Cunliffe DavidHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you Mr Chairman. I do appreciate the opportunity to make a—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry I am just going to interrupt and say that it is most unhelpful—just as we do not like comments that deride Chairs' rulings comments that are supportive are also out of order. So I want to thank Megan Woods for her support but I ask her to restrain herself in future. The Hon David Cunliffe—we will start again.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Peace love and goodwill is breaking out all over the Chamber tonight but I will refrain from extending my own just in case I get in trouble and am sat down.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: It is a pleasure to take a very brief call on the Regulatory Systems (Workplace Relations) Amendment Bill Part 2. I want to touch on two things: the grounds on which an employee may take a personal grievance and the term of eligibility for paid parental leave.Firstly on personal grievances this bill helpfully extends the grounds upon which an employee may take what we know colloquially as a PG. It covers grounds such as when an employer has failed to pay them the compensation to which they have been entitled—in this case when a shift has been cancelled. That recognises the relatively powerless position that an employee has in a large organisation when it makes scheduling decisions often for very good scheduling reasons—product flow product mix—but those decisions should not come out of the pocket of the employee who has turned up for work and should not lose income and employment because the business has made what for it might be a prudent business decision. The business wears the cost. The business wears the risk. Of course repeated infringements of that nature should be a cause for a personal grievance.The question of compensation calls to mind the matter that my colleague Damien O'Connor has raised in relation to Pike River coalfield. It sticks in the craw of the Labour Opposition that a substantial insurance cheque was held by the owners of the mine and the parent company and not paid to the families of the deceased. New Zealand Oil and Gas I understand is a parent and Pike River mine company when it was pre-liquidation. That is not appropriate. That compensation should have gone to the families and that is part of the unresolved business. This is not exactly the same circumstance and I know you are going to rightly bring me back to the bill but I think it does attest to the same principle: employees who are owed compensation should be able to get it just as you Mr Chairman should be compensated when you are unduly praised by my noisy colleagues sitting just to my right.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Unduly praised? Well that's purely—[Interruption]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Well outside the Standing Orders it must be undue and I am reflecting your own ruling on that.The second thing about this bill that leaps out is the paid parental leave provisions. Labour led by Sue Moroney on this issue has pushed since—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No no no. It is the next part. We are doing Part 1 at the moment. So if the member wants to keep going on Part 1—or does he want to wait? We will be on Part 2 quite soon.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I will foreshadow my next call on Part 2 Mr Chair. But thank you you are quite right to draw me up. Such was my enthusiasm for the paid parental leave provisions. I know Sue Moroney is just waiting to expound on the demerits of the financial veto that was issued but that story will have to wait. We will come to that soon.I will just close by saying that the personal grievance process is a really important one for employees. Employees are often in a powerless relationship relative to particularly large employers but employers of all size. We support the extension of the grounds for a personal grievance. We know that due process is required. The select committee did look at whether those provisions should be retrospective. They were advised that that was unnecessary and that the rights of employees to take personal grievances would not be curtailed by the lack of a retrospective provision. We are prepared to live with that and we support that part of the bill. Thank you.