Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill

Members, we come now to clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on the title and commencement.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on the title and commencement clauses. I do have two amendments to speak to tonight. The first is on the title clause, and I will speak to that amendment, which is to replace “Fair Pay Agreement Act Repeal Act 2023” with “Worker Protections Clawback Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Act 2023”. This is a clawback bill. This bill, to repeal the ground-breaking fair pay agreement legislation in New Zealand, is a clawback for workers, and I disagree wholeheartedly with the Minister’s statement earlier that workers will not be worse off. We have from multiple submissions, from evidence overseas—and I’m just noting that this Government has said it will be evidence based—and from the full impact statement that we saw when the first piece of legislation came through this House that workers will be better off with the protection of a fair pay agreement.

Let me speak to that in terms of some of the processes that actually apply in order to do that. Through a fair pay agreement, we have initiation from one of the bargaining parties—it would usually be the union to make that initiation—following which we agree terms and conditions through a bargaining process. There is a whole series of steps that occur prior to that in order to identify the coverage—to identify particular occupations that are covered. That work is undertaken, and then, finally, there is bargaining between the parties—those who represent the workers and those who represent the employers. That bargaining occurs with support from Government officials as needed. This then leads to—hopefully; if things have gone well—an agreement between the parties. It then goes out to be ratified by both sets of parties to the agreement.

If it doesn’t result in a fair pay agreement one of the components of the fair pay agreement law is that it does ultimately have the opportunity to be fixed. Fixing an agreement already exists in employment law—so collective agreements can be fixed. Having been through that process myself I know there’s a very long-winded process that requires facilitated bargaining, a whole lot of tests to occur, in order for an agreement to be fixed, and I’ve seen that take years and years and years.

What is so good about this legislation that the Labour Government was so very, very proud to put in place to protect vulnerable, low-paid, and middle-income earners in New Zealand is that it would allow that fixing process to happen much faster than what we currently have in law. For example, one of the agreements that I have been working on was with a supermarket in Nelson and it has taken eight years to get a collective agreement in place. It was ultimately going to lead to the point where there would need to be a case made—an expensive case made—to have that agreement fixed after years and years of delaying tactics by the employer.

So this is a clawback bill. It takes away rights of workers. It takes away the opportunity for workers to bargain properly for sector-based agreements that set a minimum entitlement for wages and conditions in that sector. There are multiple examples that we can point to internationally that have sector-based bargaining. The closest one is Australia. Those on that side of the Chamber—and in fact many New Zealanders—love to make a lot of noise, a lot of statements, around the fact that if you go across the Ditch to Australia, people will earn more money. The reason for that is that they have sector-based bargaining. It’s called enterprise bargaining.

💬 Hon Member: No, that’s not true. They’ve got a stronger economy—they’ve got mining.

Oh, they don’t like that. Apparently, it’s only to do with productivity. Well, it’s actually both of those things, because there’s a connection between higher wages and productivity. Again, having studied employment relations at university, I like to look at the evidence. Coming back to the clause, Mr Chair, this is a clawback bill, because it will take away the opportunity for workers to get decent wages and conditions in those sectors—sectors that are overrepresented by women, by Māori and Pasifika, and young workers. So my question to the Minister is: will she support a proper title for this bill that properly reflects what the Government is doing here, which is a clawback. Will she admit that what this bill is doing is clawing back the rights and opportunities for working people in this country who are doing it tough. This Government has made many, many statements about wanting to address the cost of living. Well, this is the opportunity to address the cost of living. The biggest issue that we have in New Zealand in terms of the cost of living is inequality, and it has lasted for decades. It is inequality that has gone back into the 1990s. That is why this is a clawback bill and why it is so important that the bill’s title properly reflects what the legislation is actually doing. From my perspective, this is clawing back those opportunities for workers.

I’m going to talk now about the other amendment I’m putting forward, which is to the commencement date. My amendment to clause 2 will replace “on the day after Royal assent” with “three years and one day after Royal assent”. The reason for this is that I believe that the other side of the committee needs to see how this will operate in practice and understand it properly before they actually decide that the legislation needs to be repealed. They haven’t had the evidence of it operating in practice and seeing the benefit it can make to workers.

So giving the legislation three years to breathe, three years to play its part in terms of delivering for workers means we would have three years to make sure that we introduce an agreement for supermarket workers. We would have three years to ensure that we could bring in a fair pay agreement for bus drivers. We would have three years to make sure that we could bring in a fair pay agreement for cleaners. We would have three years to make sure that we could bring in a fair pay agreement for early childhood workers.

Again, I spent time on Friday with early childhood workers who have been working through multiple processes. They’ve been working through pay parity with other teachers. They’ve been working on pay equity claims to ensure that their female dominated workforce is properly paid. Now they have a claim for a fair pay agreement, and I think we need to give this legislation three years, which is why I have put forward this amendment to replace “the day after Royal assent” with “three years and one day after Royal assent.” It would give the opportunity for early childhood teachers to be able to properly negotiate a fair pay agreement.

And I want to pay particular credit to these workers because they look after our youngest tamariki, and they have struggled to attract people into the industry. For so many years we’ve said in our society that if you’re a primary school teacher or a secondary school teacher, your value is greater than those who work in early childhood education. But we know that those first thousand days leading into someone going to primary school are critical for a small child, and to have quality education is critical for those young people.

This is why I want to see this Government actually listen to the voice of workers, which they haven’t done by operating this legislation through an urgency process, and listen to those workers around what they need to ensure they can continue to attract people into the early childhood sector. I predict that if this legislation passes and we don’t allow the original legislation to have three years to operate fully so that perhaps we can convince them across the House, through some evidence—and a little bit of evidence might get them to change their minds if they’re going to be an evidence-based Government. The point of evidence is that you might have a position and you might see the evidence and you might just change your mind.

I think that three years would give the other side of the House the opportunity to understand that evidence and to see the benefit of a fair pay agreement for early childhood workers so that they could attract more teachers to deliver quality education into that sector. Three years would give the opportunity to have a fair pay agreement for hospitality workers, who, as I think all of us can understand, are often some of the lowest paid and vulnerable workers. It would give, as I’ve already mentioned and as has been well spoken about tonight, the opportunity for us to have a proper fair pay agreement for supermarket workers and bus drivers.

So my question to the Minister is: will she support my amendment tonight? Thank you, Mr Chair.

Speaking to the member’s question, no. The policy intent is quite correctly captured by the title of the bill. It’s pretty plain and simple and we have a coalition commitment to repeal the fair pay agreements by Christmas, which is what we intend to do.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to also support the amendments of my colleague Rachel Boyack, and, also, I have an amendment in my own name in relation to this part. My amendment really goes to the heart, I think, of the Government’s justification for this bill, which is, essentially, that we’ve had an election and the Government wants to implement their commitments from during the election.

I think that that’s an interesting proposal. I would also say that another option could be—if, truly, there is generally a feeling within New Zealand that this particular piece of legislation must be introduced—to adopt my amendment to the title and commencement clauses, new clause 2. My amendment says that this Act comes into force the day after Royal assent following a public referendum in which 50 percent plus one—

💬 Hon Member: Are you going to pay for it?

—of New Zealand public votes in favour of the wording of this repeal bill.

💬 Hon Member: Waste some more money.

And it’s interesting that people on the other side are bringing up who’s going to pay for it, because I think it’s quite clear who is going to pay for the repeal of this bill, and it’s the vulnerable workers in New Zealand. So that is my amendment, and I seek the Minister’s comment and support for that amendment to truly guarantee and prove that there is a mandate for introduction.

I would also support my colleague Rachel Boyack’s amendment to the commencement clause, clause 2, and the reason for that is: often in New Zealand, we introduce legislation which takes time in order for the benefits of it to be obvious to people. It’s regretful in this situation that we haven’t had the opportunity to see a fair pay agreement in place. We think, on our side of the House, that there’s a lot of evidence that they would be very successful, and I, in my next contribution, will speak to some of the elements that were raised in the part that we voted on in the bill. I think that there are actually some benefits to employers and employees working together and looking towards a different way of working in New Zealand. We can look at the wages that we have now and the productivity we have and we can see that the status quo is not working.

In terms of the title of the bill, I and many of us on this side of the House are fundamentally opposed to this repeal bill and of its name—opposed to what that title suggests. We do not consider that the Fair Pay Agreements Act should be repealed, for the arguments that we’ve raised in previous hearings only today, and also in the arguments that we’ve raised in the committee of the whole House as well. So I would encourage the Minister to respond to that. I also wanted to support my colleague Rachel Boyack’s amendment to the change of the title, which I believe is more correct in the nature of the bill.

I did have a technical question, and it may be that this is not the part for it, but I couldn’t find the correct section of the bill as to where it’s expressed, so if you would indulge me until I can get an answer for that, please. It could be that it is in the commencement and the title section. The explanatory note on the repeal bill states that the one area that won’t be repealed is the Employment Court 2000 fair pay agreement amendment regulations in relation to “the technical amendment to express the figures for [the] Employment Court fees in [a] GST-exclusive form”. I couldn’t locate, in the section that I expected to find that in—and that may be my error—exactly where that was, and I did look through the bill a number of times.

I wonder if the Minister could point me to exactly where those retained amendments are. I can see it clearly in that section; I also saw it in the cover note, so I do know it’s obviously the intention to retain these particular regulations, which I don’t think are particularly controversial. But I wasn’t able to speak to that in other parts of the bill. That could be my error that I haven’t been able to see where that was.

So those were the main things that I wanted to ask the Minister: does she agree with the amendments that myself and my colleague have put forward in relation to clarifying that there is a mandate to repeal this legislation, and could she point me to the place in the legislation where those GST-exclusive amendments are included.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just in regard to the title, I appreciate the amendments put by the Labour Party around the change of name. I would probably propose something around “Vibes-based Unfair Pay”. But, in relationship to the commencement, reflecting on some of the previous contributions from the Minister, I hear that she has been saying that this is part of the coalition agreement and that the intent is to pass it before Christmas. Throughout the debate there also has been a lack of ability to produce evidence as to why this must be repealed; yet there’s a sense of urgency around the commencement—basically, this Act coming into force on the day after the Royal assent. I just wondered if, at any point, the Minister had considered delaying the introduction of the bill to actually then do some evidence gathering. Or I guess I want to test whether Brooke van Velden, candidate for Tāmaki, had presented or researched any evidence during the campaign trail. Because, if there was no exercise in evidence, documentation gathering, consultation with workers—I guess, whether the people who campaigned did any of that exercise and whether she as Minister is leaning into that.

Otherwise, what I’m reading here is a rush to put in place this repeal without having any ability to produce any evidence in relationship to the impact that it will have, other than the limited stuff that we have had from the leaked documents that have come out. So, once again, I’m just checking if there is going to be any intent at all from the Minister to produce evidence on how this will benefit the economy. She has otherwise stated, predominantly, the words “I believe” over and over and over and over—not “I know” or “as the evidence points out” or “evidence shows”. It’s “I believe”. And I think the hundreds of thousands of workers impacted by this bill, who won’t have the opportunity to then see those fair pay agreements come to fruition, deserve more than a Minister telling them “I believe”. They deserve a Minister who can back a piece of legislation with evidence, with solid arguments, and so this is why I’m testing whether she would be open to delaying the commencement of the bill to allow for her arguments to be backed up by actual solid figures and facts rather than just vibes.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to support the last speaker but also my friend Rachel Boyack’s amendment which was to delay the bill coming into fruition. I think the point needs expanding a little bit because what we have in this situation is very, very little evidence, a lot of hunch about what will happen next. And while the Minister might be sceptical, this is our perfect opportunity to do an evidence-gathering exercise. If we had three years of watching this and the Minister watching this and being the guardian of it, then that would play out in that time. You have industries that have already opted for this option. So we have identified industries that have come forward and said that there’s appetite for this solution. They are halfway through bargaining, and it would be amazing if those industries could go through a process that a lot of work’s gone into getting going. In three years’ time, if it’s a failed experiment as you suspect it will be, you will see, and you’ll be able to prove that on the basis of evidence.

But if, in fact, it turns out that it makes a big difference to the kinds of workers who are engaged at the present time, if bus drivers are on better money, if they are safer, if they in fact can get their toilet breaks, if our younger workers and our women are in situations that are more flexible and work for them, if our disabled workers are better off, then you’ll know that too. Because you’re right, this is a tailored situation that has been created. The work that has been done has been not exactly like Australia, or not exactly like anywhere, and wouldn’t it be really such a sad thing to throw all that away when, if we just did move your repeal out for three years and one day, we’d have time to find out whether it worked or not, and what worked and what didn’t and improve on it.

In fact, this is something we should be doing much more with legislation—actually allowing ourselves to test things and see if they work and not being beholden to dogged ideology. That’s actually a big deal, because what I have heard from the Minister is that the reason this has to go ahead is because a commitment has been made, and there is a belief in what has been an ideological position. We’re basically back to trickle-down economics. We’re back to “eventually these workers will be better off”. Well, my experience is they are not better off.

Just one example of this: I’ll go back to the bus drivers because I know that situation very well. My Green colleague talked about the bus drivers having to pee behind a tree—right, that’s real. That happened. I actually had to prepare a strike notice for the bus drivers in Auckland, and do you know what the strike notice threatened to do? The strike action was taking the toilet breaks. That’s what the strike action said. They were going to take the toilet breaks. And do you know what the result of that was, Minister? The company locked out the bus drivers. At that time they were on $17 an hour. They had split shifts where that meant that they were in the Auckland depot. So they came in the morning, and they had come before the buses were starting, so they had to be there and they had to do that work. If we gave these bus drivers three years of this regime, we would see what happened next. Together with the work that’s been done on the Public Transport Operating Model and changing it to a sustainable transport model—together with those things, we ended up with bus drivers on good money in this country, good terms and conditions, safer work. We ended up with a sustainable situation for our bus drivers and imagine the impact if we just give them that time and we delay this for three years and one day. Imagine the impact that it could have on things like the children. Thank you.

I’d just like to make the point that the last three contributions have little to do with the title and commencement of this bill. Helen White, I don’t think I heard anything there about the title and commencement of the bill. To the member Ricardo Menéndez March, quite similarly: nothing to do with the title and commencement of the bill. Camilla Belich, there was a question about GST changes with the employment courts—once again, not relevant to this particular section. However, you might wish to note that while it’s not in the bill specifically in this section, we are retaining the provision. So we are reversing all other changes but retaining this one, so it’s not in the bill. So being silent on it, it’s retaining the fact that changes to the forms are GST exclusive, so it’s not in this bill.

But to the point that was actually about this section, I heard a lot about delay, but this is not a Government that delays; this is a Government of action.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and congratulations on your appointment to the role. I appreciate being able to speak on the name of this bill. It seems to me that the most appropriate name would be the “Poor Pay Promise Bill”, because it is indeed the fulfilment of a commitment to industry that they will be allowed to continue to exploit workers, continue to not guarantee basic wages—livable wages—and fair pay. The name of the Fair Pay Agreements Act speaks for itself—the name of the legislation that you are repealing—and you’re making it, through this repeal, the poor pay promise.

I want to speak specifically to the impact on our disabled community. We want our disabled community to live dignified, rich, and satisfying lives. What we know is that currently, under the status quo, they do not. The thing that the fair pay agreement would have done is it would have improved conditions for all workers, including our disabled.

One piece of evidence that was not presented in the case made for this repeal is how does the supposed flexible labour market, which I would say is a synonym for the flexibility of employers to exploit workers—how did you seek evidence on the impact on disabled workers, who currently have three times the unemployment rate of non-disabled workers and an average median income of $255 less per week than non-disabled workers?

It is the poor pay promise to all workers—a promise, a commitment to those in industry and business who are willing to exploit for their profits.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Tell us about the title.

The “Poor Pay Promise Bill”—that is the title. It is a commitment to industry who wish to exploit, and we will oppose it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair; I appreciate that. I’ve actually only had the one opportunity to speak to Part 2, so I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the title and commencement. I would like to know if the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety would consider a change to the name of the bill to “Back to the Status Quo”, because that is, essentially, what it does. It is not a critique of the content of the bill, for I know that one cannot do that when proposing an alternative name; that would be a breach. But this is a fair description regardless of how one looks at it, whether you look at it from the arguments of the Government or, indeed, from the Opposition, because the Act that this bill seeks to repeal brought in a new provision by which workers can seek to improve conditions and improve wages. By repealing that—what this bill proposes—we go back to what things were before the Fair Pay Agreements Act came in. So “Back to the Status Quo”, I feel, is a fair alternative name, and I would be interested if the Minister would consider that.

Before fair pay agreements came in, people were left to themselves, on the whole, to negotiate for improved wages and improved conditions. Now, if we consider where we were before fair pay agreements came in in comparison to Australia, who had the equivalent of fair pay agreements, their wages and their conditions, over a period of roughly 30 years, improved considerably; New Zealand’s did not. In this, in repealing fair pay agreements, we’re going back to that situation, which was, before they came in, the status quo, and that is why I’m proposing that it be called “Back to the Status Quo”. It is fair, I think. It is fair from our perspective, because it’s very clear tonight that we’ve been critical of this approach, because we don’t believe that the situation before fair pay agreements came in—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I am waiting for the member to come back to the title and commencement.

The title and commencement—I’ve mentioned my proposed title on three occasions.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): You have; I’m waiting for you to come back to it.

Again, I’m proposing that the title of this be “Back to the Status Quo”, which is my proposed amendment to the title of the bill, Madam Chair, and one which I would like to hear from the Minister on as to, if she doesn’t support it, why not? And I was explaining that from our perspective, this goes back to how it was, and from the Government’s perspective this goes back to how it was, before fair pay agreements came in. I don’t propose this to criticise; I propose this as a fair reflection of what this bill, in proposing to repeal fair pay agreements, is doing.

Thank you. Can I just say, before we take another call: in Speakers’ ruling 127/3, “debating the preliminary causes at the end, members should have some latitude to summarise”. Now, I’m not going to take too much leeway. I want it to relate to title and commencement, but there is an opportunity to summarise, and I’m going to be watching very closely. The reason we’re letting it move a little bit broader in terms of timing is around the fact that there was no select committee. So, with that, Arena Williams.

Madam Chair, thank you so much for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. This is a brand new point, and if you will allow me, this will be a short call because I hope that the Minister can give me an indication of what her thinking is. Then, perhaps, I can propose to her some amendments which may help the situation that the House finds itself in now.

So the particular part that I’m talking to is clause 2, the “Commencement” in the new bill, which is the Act “[coming] into force on the day after Royal assent.” This is not a point about the commencement date, which my colleague Rachel Boyack has raised; it’s a point about the Royal assent itself. Those two things are different: the commencement and the place of the Royal assent in our constitutional framework.

So the questions that I have for the Minister, which I will flag first up so she can consider them: when will the Royal assent be sought? How many proceedings are under way that the Royal assent will cut across? How have participants to the proceedings been notified that the Royal assent will extinguish their proceedings and any legal rights that ensue from those proceedings? What natural justice issues does the Minister anticipate, given the Royal assent will cut across those proceedings? And how will parties be compensated for costs of the proceedings under way?

Now, let me take the House through how we end up in this situation that we’re in now with the proposal to grant this bill Royal assent. Royal assent is a recognition by the Governor-General, as the representative of the Queen, that a bill has come into effect and that it has gone through the processes of this House to give it the effect of law. So the situation that we find ourselves in is that we have a bill here which hasn’t been through the ordinary processes through the House, through a select committee—and we acknowledge on this side of the House that there will be certain situations where the Government has a prerogative to take things through urgency; that’s not at issue here.

What the issue is is that because we haven’t been through the ordinary public process, we haven’t had the benefit of the regulatory impact analysis, and we haven’t had the benefit of time that would usually be given to the sort of legislation where a Government might consider cutting across proceedings that are under way currently, parties to those proceedings haven’t had time to adjust and to change their approach.

So what we see here is that the fair pay agreements were a new piece of law enacted in 2021 that allowed parties to come to the table to renegotiate longstanding issues which had been in court before or they were party to mediations that were already under way. They then came into a new process set out by that Act in good faith, knowing that they would have to give up their court proceedings; knowing that they would have to give up their mediated processes, but entering into a new format in good faith and working with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that was facilitating the process through mediated proceedings.

So here’s the scene: we have a group of, say, cleaners, who are represented by their union E Tū, that give up their other proceedings in the court to come along to this new set of proceedings. And they are investing in this because they think it’s a process that they should be participating in because that was the Government’s intention at the time. They are paying lawyers, they are paying representatives, they are paying mediators. At the same time, we have a number of commercial firms who employ these 35,000 cleaners around New Zealand, who have also engaged their own representatives and have come to the table in good faith to bargain around a floor for conditions, be it pay or—in the case of cleaners—training. Extra training in the industry for cleaners was a particularly important part of their claim. That was something that also came out of their original proceedings and into the new proceedings that fair pay agreements (FPAs) allowed them to take.

So we now have this situation where they are, in this example, parties that have come to the table: on one side, cleaners represented by their union, over 1,000 of them, to enter into this process; and then multiple commercial parties.

My questions to the Minister are around whether those commercial parties have been given notice of this so that they may prepare themselves for an extinguishment of the process which is going on currently, and the potential of further action being taken by those cleaners’ representatives in another judicial body.

Because we acknowledge, also, that with FPAs not being able to be used by these commercial parties, that we then have much more costly proceedings that will need to be re-entered into in some of these cases. Some of these cases go back 20 years. They have been litigated and relitigated on things like conditions, but particularly training because this relates to the training that cleaners might need when they are alone and dealing with chemicals. They also relate to health and safety issues—and there are a number of health and safety proceedings also on foot which this will impact. So my questions to the Minister—Madam Chair, may I have more time?

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I wanted to take the opportunity to answer the member’s question. My understanding is that Royal assent will happen as it does for all other bills that leave this House in the normal process, but I also want to make it very clear that my purpose in bringing this bill to the House is for all bargaining processes to stop and cease, and that the law itself ceases and the bargaining process thereunder ceases.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call. It’s the first opportunity that I’ve had to take a call since the election and I want to acknowledge you on your elevation to the role of Deputy Speaker. I know that you are someone who is fair handed. I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside you in my first term with the Governance and Administration Committee—a very good committee—and I know that you will do an excellent job and so I congratulate you on that.

I do want to just reflect on the response that the Minister has just given around her expectation that bargaining and the like would stop and cease. I think it is premature of the Minister to outline that expectation right here, right now, when in fact the bill has not been given Royal assent, and I think it is an important point and distinction to make. I’m delighted that my colleague Arena Williams has touched on some of the legal ramifications and matters that are currently before the committee when considering this bill. I do think that she has touched on a really important point that the Minister has still failed to respond to, I think, adequately, and that is around proceedings that are currently in place. Compensation—that also is a question that may currently be in place or actually may not yet be finalised. I think that this is a very interesting and important point around the rights—not just the rights but the legal rights that those who are currently engaged in those proceedings actually don’t currently have but continue to have, and will have, if at some future point this bill does receive Royal assent.

Not just that but the fact that Royal assent, at some stage of this bill, will be given—it’s interesting, I reflect on my time just recently at Government House, where, often, Royal assent is given, and that was for the swearing in or the confirmation of the Speaker. But, of course, some who might be sitting at home listening to this at this late hour might think “Well, why have we suddenly gone from introduction of a bill, first reading, all the way through to considering when the title and the commencement date for this bill might happen all within the course of less than 12 hours?”—it is because members of the community have not had an opportunity to submit on what they think might be an appropriate title for this bill. They have not had an opportunity to think about what they think an appropriate commencement date might be for this bill, because it has not been subjected to the normal scrutiny process that all other bills generally are expected to go through. Not even a truncated select committee process where those for whom this bill will have a significant impact can have their views aired and make their views known on what is an appropriate title for this bill.

Now, we have had a number of suggestions already. The Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill, as it currently stands, is fairly basic really. We’ve heard about the “Poor Pay Promise”. We’ve heard from Mr McAnulty about the “Back to the Status Quo” as the title of this bill. This bill needs to be reflective of what it actually seeks to do. It is a clawback bill. It is a clawback bill and perhaps that should be specified in the title, but we have not had the opportunity to hear from members of the public about what the appropriate title will be.

Let’s just reflect on who those members and organisations may actually be that want to share their views with this House and members of this House about when an appropriate commencement date would be—those who are engaged in sectors such as security, early childhood, bus drivers, and cleaners, the very people that make this particular House tick over day in, day night. When we all leave here in the space of 45 minutes, they will still be here, far beyond it. Those are the very people who should have the opportunity to reflect on and submit on what an appropriate title will be for this bill. Because remember, Madam Chair, this is the title for which the Act, if it is given Royal assent, will be forever known as, so it’s not something that should be just treated lightly. And I think that the Minister does deserve to have—for those who have not been able to participate in a scrutiny process or a select committee process—the opportunity to share with them why the bill as currently drafted in its title and its commencement date is appropriate for the circumstances. Because certainly what we’ve heard in this House today, all of those circumstances, all of the aspects of debate do not lend itself to the current commencement suggestion in terms of date or title. So I expect a response from the Minister.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Rachel Boyack’s tabled amendment to clause 1 is out of order as not an objective description of the bill.

The question is that Rachel Boyack’s tabled amendment to clause 2 be agreed to.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to require a referendum be agreed to.

The committee has considered the Fair Pay Agreements Act Repeal Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading