Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Chair. Look we've had a bit of accusations across the House of a rewrite of history and I'm desperately trying to avoid descending into that because it's not actually helpful.I get what the Minister is saying about the status of the ability to be able to take a pay equity claim in what was an interregnum—a very long interregnum—but I dispute the Minister's description of that being some kind of punitive imposition on the workers and their bargaining agents.The reality is: this legislation gave effect to an agreement. Now when the Government committed to intervening to settle the case the case itself was not dispensed with by the courts; it was paused. At any time either party but probably the—well I'm not sure who was appealing who by then but basically Bartlett et al could have recommenced the claim in the courts which by the way was not a pay equity claim; it was a ruling that pay equity was part of the Equal Pay Act 1972. It wasn't a substantive bargaining for more money; it was a very technical question of law.Now the reason that is relevant is because the creation of that interregnum was the quid pro quo to a very generous $2 billion-plus settlement where the Crown said OK we'll make pay equity go away if you agree not to pursue your claims in the court." The way that was done was through section 8 of the original Act. I do think it's disingenuous for people in this debate to describe that as some kind of punitive imposition. What the Act said was it settled pay equity and so by the way let's no longer—because I had introduced a piece of legislation at about the same time called the Pay Equity Bill which was then going to take a new approach that clearly Labour and the Greens didn't like; that's fine that's history. But the idea that that five-year hiatus on claiming in the courts was some kind of punitive imposition I think is a mischaracterisation of what had happened. This was an agreement in good faith with good will to make the problem go away and as part of that agreement which was legislated parties agreed—not just the law stated parties agreed—they would not go back to court. But as the quid pro quo in return for that $2 billion settlement needed to be in writing it also went into law.This pay equity claim was settled. That's why it was called the Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act 2017 and had the parties and the Government—because clearly if the Government accuses the previous Government of not acting quickly enough then the same accusation can be laid at the feet of this Government. If the Government had normalised bargaining and commenced negotiations not on 8 May 2022 but on 8 May 2020 or 2019 or 2021 and got around the table with the parties to make sure that there was an appropriate settlement which reflected the current value of these care and support workers inequity would not have arisen. But Mr Little clearly thinks there is a new inequity that has to go through a whole new process.I think the Equal Pay Act has been amended now to provide for a framework for that to happen but frankly the first cab off the rank should not be the care and support workers. They were the first cab off the rank before the law was even passed thanks to the negotiated settlement. So it is disingenuous I think and a misnomer to say on the one hand we're going to continue to call this Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlements Act but act as if pay equity had not been settled.What the Government is better to do is to get on and bang a few heads together—including their own frankly—and make sure that bargaining commences for an adjustment to the rates of pay for care and support workers that don't lead to the very inequities that this original Act eliminated."