Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to stand and take a call as a business owner and employer who currently allows staff more than five days' sick leave currently. It's a real pleasure to take a call on this piece of legislation here in the committee stage.We've heard from members opposite—Mr Goldsmith and Mr Simpson—about the timing of this piece of legislation and that we're using COVID as some kind of an excuse to push some weird agenda that they think may have been going on here for some time. But actually I say that what we've seen with COVID has shown us just how important this change is and how much this change is needed. Actually the timing of this legislation I believe couldn't be more perfect because what we don't want is people who are ill coming to work because they don't have the ability to take paid sick leave because they do need to keep their income coming in. We don't want them to come to the workplace while they are ill passing on whatever illness it may be because let's face it some people work in very close proximity to clients and customers that come into the workplace so there is an extremely high risk of passing on whatever it is that they may have. So I say that this is the perfect time to bring in this legislation in order to allow people who are unwell to take the time to be at home to get well before coming back to the workplace. We've heard from members opposite that when people have more sick leave it will cost the company more. And yes to a certain degree it will cost more but I would also counter-argue that if we have people coming into the workplace sick passing on their illness then we will have more and more and more staff members having to take time off because they are ill.Mr Simpson mentioned that as a business owner if a person is faced with a prospective employee who has no children and one who has children they would choose potentially the person that doesn't have children. Well I say that I can't fathom that because it assumes that employers don't take into consideration potentially the type of person and the fit that they would be for their business over the fact that they have children and they might take more sick leave. I find that unfathomable.I did want to ask the Minister earlier on a question around incrementally introducing the 10 days' sick leave and whether that would really help the transition for business. The Minister did answer that but there was another question I wanted to bring up with the Minister and others have mentioned it. They've been talking about the prorating in terms of people that work part time. We hear this argument from members opposite that if someone works part time they're essentially going to get a whole lot—a whole lot—more sick leave than anyone or someone that works full time.I would like to ask the Minister the question: if there is somebody that works part time it is correct is it not that they would be entitled to sick leave for the days that they would ordinarily work and need to take off as sick leave? So they're not taking additional days to what they would ordinarily work; they would simply be given sick leave to cover the days that they would ordinarily work. So that's a question that I have there for the Minister. I think that I will leave that at that. Thank you.