but they must be assessed for coverage overlap under clause 135(2). So I look back to clause 135(2) and the assessment for coverage overlap is done by the authority, so the authority will fix the terms and then the authority will assess the terms the authority has fixed to see whether there is coverage overlap. What’s the check and balance around that if the authority’s actually setting fixing the terms and then doing the assessment as well?

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this pernicious bill. On clause 207, in Part 10 Subpart 2: “Bargaining support services”, I have to admit I’m confused. When I first looked at this, and I had a chat with my colleague Simon Watts here, I couldn’t really believe this—207(1): “The chief executive must employ or engage persons to provide bargaining support services to support the following parties: (a) a union”. I thought that’s what unions did. I thought they were bargaining support. Why do they need support to do that? I find that extraordinary. If I were a union member, I’d be pretty annoyed that I was paying a fee to belong to a union to provide bargaining support and they have to have support services to provide that service. I think it’s extraordinary. It would be very poor value for money.

I think this really highlights one of the issues with this bill: it’s almost cartel-esque. You’re setting up an organisation that has extraordinary powers. It’s kind of rent seeking, really. It doesn’t have to actually earn its living, because it’s prescribed in legislation. It doesn’t have to perform that well and have the people that are capable of carrying out that task professionally and at a high level, because, actually, they don’t need to, because they’re going to get support anyway. I can understand a bargaining party—is that to provide support services for people who have someone who’s bargaining for them, to ensure that they are getting good value for money? Are they actually getting what they want out of it? I think there’s a lot of explanation that’s required here.

It goes on, in clause 207(2), to say “Bargaining support services may include services that—(aa) help a union or employer association to understand the requirements to become a bargaining party”—extraordinary. It’s even more confusing the more you read into this bill.

💬 Hon Member: Keep reading.

Well, I will keep reading. It goes on to say—that was (aa)—“(a) help bargaining sides to understand the process for bargaining”. Well, that’s going to take a while—isn’t it?—a professional union being helped to understand the process for bargaining. I think that’s a doozy. It must have taken a lot of research to put this clause together. Then clause 207(2)(b) is “support bargaining sides throughout the process of bargaining”. Why don’t they just do it for them? Why have the union in the first place, if you’ve got this chief executive providing bargaining support services that are going to support the bargaining sides throughout the process of bargaining? It is quite extraordinary.

Clause 207(2)(c): “Support bargaining sides to ensure that bargaining is constructive and efficient”. Well, this is very prescriptive, isn’t it? And then clause 207(2)(d): “assist bargaining sides to understand the content requirements for a proposed agreement or a proposed variation”. Well, that would be helpful, I suppose. If you’re going to be bargaining on something, you would want to understand what you’re bargaining for. I guess that would be the case. Perhaps the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety might like to explain that. But it really is quite strange. I thought I’d heard everything in this debate, but that’s not the case. And clause 207(2)(e) is “assist in resolving any conflict within or between bargaining sides that are bargaining.” Well, I wouldn’t be surprised, after all that, if they’re not totally confused and they’ll need a lot of help to understand what’s going on.

And then clause 207(3): “A person employed or engaged to provide bargaining support services under this section may also be employed or engaged to provide mediation services under section 204 of this Act or under section 144 of the Employment Relations Act 2000.” So, essentially, what we find from clause 207 is there’s probably very little need for any unions, because it’s all going to be provided by the chief executive, who will appoint someone to do it for them.

If I can respond to comments from Penny Simmonds and Stuart Smith. I have already responded to a number of her questions around the phrase “reasonable time frame” that is used here. I’ll just, I guess, restate that the reason that “reasonable time frame” is used rather than “a fixed period of time” is for exactly the reason that she states: that there will be a variety of different fair pay agreements (FPAs) that are negotiated that will include different numbers of parties and different levels of complexity, and so it seems to us that the most appropriate thing to do is to give the Employment Relation Authority some flexibility to consider what a reasonable time frame is, and that will potentially differ depending on the circumstances at play. So that is the reason that that is in there. I note there are a number of other factors upon which a determination can occur, as well.

I do note her comment that the resources provided by the Government to support bargaining is “a minor amount”. I will remember that the next time some of her colleagues criticise us for spending too much on the policy. We think it’s a reasonable and balanced amount to provide for the support services that are here.

In respect of clause 135(2) that she raises, there are two discreet functions that we’re talking about here. Firstly is the authority having the role of determining the terms of an FPA, if it comes to that. That is its own role within the legislation. The role of assessing for any overlap then occurs a little bit later. They’re both two discrete roles but they both do have to occur.

Mr Smith goes by the old parliamentary maxim in a debate: “when in doubt, read it out.” It served him pretty well for a couple of minutes there, I must say! When it comes to clause 207, I’d encourage the member, and all others interested in this legislation—and I seriously recommend this—to go back and read the report of the original Fair Pay Agreement Working Group chaired by the Rt Hon Jim Bolger. It identified that fair pay agreements will be most effective where there is a good-faith process that is undertaken, that is interspaced, and which the parties spend a decent amount of time trying to find the areas in which they can constructively work and solve problems together. That is a process which actually takes a lot of skill and a lot of capability. I’ve got no doubt that there’s a lot of that skill and capability in both employer associations and unions. But for anyone who seriously understands and appreciates those sorts of processes, you shouldn’t be too proud to accept that actually having the assistance of professionals in these areas that help parties with different perspectives get into a common place is actually a pretty good way of approaching these things. That’s why we think that it is appropriate for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to provide those services.

We do also note that this is a new process. It does have some complexities associated with it. As members on this side of the House have pointed out: if people get it wrong, there could be penalties that apply to them. So providing the support services is about trying to guide the parties to get it right and get to good outcomes, which is what we’re focused on.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I do thank the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety for his thoughtful responses to the questions that we’ve asked this evening. I think he’s been very diligent in terms of his responses, and, on that basis, I’ll ask a few more because I’ve been thinking about the clause 207 that my colleague Stuart Smith articulated previously.

The three questions that I have in regards to this are as follows. I think, as the Minister has just clearly articulated, there is a need for these support services. We may agree or disagree around the actual genuine need of that, but that’s OK; we’ll take it on the basis that they are required and that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment CEO is going to appoint them. Looking at the reality of—and I’m aware of some of the workforce shortages particularly in the Auckland region around mediators in the employment space, and this is not necessarily just a COVID issue but I am conscious that, actually, there has been a significant reduction in the number of professional mediators, particularly those that for whatever reason chose early retirement post-COVID. A number of those individuals are genuinely highly experienced, have a degree of background, but were at a tender age that retirement seemed to be more appropriate than continuing on to work. And lucky them, I say. But the reality is, Minister, this legislation is going to—going back to what I raised before—increase the volume and demand on that workforce for the exact services that are articulated in clause 207 in regards to providing bargaining support services.

And I like the term, actually, in the departmental disclosure statement on page 8 in—we used to call it—“finance font”. Finance font’s a font that only the finance people can read, and you generally put the technical stuff that you don’t want anyone to read in really small writing because most people can’t read it. But I can read it, luckily. And it says, for example, the provision of a bargaining support person—so I think that’s the role title you are looking at; it’s the bargaining support person. And we’re not having a game of bingo here on how many different times we can mention the word “bargaining”, but that’s the role. So the question, really, is genuinely around the workforce crisis and the shortages we have with the skill set and capability.

What assessment has the Minister undertaken in regards to, actually, the practical implications of clause 207, the implications of that in practice, in terms of actually being able to provide and obtain that resource? Because it’s all nice having legislation and rules and regulations and all that, but if you can’t simply put that into practice and effect that in practice—you know, what’s the consideration around that? What’s the consideration in regards to—you know, on the basis that we haven’t got a large workforce that’s going to increase in volume as a result of this legislation. What’s the options in terms of being able to actually fill that void in terms of resource and capability? What is that going to cost, Minister, in terms of additional resources? Because you just can’t turn the tap on and create this skill set. It does require training and experience, capability and competence, which is in short supply across the board.

I guess the last question I’ve got is in regards to what, if any, estimate in terms of the total numbers of people that the chief executive will need to employ or engage—what is the scale of that number over and above, I guess, what is currently already engaged in the market? Because I think, really, that goes to a question around: well, actually, is this section actually practically able to be implemented? I know that’s an operational conversation for the department, but I’m sure the Minister’s probably thinking a couple of steps ahead of where we are this evening, of when this will be in law and actually how this is going to work in practice. So I’d appreciate some insight in terms of those three questions in regards to clause 207. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The member Simon Watts is right that, to a large degree, these are operational questions that would be for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), once the legislation is in place. But, just in order to provide some level of comfort to the member, support has been provided, through Budgets 2021 and 2022, for MBIE to be able to resource the implementation of fair pay agreements (FPAs). As is appropriate, I believe we have provided MBIE with some flexibility to determine how that support should be allocated across the organisation. There is additional support that be applied—for additional members of the Employment Relations Authority, to mediation services, to bargaining support people, and to the production of resources for parties to use. That information is in Budget documents, and I don’t have that to hand for the purposes of this debate, but I do have real confidence that there is an appropriate level of resources which is put in here.

I do note, of course, that it is likely that FPAs will take a little bit of time to commence. So once the legislation takes effect from December, there’ll be an initial step whereby unions need to initiate for fair pay agreements. There’ll then be a process of them being considered, before bargaining gets under way. So we won’t go straight from zero to 100 overnight once the bill has passed the House; there’ll be time for things to ramp up. I know that MBIE are very focused on trying to front-load good support, information, and education so that parties know what their obligations are and know how these steps work before they start engaging in these processes. So, yes, I acknowledge there will be some increased demand, but we have resourced that. I do also note, though, that it could well be that a range of employment relationship issues get worked through as a result of fair pay agreements that then don’t need to get worked through in other parts of the employment relations system. So there may be some meting out, but, overall, yes, we have provided additional resourcing, and I think it will be appropriate.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 10 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 264 be agreed to.

Chris Baillie’s amendment to clause 213 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 270 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Part 10 as amended agreed to.

Part 10A Determinations in absence of bargaining side