Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill

on behalf of Marja Lubeck (Labour): I move, That the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s a pleasure to kick off the third reading of Marja Lubeck’s Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill. Marja Lubeck inherited this bill from the Hon Dr Deborah Russell when she moved to be a Minister. I want to begin by acknowledging and thanking both members—Dr Russell and Ms Lubeck—for all the work they have done in bringing this bill into the House. I had the privilege of being a part of the Education and Workforce Committee that considered this bill. We heard from 43 strong submitters of interested groups and individuals.

Everyone is entitled to a safe, healthy workplace that’s free from all forms of harassment and bullying. However, it’s important that safeguards and processes are in place for those who experience any forms of harassment in the workplace. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Employment Relations Act 2000 to extend the time in which someone can raise a personal grievance for sexual harassment from 90 days to 12 months. It aims to improve the personal grievance process for victims of sexual harassment by allowing them more time to consider what has happened before deciding whether to raise a personal grievance, offering a more survivor-centric approach. In the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s words, this bill makes only small improvements but it will have large implications.

It’s important to note that this change would not apply retrospectively—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Doocey, just a little bit quieter please—I’m struggling to hear.

IBRAHIM OMER: —and the employers will not be required to amend existing employment agreements, thanks to the transitional provision inserted in the bill in the committee stage.

At present, an employee who has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace has 90 days to raise a personal grievance. This is not very long, and it’s not reflective of how sexual harassment plays out in the workplace. Victims of sexual harassment often take a prolonged period of time to come to terms with their experience and report it. Delays to reporting can be attributed to embarrassment, lack of understanding of what happened, self-blame, fear of what others will think, and shame. Further to this, there is an inherent power imbalance in the workplace, placing victims in a very vulnerable situation.

Zoё Lawton, who brought this issue to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s attention, described this imbalance very well, stating, “It’s really hard to speak out when the person who is bullying or sexually harassing you is paying your salary and controlling the type of work that you do, without, of course, risking your career.” By extending the time to 12 months, we are actually giving individuals more time to make such an important decision.

During the select committee process, we had 43 strong submissions on this bill. Many of the submissions listed individual accounts of workplace sexual harassment and how the 90-day time frame was insufficient for someone to process what had occurred. For example, submissions from the Public Service Association Women’s Network shared four accounts of workplace sexual harassment. All accounts described a similar situation of older, charismatic employees or employers sexually harassing younger women. All four accounts described the initial difficulty of understanding what had occurred and how they felt like they could not make a complaint, with one submitter describing the 90-day time limit as a “scary target”.

There were many other stories detailing similar sentiments from individuals and organisations. The most common defence of sexual harassment is that the employee has not raised the issue with their employer on time. In cases of sexual harassment, 90 days may not be enough time to raise a complaint. It’s important that employees have time to consider what has occurred and they feel safe to raise it with others. This bill will ensure that they have time to process and to proceed in a manner which best suits them.

Finally, I wanted to touch on the importance of this bill for minorities. What will this mean for minorities and those who come from migrant and refugee backgrounds? We know that the rates of individuals experiencing workplace sexual harassment is higher for minorities. On top of this, people who come from these backgrounds are often told not to speak out against employers or those in positions of power. This is a cultural thing.

In summary, it’s imperative that victims of sexual harassment have time to consider what has occurred and to feel safe to raise it with others. This bill will ensure that they have time to process and to proceed in a manner that suits their families. The current deadline imposes an arbitrary deadline on victims of workplace sexual harassment and makes it less likely that they can formally raise concerns about the behaviour of their colleagues. This bill improves the personal grievance process for victims of sexual harassment by allowing them time to consider what has happened to them before deciding to come forward. This bill will significantly impact workplace cultures of silence towards sexual harassment. We as a House must do whatever we can do to support this strategy and ensure that employees feel safe at their workplace.

At the end, I want to acknowledge and thank officials from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment; the Office of the Clerk; the Parliamentary Counsel Office; and the members of the Education and Workforce Committee, who worked collaboratively and constructively on this bill. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank all the submitters who submitted on this bill and those who courageously shared their stories.

For about four to five years, I was a union organiser, and every day when I was out and about visiting workplaces, one of the things that I saw was how common sexual harassment is, either from colleagues or from people sometimes—often—that people trust with their lives and the people that they trust at their workplace to work with. Often, they work in very dark places, and how scary it can be for the victims to actually open their mouths about it.

Throughout my time as a union organiser, I got to know that sexual harassment is quite serious. It’s something that a lot of victims keep to their hearts and they suffer in silence. So I’d like to thank Dr Deborah Russell, who listened to one of the victims and decided to take on this bill, and Marja Lubeck, of course, for stepping up and taking on the bill once Dr Russell stepped up to be a Minister. The reality is that this is going to make a difference for thousands of victims of sexual harassment by giving them time to prepare psychologically, to prepare physically, and to step up and to raise the issue if they need to.

So this is a good bill. I hope that all political parties across this House come together to support this bill, because at the end of the day we are talking about the victims, people who often can’t speak up for themselves. So this is the right thing to do. I urge every political party to support it and that tonight we pass this bill into law. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. National does indeed continue to support the bill, the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill. I assure Mr Omer that our starting point, which had been that it is important to consider the particular situation of people who are alleging sexual harassment is properly considered by this House and that a case has been made for the law change that has been brought forward—first by the Hon Deborah Russell, as she now is—

Hon Scott Simpson: Dr.

CHRIS PENK: —in the neighbouring electorate. Excuse me. Dr Russell, indeed.

Hon Scott Simpson: Hon Dr.

CHRIS PENK: Well, I got the honourable, thank you, Mr Scott Simpson—Hon Scott Simpson.

Anyway, it was brought forward by my neighbouring MP, and now it’s in the name of Marja Lubeck, who’s a list MP based in the same electorate as me. I acknowledge them, as well as, of course, importantly, the courage of those who have come forward to seek this law change and anyone who in a workplace or elsewhere has suffered, at the hands of another person, sexual harassment or similar unacceptable behaviour. It goes without saying that such behaviour is unacceptable, and in addition to passing this specific law, the House condemns such behaviour in no uncertain terms.

So as we have heard from Mr Ibrahim Omer, the bill extends the time in which a person has the opportunity to bring forward a personal grievance in relation to sexual harassment. There is a balance, as always, between finality and opportunity. We want to maximise the opportunity for people to have access to the law, but there’s also a value in the law that says at some point it should be certain how a matter rests. So what we’re doing is drawing the line in a different place and saying that it should be as much as a year rather than just that 90-day period within which someone can come forward.

“So why should sexual harassment be treated any differently?” I suppose, is a reasonable question. The answer—we’ve heard it actually outlined tonight—is that the evidence indicates, particularly in relation to matters where sexual harassment has taken place, that a person, for whatever reason—and it might be shame, strange as that might seem to someone outside that context, that might be felt by the person who has suffered as the victim, or it might be other circumstances of vulnerability, in addition to the fact of them having suffered that action—for example, precarious or insecure work conditions, immigrant status, or other particular situations of vulnerability.

So National continues to say that we believe this is a well-conceived law. We think that it’s had good discussion in previous stages and, indeed, at select committee. We thank those who have been involved in that process, and we commend the bill to the House.

It is an absolute honour to stand and take a call on this third reading on the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill. As somebody who is relatively new to this House, to see this member’s bill come through from the Hon Dr Russell and then through our Education and Workforce Committee, and then, of course, Marja Lubeck taking it into her safe hands—to be able to have been a part of this process has been an honour, because this is going to have an impact on workers’ lives and that’s really, really important.

We heard so much in the select committee, as Ibrahim Omer alluded to, from some really brave voices who came to our select committee, their individual stories, and from those representatives from unions who came and shared their stories and those voices of our most vulnerable workers.

Sexual harassment often happens when there is a significant power imbalance, and we know that that power imbalance is more likely to happen when you are in precarious work and you don’t know if you’re going to get another shift, when you are poorly paid and you cannot afford to be fired because there’s nothing in the bank to tide you over till you get another job, or you’re a migrant worker and you’re reliant on your employer for the opportunity to even be in this country. We know that we have vulnerable workers in workplaces where the culture is one of silence, and the idea of, “Just suck it up; it’s the way things happen around here.” is a really damaging environment for people to work in.

I particularly note our young workers, and I feel really sad to think that young workers are coming into the workforce and they start their lives contributing to our economy, being taught that it is absolutely appropriate that they are to be exploited. That’s not a great way to be teaching our young people to participate and see themselves in our economy as workers. They should be valued and they certainly shouldn’t be exploited.

We heard so much—and I think I spoke about it last time—about this bill being about time, and that 12 months will allow so much more to happen, for justice to be sought and served, for some amount of healing, hopefully, to happen and trauma to be dealt with and realised, and having time to process; to understand that, actually, no, the behaviour is never acceptable. But even noticing and knowing what is unacceptable can take a while to process, and then what you’re going to do about it. I think when we walk away from here, this won’t be a bill that is just popped up on the shelf, but it is something that we have to enable to happen and make sure that workers can really use to empower themselves, and part of that will be about education.

It really concerned us when we heard from one of the unions—it was Unite, actually—who’d done some significant work in understanding and getting some evidence about what workers knew and thought about personal grievances and what their experiences were. I think this should be reflected upon by our education system, by those who are employing our young people into the workforce, because when they surveyed people, 80 percent didn’t know at the time that that behaviour was unacceptable, that there was a potential grievance there, that they were being treated badly; 45 percent still didn’t know in retrospect; no one under the age of 20 knew what a personal grievance was at the time they were harassed—no one under the age of 20. That is significant and we need to empower these workers.

I think that’s one of the great things about this bill, and once it passes into legislation we need to make sure we shout it from the rooftops. This is a really clear signal to our young people that they are valued not as dishwashers and floor sweepers and baristas, but as people who have something to contribute and who deserve to be valued and respected and protected. We need to educate them about what this is and what the process is when things do go wrong—because inevitably they will—and what a personal grievance is and how to get involved in that process to make sure that it doesn’t do more damage than doing nothing. Ninety-three percent of those who had experienced sexual harassment never lodged a personal grievance, and you need to ask why. We know that part of it’s cultural and educational. They didn’t know what was possible until they had support, and they need that time. I think that’s a really, really important part of this legislation.

Another reason is the response from their employers. You know, you reach out to a workmate or to a supervisor about some behaviour elsewhere in the workplace, and so often it is not adequately investigated—quite possibly because the person they reached out to also had something to lose. There was a price that they were going to have to pay for putting their neck on the line and standing up against people who were behaving badly.

We hear so often—and it isn’t just our most vulnerable workers—in the workplace, “I don’t want to be branded as a trouble maker.” That is a completely unacceptable way of framing up such behaviour. Actually, employers—those responsible for the welfare of their staff—should be really pleased with this bill giving them the space to actually do what so many of them want to do, and that’s get it right and make sure that these things are remedied and that they can care for everybody in their employment.

This is an important bill. It may seem small, but it is important and it sends a signal not just to those who have experienced sexual harassment but also the perpetrators. It lifts the bar a bit. It makes sure that we are being very clear about giving people the space to seek justice. We hear about the individual examples from many of the submitters and it’s so taboo, often, for people to speak out. There is the shame, the guilt, and the way that becomes a part of your identity as a worker, as a staff member. Like I say, I think that is even more important when we’re talking about young people coming into the workforce.

It was a reality check that we got from all of those submitters about why it was hard, not just because they had to process it in their own minds but they then had to have conversations with other people. They didn’t want to be trouble—that mind-set that it’s too much trouble: it’s real, but it’s emotionally and mentally complicated. We know that by giving people the space to process it, to reach out, to seek help means that the resolution in the end—and the ability for people to move on—is really, really important. It’s an uncomfortable topic. And again, more time, more space, will help to mean that we end up with issues being resolved in a much more satisfactory way. That isn’t just about punishment and justice but it is about the victims ending up in a place where they can also move on.

It has been a pleasure to learn about this process of a member’s bill and, like I say, it was very humbling to have such a topic be supported coming through the House. We’ve had a lot of different people involved and it’s really great to hear support from across the House for something so important. It is really nice when we can stand together and look after our workers and value them as people and as contributors—not just financially but as humanity—to make sure that we end up with a stronger and healthier workforce as a result. It is because of this that I am very, very happy to recommend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to stand and speak in support of the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill in this, its third reading. Like others, I recognise the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, who first brought this member’s bill, and then Marja Lubeck, who took it further.

The bill has quite a straightforward purpose, and that is extending the time for an employee to raise a personal grievance alleging sexual harassment from the normal 90-day period of a personal grievance, to one year. It does this through several amendments to the Employment Relations Act 2000. The bill was examined by the Education and Workforce Committee—which I am a member of—with very minor changes to the retrospectivity of the bill.

We all acknowledge that sexual harassment is completely unacceptable in any context at all—and particularly in the workplace, where there is an imbalance of power. Particularly, a number of people have acknowledged how when people’s livelihoods are dependent on the incomes that they are earning—and particularly in the environment that we’re looking at at the moment, with the cost of living crisis—it’s a very stressful time for people safeguarding their livelihoods.

But we believe that it’s incredibly important that this legislation gives victims of sexual harassment the time and the safety to be able to speak up. Often, for victims of sexual harassment, it isn’t safe for them when they have fears about their job and fears of where things might end up. They often don’t feel safe until they perhaps have a new manager or have gained a new position elsewhere out of that particular work environment. So it can take time for a victim to feel that they are able to take that step of raising a personal grievance.

I know a lot of talk has been made about the most vulnerable workers, and that’s absolutely appropriate, but I was also reminded that Dr Deborah Russell, when she first introduced this, spoke about how prevalent sexual harassment was amongst the legal fraternity. So I think we should acknowledge this is something that can occur very widely across a range of professions and a range of workplaces.

So giving victims of sexual harassment in the workplace the time to be able to be in a safe situation themselves, to be able to bring forward a personal grievance in this way is incredibly important. We see this bill giving that extension of time, improving that personal grievance process for victims of workplace sexual harassment by giving them that sufficient time to consider what has happened to them, to get themselves in a safe space, and to be able to come forward. Indeed, we want all victims of sexual harassment to feel that there is that additional support within the personal grievance process for them. So, with that, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll join my colleagues this evening, commending first the members the Hon Dr Deborah Russell and Marja Lubeck, who have both ushered this bill through the House.

I think there’s a myth that there’s a decision-making point when a person goes through a traumatic experience: that once they’ve got the information they need, they then get the support, they see their options, and there’s a decision-making point. If you’ve supported people through making a complaint in this area, you’ll know that’s not how it plays out.

I worked in YouthLaw Aotearoa for nine years, and about 40 percent of our work was in the employment space. I sat next to young women between the ages of 16—sometimes younger—and 18, and provided them with information about their rights in this space. What always struck me—it’s not something you forget—is the intensity of moving from information to a decision to do something about it.

The first month is usually talking to your friends. For a lot of these young people, that’s how they’d spend the first month, sometimes the first two months. The next month is maybe deciding whether you’re going to tell anyone else, like a parent or an older person you trust. Sometimes it takes several months.

The next month, maybe two, maybe three, is looking for information. First, it’s just whatever you can find online. Maybe, if you’re resourceful, you then find some help like YouthLaw to find out what your rights are. And then, only then, starts the long journey of decision about whether you’re actually comfortable making a complaint.

That’s not the end of the journey, of course, and there’s a lot of trauma that young people experience after they make a decision to complain—if they do indeed do that. I’ve sat next to a young person who decided she wanted to move forward but couldn’t bring herself to sit in the room as she went through a mediation. So her father, also extremely traumatised by his young daughter being subject to sexual harassment, sat in the room with us in her place while she was on the phone. These are long, drawn-out situations with complex decision making where decisions change frequently.

Having said that, I do believe that we do need to draw a line. The idea of having a statute of limitations is not a new one; it’s been around actually since ancient Greece, where at that stage every law was subject to a five-year statute of limitations except for murder. As the law evolved in the 17th century, we started to see it in British law as well. But in truth, we’re still working out exactly where to draw the lines on every single crime. Historically, there’s been a focus on the nature of the offence and the time period at which evidence may be reasonably lost.

But there’s been an assumption in the assessment of where the line should be drawn. The assumption is that the individual who might make the complaint has decided not to, or they’ve been negligent in failing to turn their mind to whether they ought to be making a complaint. That is simply not the case in terms of any kind of inappropriate sexual touching. Colleagues have mentioned reasons tonight: shame, fear, guilt, avoidance—these are all very live issues—uncertainty in how you’ll be perceived. Again, it’s not a linear decision.

I wasn’t privileged to be on the Education and Workforce Committee as they considered this bill, but I have read through the submissions and I understand the committee considered 43, hearing evidence from 10. So I would just like to reflect on one of the submitters in particular: the Human Rights Review Tribunal. So a lot of these young people I talked about who would come to YouthLaw—if they were outside the period of raising a personal grievance, that wasn’t their only option; they still did have the option of pursuing a mediation under the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Review Tribunal spoke to this and said that they agreed with the idea of extending the provisions for personal grievance so it matched with the de facto provisions of accessing mediation provided for them by the Human Rights Commission.

But they actually also pointed to two reasons why a person, at any age, may want to select the personal grievance option as opposed to going down the Human Rights Commission route. Firstly, they said that it provided a space where you had particular expertise about how to progress those issues. They also pointed to the fact that there was significant delay in the Human Rights Review Tribunal process. I believe they pointed specifically to a case where there was over two years in terms of a decision that one of the complainants was waiting for.

So when young people would come to me, and they were within the personal grievance period, and they’d ask me, “Which route should I go down?” I would often say to them, “You should go down the route of raising a personal grievance.”, because while it takes some time to come to a decision that you want to raise the issue, those young people don’t want to be trapped in a space where they’re consistently in trauma for years and years. So, many of those young people within the period would absolutely opt to go for a personal grievance.

Importantly—maybe as a tangential issue—the Human Rights Review Tribunal also raised the issue of consistency with the Limitation Act, which, interestingly, does apply to courts but doesn’t apply to them as a tribunal. It’s not necessarily in the space of this bill, but I raise it because it’s occurring to me more and more—the more time I spend in the House—that there are many really live issues in our legal system that are raised tangentially that we really ought to pay attention to as we’re progressing bills through the House. They shouldn’t die on the cutting floor, if you like. We need to make sure that we pay attention to the other very valid issues that are raised. So that was a really fascinating submission for me.

I wanted to comment on one other submitter. So there was a submitter called the Ministry of Men’s Affairs—who I understand are a community group; they aren’t actually a ministry—and they did not support the bill. They considered that an extended time frame to raise a personal grievance for sexual harassment was not warranted in comparison with other personal grievances—for example, as race or other forms of harassment, which they said could be as difficult to deal with and raise with an employer. Now, I actually think that that’s a reasonable argument. In fact, other submitters put the same argument to the floor. But, again, that’s not an argument not to extend the period to a year; that’s an argument to this House that perhaps instead of leaving this on the cutting floor, we should consider “what next?” What next, who else might not be complaining because they cannot make those complex decisions within the time frame as well?

The same group also argued that a period longer than 90 days would risk people not being able to remember relevant events properly or that witnesses would no longer be available. This is not a new issue for tribunals and courts to deal with. This is a question of evidence that really does need to be put to the Employment Court. As the Human Rights Review Tribunal pointed out, it’s not untested that you would use evidence of someone who had waited that one year. It is currently happening at the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

So, in my last minute, I would just go back to that issue of point of decision. I think too many times we reflect on decisions that complainants might be making in a very linear way. Again, that is simply not the case; it does take longer to do. I do very much commend the changes that we’re making here today, but I would challenge the House to say, “We need to be constantly asking, ‘What next?’ ” And we need to constantly be asking, “Are the time frames, are the limitations that we’re setting on each of these significant laws accurate?”

So, once again, I would thank the members who brought this significant bill to the House, which will make an enormous difference to many people who otherwise wouldn’t complain. I commend the select committee for their very diligent work on this bill and all those who took the time to submit on the issues in front of us, but also the issues we should be considering, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on the third reading of the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill.

It’s great to hear the fantastic support for this bill for the victims of workplace sexual harassment—often, but not always, women. No doubt, we’ll hear from the Green Party expressing the same outrage and sympathy for the women involved. But the irony isn’t lost, and it should never be forgotten by the public that these are parties that recently condoned and supported violence against women. It just seems that if you do agree with their agenda or ideology, then you’re OK. But if you don’t, you’re on your own.

However, ACT has no such agenda or bias, and we support everyone—whether we agree with them or not—and we support this bill. The bill amends the Employment Relations Act, extending the time available to raise a sexual harassment personal grievance from 90 days to 12 months. It only relates to sexual harassment and not any other forms of personal grievance.

As you might expect, the submissions varied in opinions. Some thought the time frame was too short, some thought the time frame was too long, and some thought the time frame was just right—spot on. Some thought it should be extended to all personal grievances. But we think this bill has got it about right.

The personal grievance process, by nature, leaves a lot up for interpretation and, unfortunately, it is easily abused. Every employer will have examples of the process being used in an unjustified way, whether it’s the waitress who filed a personal grievance because she was told to smile, the painter who thought it was OK to use a work van on the weekend, or the cleaner who thought it was OK to steal. We hear all the time from the left about the so-called imbalance of power, which I think is a silly phrase. Of course there is: one side is paying the other to do a job. One side needs to be able to tell the other side how they want things done and when they want things done.

But if there is an imbalance of power, the pendulum has well and truly swung in the other direction. I know of a recent case where a young man—25 years of age—went through a case manager at the Ministry of Social Development and managed to get a job in the kitchen of a restaurant. All the interviews were done and a contract was signed. He was immediately given a relocation payment of $5,000—just $5,000 straight into his account. He didn’t turn up for the first two shifts, turned up for the third shift, worked for two hours, went on a break, and didn’t come back. He rang two weeks later saying that he actually worked four, not two, and wanted to know where his money was.

Like I said before, the pendulum has swung too far. Employees must be protected, but any abuse of the system must be treated just as seriously as the offence itself. Lives can be and are regularly ruined by false accusations.

ACT supports this bill, but we do advise caution. Emotions, perspectives, and relationships all need to be taken into account. I’m reminded of when I was at college 45 years ago, and every lunchtime a group of girls would walk past the driveway on their way to the canteen. For reasons we couldn’t work out, a particular young man—15 years of age—would find an apple, or find some other missile and throw it in the direction of this group of girls, and at one particular female, and he often connected. It seemed like odd behaviour back then, and would no doubt be harassment and classed as bullying and at least misogynistic today, but they’ve been happily married for 33 years. We should never forget that humans are funny creatures. This bill makes sense and ACT commends it to the House. Thank you.

This is a bill that’s interesting in terms of our changing attitudes to things like sexual harassment. So I take issue with the last speaker, Chris Baillie, with regard to what’s going on here.

I want to talk about my experience as an employment lawyer. Over time, that changed. When I first started, I was quite young myself, and I remember I had a woman as a client who had been quite severely sexually harassed. She was very beautiful, actually. When we went to court, it was something of an amusement to the man who had harassed her that she was taking the case, and he continued to consider it a joke.

I had a friend who worked at one of the big firms—and, actually, many of you would know the lawyer involved, and I’m not going to name him, but he invited my friend out to lunch. She thought she was going to a lunch with everybody else, and, actually, she was going to lunch with him alone. He was a lot older than her, and he was in a position of power. What do you think it does to a woman like that who’s just starting her career when she thinks that all the value that she holds in the firm, all the sway that she holds, comes from what she looks like and comes from somebody who is actually predatory? That kind of behaviour was tolerated in my profession, and it was a major impetus for our re-examination as a profession—that kind of behaviour—when it came out after the Me Too movement.

I have said earlier, in another speech on this bill, that I also suffered from those kinds of confusions as to what things were. I went along to something where somebody accused another lawyer of sexual harassment, and my first thoughts were, “Damn it, why is she raising that?”, because I saw it as a harder case to plead than other ways of getting a hold of the situation. I’m ashamed of that, because she was right: it was sexual harassment that was going on. It was things like getting her to bend over in a short skirt to sign a piece of wood when she was out as a lawyer. It was things like writing condescending notes about how the other lawyer’s wife had a better car than she did. It was absolutely sexually based discrimination, and I wanted to shut it down and go on another pathway because I was also subject to a system where that was too hard to do.

Now, I can tell the member who spoke about us missing the point that I don’t miss the point, but I can tell him that, actually, as we go through this journey, we will have to examine some of the damage that we do to people when we do things we think are innocent but are not. They hurt people. These are actually quite light-hearted examples in comparison to the trauma that I have seen while I was acting as a lawyer. These are at the light end of the scale, because there are a lot of darker things that have happened to people, and they are traumatised. As a result of the kind of trauma that they go through, they don’t necessarily identify those things in the way that you might if you had a bit of perspective, a bit of time, and time helps get that perspective.

So I’m supportive of moving the date in a case like this, but I’m also supportive of it because it’s a signal. It says, “We know you get traumatised. We know our society’s confused about these things. We know there are mixed signals, and you need time to work through this process and be able to take a case.”—and that’s a really important point and it balances the other things about time limitations.

I’d also remind the member who spoke that there have been issues on time limitations on sexual matters for a very long time. If you look at the movie Spotlight—which I watched recently—one of the problems with the exposure of sexual assault in the Catholic Church was that, in America, they had a time limitation on those cases. It was a very short amount of time; it was something like five years. So you’ve got to be very, very careful in this area, when you’re dealing with such great trauma, that you don’t actually limit the time if you possibly can and that you give as much time as is possible. So I’d say this is a mild form of that approach, and I’d just consider those issues of time limitation—definitely, as my friend Vanushi Walters said, something that we should really re-examine in these areas.

I wanted to talk for a minute about the work of a woman called Mary Koss, because Mary Koss did some work in 1987—she was in America and she was a researcher, and what she did was she revolutionised the way that we identified sexual assault and sexual harassment by asking women about those experiences without attaching those words, because if they were asked directly, at that point, whether they had been harassed or sexually assaulted, they said, “No”. But if you asked them about their actual experiences, the experiences they had were sexual harassment and sexual assault, and rape—and they were not identifying them as such, because they didn’t have the language, because they didn’t see it as such.

The horrifying thing about the work of Mary Koss—which actually did have ramifications for lots of us thinking about what these things are—is that she says, even as late as last year, we haven’t changed the stats: we still have the same alarming amount of sexual harassment in our society. So we have to change something else. We’re identifying the problem better than we were, but we actually are going to have to work on this; this is a work in progress, because many people suffer this kind of sexual assault.

Now, I did employment law as the first 25 years of my career for a really good reason. I’m really proud of it. I did that work because I knew that, in our lives, employment is such a big deal. It’s so important to our wellbeing; it’s the way we earn a living and it’s the way that we actually manage our lives independently of others. I know that even my friend in ACT agrees with doing that. He thinks that people should stand on their own two feet—well, work is actually a really important platform for doing that, and so work has to be something that we take really seriously. People are entitled to work without harassment, they’re entitled to decent work, and they’re entitled to well-paid work. Those are all really important things because they drive wellbeing, and they’re at the heart of why I am in the Labour Party.

So that is what I’d like considered here: that we aren’t tinkering here. We’re talking about one of the very important platforms that we have in our lives to make sure that we can pay for our kids, that we can do things on our own, that we can make reasonable choices, and that we can house and clothe ourselves. That’s how important work is.

So I think that’s something that, actually, the Labour Party and the ACT Party should have in common: that absolute commitment to decent work in our society. But the thing that that is going to require is a recognition that work is also a vulnerable space, and that these kinds of powers—of going and holding an employer to account if an employee is abused by something as serious as sexual abuse—are really important fundamentals in building a decent society. So I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take what I expect will be a fairly short call on the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill, which was initially in the name of the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, and now I understand it is in the name of Marja Lubeck.

We’ve had quite a lot of discussion about the importance of this, and I do just want to start off by referencing the research done by the Human Rights Commission in the last year around the prevalence of sexual harassment in order to give us a bit of a sense of the scale of the problem. We’ve had trouble with that in the past because, actually, part of the problem that’s being recognised by this bill is the difficulty people have in talking about this. But in Aotearoa, last year, the research shows that 30 percent of working people have experienced sexual harassment in the last five years. That’s a pretty significant problem right across all of our workplaces. The people most impacted were young people—54 percent of young people—and bisexual and disabled workers, where 67 percent of them have been experiencing sexual harassment in their workplaces.

This is a really challenging issue for us as a country, and it’s been referenced by other speakers that we need to acknowledge the impact of these offences in our workplaces. They cause mental and physical health impacts—anxiety, depression—and people have trouble sleeping and trouble eating and they’re questioning themselves. That’s a result of the abuse but also it’s a result of the stigma and the difficulty of talking about these issues, and—I would say as well—the difficulty of a pathway to resolution.

We’re not very good at providing pathways to resolution for this, and I want to pick up where the previous speaker Vanushi Walters was saying that we have two systems that were mentioned. So there’s the Human Rights Commission pathway, which has had traditionally that 12-month time frame for reporting, and then we’ve had the employment process—the personal grievance process—where, previously, you had to get your complaint in in 90 days. Now that’s been evened up to be consistent across those two areas. We also have the criminal court—and this House, I’m hoping now, is very, very aware of the problems and the huge barriers for people to enter into that process and get a good outcome, with an outcome being satisfaction in terms of a hope of resolution and recognition—and then we also have WorkSafe as another avenue for addressing sexual harassment.

This bill—and I want to acknowledge Zoё Lawton, who kind of initiated this in her conversations with Dr Russell, I think, and her advocacy, and part of that advocacy was recognised in a consultation that was initiated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in 2020. This was an idea that came out of that consultation that was initiated in 2020 and can be seen, I think, in the summary of submissions. The submissions closed in March 2021. I was part of the conversations in initiating this consultation through MBIE around our processes for addressing sexual harassment, harassment, and bullying.

The reason we initiated that inquiry was because the feedback was just overwhelming—in the wake of the Me Too movement and the stories from our law firms that were all over the media at the time—that we did not have a functioning system that people had confidence in to be able to address the harm in their workplaces, let alone prevent the harm in their workplace. So that consultation was initiated, and submissions closed in March 2021. I’m pleased—at least, I guess—that today, in May 2023, we are passing a member’s bill that delivers on one of the issues that was raised in that consultation.

There is work to do. I think, as Ms Walters said, “What’s next? What’s next?” We have initiated work to work out what’s next, and we just need to make sure that we don’t keep doing what—and this is not specific to this Government; this is a pattern right through our history about things coming up in the media, people spilling their guts to try and get recognition of our system failure and make change for themselves and for others, and we start work, because we are affected and impacted by those stories. Then those stories go out of the media and the attention shifts, and we don’t make the fundamental changes that we need to make. And there are many, in terms of the conflicting systems that we have.

I do want to point out the points that Vanushi Walters, again, made that quite a lot of submissions raised: that, actually, 39 percent of New Zealand workers who have been surveyed had experienced racial harassment in the last five years—so it’s even more than sexual harassment—and that we had levels of bullying that were 20 percent of workers who had experienced bullying frequently in the last 12 months. That is happening right now.

One in five people in our workplaces are experiencing bullying, and we have not extended the periods for them to come forward, even though we know the dynamics and the impacts of those forms of abuse, and the processes that people need to go through in their thinking and understanding of it themselves—let alone talking it through with others—and finding a pathway are very similar to sexual harassment. I definitely believe we need to be doing that work. Enough said. The Greens are happy to be supporting this bill.

Noa’ia ‘e Mḁuri. Happy Rotuman Language Week, and also acknowledging New Zealand Sign Language Week. So thank you, Mr Speaker. It is always an honour and a privilege to take a call in the Chamber of change as the member of Parliament for the beautiful Ōtaki electorate, and on this members’ day.

In 2019, Statistics New Zealand recorded that one in 10 workers feel discriminated against, harassed, or bullied at work. We know that Asian and Māori ethnic groups both reported a rate of discrimination, harassment, or bullying of 13 percent, while Pacific and European ethnic groups had a rate of 11 percent to report. We know across all of those ethnic groups that women have higher rates of reporting in terms of experiences of discrimination, harassment, and bullying than men in the workplace. That is why this bill is critical.

I will lend my voice also of thanks to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, and now Marja Lubeck, who’s bringing this kaupapa through the House. We know the member Marja Lubeck is a staunch and long-time advocate for good and safe working conditions here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This bill will improve the personal grievances process for victims of workplace sexual harassment by allowing them time to consider what has happened to them before deciding to come forward. It amends section 114 of the principal Act to extend the period within which a personal grievance may be brought to 12 months instead of the 90 days where we are currently at. The 12 months is for those with personal grievances that involve sexual harassment.

Currently, with an employee only having those 90 days to come forward and report sexual harassment, this gives the employee limited time to process what has happened. We’ve heard tonight the many traumas that come with sexual harassment, the time that it’s going to take the person who has experienced that to work through that trauma, to find support, to get the tools to be able to get the support to work through that, and then finally—and hopefully—report that bad behaviour and sexual harassment within their workplace.

But, unfortunately, we know that, more often than not, victims of sexual harassment don’t come forward. Again, we’ve heard others talk about how there can be a whole raft of reasons, including feeling shame or ma, victims not feeling that they have a safe space to do that and, again, victims of sexual harassment that don’t feel they have support to do that.

Then those that do find support or those that do get to the place where they feel they can make a personal grievance and report sexual harassment in the workplace, quite often that’s taken them some time. Again, they might have needed to get counselling—that takes time. They might have needed to work within themselves to work through some of that trauma just to get to the stage where they can actually report—that takes time. Like we’ve heard from others, some of them don’t know what that means or how to go about it—that takes time. So by the time some of these brave people are ready to report, it’s too late. That 90-day period is so limiting that they’ve missed the boat and an opportunity to have their voice and put a wrong right.

So while it is currently 90 days, it absolutely makes sense to make sure that we shift that, and, for me, this is the major part of the bill that I think is good—that we shift that to that 12-month period to make sure they have got time to get themselves to a place where they can feel safe and be in a safe space to report, but also to get the support they need, because we also know that once someone has the tools and the courage and the support to report, that isn’t the end of the story; that’s just the beginning. They have to be able to have the support, the stamina, and be in the right place to be able to continue with that personal grievance.

I wasn’t part of the Education and Workforce Committee who worked through this, the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill, but I do want to thank the committee for the work they’ve done on this bill. I understand the committee were unanimous with the recommendations that they put in this bill when they passed it, including the time period in employment agreements.

Clauses 4 and 5 of the bill would amend sections 54(3)(a)(iii) and 65(2)(a)(iv) of the Employment Relations Act, respectively. These sections require employment agreements to refer to the time period within which a personal grievance must be raised. The bill would replace, as I spoke about before, the reference to 90 days with the relevant periods.

The Education and Workforce Committee recommended that the clauses in the bill specify the two different periods that would apply, depending on the nature of the personal grievance. So, as we’ve heard before—and we heard Jan Logie talk about—12 months for those personal grievances who experienced sexual harassment, and 90 days for the other personal grievances that employees would bring to the workplace.

This legislation is part of the Labour Government’s plan in improving women’s working lives. And we heard Ms Helen White talk about how important that is and what workplaces mean—you know, how work helps our families, especially our women, in terms of making sure that we can live and support our families and support our tamariki, our children.

You also heard, at the start, I quoted some of the stats around what that shows for women in comparison to men, who are far more likely to be sexually harassed in the workplace—bullied and discriminated against. We know that women have a far different experience in the workplace than our men counterparts. So this Government’s work in Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine has immediate to medium-term, and then long-term actions to address barriers to women’s employment.

This bill was another piece of work that supports improving the working lives for women here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Further, this Government is doing some work on reducing the gender pay gap, and we’ve already started to see some of that with the Public Service at its lowest they’ve ever been on 28 November 2021, at 8.6 percent. Again, this bill builds on furthering some of that work.

Everyone should feel safe when they go to work. They should feel supported in their workplace, and that is what this bill is about. It ensures employees who experience sexual harassment in the workplace have a fair and reasonable process and it allows time for these employees to report.

We’ve heard from others tonight about the struggles to even get to the place where you can report. That’s why it was a little bit disappointing to hear the ACT member Chris Baillie, I guess, downplay some of that as bad behaviour. Sexual harassment, or any kind of bullying or harassment or discrimination in the workplace, is not just banter and it’s not just kidding around. You know, we heard, again, the high rates of women that are affected by this and that experience sexual harassment. The trauma that’s behind that is not just some words and that’s it; that they do a personal grievance and it’s finished. That trauma stays with them for a really long time.

Words really hurt; they cut deep. I feel that we need to make sure that we remind ourselves of that, and that also the words we use in this House cut deep, so reminding ourselves that—well, I said earlier—the majority of people who do experience sexual harassment in the workplace are women. That is somebody’s daughter. That is somebody’s wife. That is somebody’s mother. That is somebody’s sister. That is somebody’s someone to them. We have to remind ourselves of that. So not only do those words and feelings cut deep in the workplace, it cuts deep here, too, and we have a responsibility to make sure we remember that and that our words have real meaning to it.

I want to finish my contribution by also saying that if there is one out there that is experiencing harassment, sexual harassment, bullying, or discrimination in any kind in the workplace—or if you know someone who is and you see it and they are experiencing sexual harassment, discrimination, or bullying, be brave and stand by them and support them to make sure that you can help them to get the support they need in the first instance and, if they are ready and strong enough, help them to be able to report that.

I also want to finish my contribution by talking about some of the places you can go to. There are many organisations, and, hopefully, you will see some of your local ones out there. But I wanted to just highlight a couple here. So Safe to talk—it’s a sexual harm helpline and its number is 0800 044 334, or you can text them on 4334. Then there are local Victim Support, local Women’s Refuge. Obviously, if it’s life-threatening, you should ring the police, and also the police are there to be able to connect you with Victim Support and other organisations that can support you. And, of course, you can text or call 1737 if you are seeking counselling as well. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call in the third reading of this bill as the parliamentary sitting day comes to an end in a few minutes. In doing so, I want to acknowledge, as others have done, the initiative taken by the Hon Dr Deborah Russell for, in the first place, having the foresight to put this bill into the ballot and then having the good fortune to have it drawn from the ballot and then subsequently taken over in its later stages by Marja Lubeck.

I also want to acknowledge the, I think, very good debate that’s taken place here tonight. Sometimes this Parliament acts in a way that many people would see as petulant, childish, and sometimes irrelevant, and then occasionally there are opportunities when this Parliament actually makes some very good and positive changes and the debate is well informed, it’s measured, and it’s respectful from across the House.

I want to, in that context, particularly single out Helen White’s contribution this evening; a contribution that was made from years of experience as a practitioner in the employment law area, and clearly from someone who knew what she was talking about and was able to relate well, I thought, to the debate tonight. So I commend her for her contribution.

Although sexual harassment is never acceptable in any context, sexual harassment that occurs in the workplace is particularly objectionable. That’s part of the reason why, on this side of the House tonight, we are, with enthusiasm, supporting this bill at third reading, because the issues that occur in the workplace, the dynamics that occur in the workplace are different to many other situations of day-to-day life. There are often power imbalances and there are often situations that are difficult and challenging.

The overwhelming number of victims of workplace sexual harassment are, of course, women. But it’s not uniquely women who are the victims. I can well recall years ago in a previous life when I was a middle-manager in a company and had to try to deal with a situation where a young male employee was being harassed by an older senior female manager within the organisation. At the time, it was a real issue, because, back in those days, companies and businesses literally—literally—did not have the skill set, the mechanisms, the policies, or the processes for dealing with a situation of that sort.

I can remember it being a very challenging and difficult situation not only for me as a middle-manager trying to negotiate a way through that and ultimately finding a resolution to it but for the people involved, for the young man who was involved in this situation where there was an absolute mismatch of power dynamics. It was a serious, serious matter. These days, from time to time, when we’re having a debate of this sort, I think about that particular situation, because that’s not, I suspect, completely unusual even in today’s world.

Regrettably, I’m also old enough to remember a time, when I first started working, when it was commonplace to go into a male-dominated workplace—and I’m thinking maybe of a mechanic’s workshop or an engineering workshop and what have you—and there would literally be wall-to-wall photographs and images of naked women in various poses and what have you, and even businesses that would hand out calendars each year as some kind of promotion. Well, fortunately, the world has moved on and those sorts of practices are now utterly unacceptable—as is sexual harassment in any way, shape, or form in the workplace.

It’s for that reason that we on this side of the House support this legislation and we thank and congratulate the Hon Dr Deborah Russell for bringing it to the House. I am very happy and proud to support this legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise with some solemnity this evening to add my small contribution to the previous debate. I agree with the member opposite, the Hon Scott Simpson, who spoke of the respect with which this debate has been treated. I also want to add my thanks and gratitude to the Hon Dr Deborah Russell and to Marja Lubeck for bringing this bill to the House. But I also want to make mention, too, again, of Zoë Lawton, whose blog, I believe, was the genesis of this bill following the Colmar Brunton poll that we have been talking about as we’ve moved through Parliament with this bill.

We’ve heard that the purpose of this bill is really simple: we’re trying to extend the time available for a personal grievance that involves sexual harassment from 90 days to 12 months, but only for a personal grievance relating to sexual harassment.

I also want to thank the submitters on this bill, and I’m going to talk a tiny little bit about some of the themes that were brought forward, just really expanding on what’s been said before. I’m referring to one community group who said they didn’t support the bill because they felt that this would risk people not being able to remember relevant events properly, which is an interesting perspective, because in my first reading speech, I talked of my experiences, my personal experiences, of sexual harassment, and I can only say that I remember in precise detail being harassed when I was 17 years old—which is many, many years ago now. I remember what I was wearing. I remember where I was sitting. I remember what was said. I could almost tell you the smells. And that was harassment; it wasn’t assault.

Sexual harassment is really significant—it has a profound effect upon people. We’ve heard that 31 percent of women and 5 percent of men said, when asked in this Colmar Brunton investigation, that they’d experienced harassment. The most common reason for not reporting I’ll go into in a little bit, but 39 percent of them said that this experience affected their emotional and mental wellbeing, and 32 percent said it affected their job or career prospects. It’s not a small thing—it really isn’t.

I’m not going to speak for very much longer, because I’m conscious that it’s the end of the day, but I just want to read a blog post from the #Metoo blog that Zoë Lawton put forward. One blog post read: “To the guy who wrote: “How can so much ‘behaviour’ occur yet it is only reported and recorded when the momentum starts”—she says—“are you actually serious? I have personally experienced, and I have witnessed other female lawyers experience, the harsh repercussions of speaking up … laughed at or humiliated … denied work … pushed out of a job … bullied and stalked.” Then she said: “I realise at the end of this post I have carefully worded it so as to not identify myself at all.” She adds, to the people who wrote and brought this forward, “You are so brave.”

I would add: “Every submitter is brave.” Zoë Lawton is brave. This House is brave to bring this legislation forward, and I commend it to the House.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. I congratulate members on some very thoughtful and collegial lawmaking this evening. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.