Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker it's a pleasure to take a call on the Employment Relations (Restraint of Trade) Amendment Bill brought by my colleague Helen White. I remember Helen prior to being elected into Parliament talking about how one of the things she wanted to change was the unfair situations of restraint of trade and then I was there on the day that it was drawn from the biscuit tin and so I congratulate her on having this very good bill drawn and hopefully being able to become part of the law of New Zealand before this term of Parliament is up or possibly next term depending on how we get through the readings in the next sitting block.I just wanted to focus a wee bit on some of the comments made by the members opposite about the situation of restraints of trade and I think Helen gave a really good overview of how this bill works so I won't go over that ground again. Restraints of trade are currently prima facie illegal for all workers in New Zealand. That is the current stated law. So to hear members opposite say Well this will affect too many people." is a little bit unusual considering that at the moment unless these restraints are proved to be reasonable they are actually illegal for all workers. So I think the—Toni Severin: What happens when you have an employment lawyer write your contract? CAMILLA BELICH: When you have an employment lawyer write your contract usually the employment lawyer will write a contract to benefit the employer and so it's important that people get the advice that they need when signing contracts. But the member does raise a good point which is that most of the time in New Zealand—and I've worked in other jurisdictions as well but in my experience working here—people don't scrutinise their employment contracts to the nth degree around restraints of trade. It's usually something that comes up when they're leaving a job. And that's problematic because it's only when they come to leave a job that they realise that actually they are restrained and these are sometimes enforceable restraints that can actually stop them from moving on to other work and becoming part of the productive economy which I assume is what we would all want people to be—to be able to make a living—especially in the cost of living situation that we have at the moment. But people don't always read them and they don't always know that there's a restraint of trade clause in there and it does stop them from moving on which is regretful. So I think it is an important restriction on the use of these and I think it will make it clearer for people the context in which restraints are appropriately used and Helen did go through all of those areas and I don't have as much time to go over all of them. Just in short the restraints do not apply to the highest earners and there may be some argument for the very highest earners working in very competitive industries to have some kind of restraint if reasonable in some circumstances. So for those who are above the income threshold they will be able to be restrained in some instances. It does apply a payment for that period of time which you can't work and I think most reasonable people would say that if you are not able to work you should receive some compensation for it. It's not their full wage; it's only half of that wage. So that is another positive thing about this bill—the requirement for people to be paid for those small cases where there is a reasonable restraint. So those are all really important steps that I think will help address some inequity that we currently have in the situation in New Zealand where we do have something which is meant to be illegal for everyone but we know that sometimes when it's in your employment contract you don't have the benefit of an employment lawyer to be able to say to you "Well that's not reasonable." then you may not be able to apply for the job that you want. You may as my colleague has said be in a situation where you can't earn the types of income that you would otherwise be able to earn. It might unfairly prevent you from earning an income. It might unfairly prevent your career from progressing. This bill goes a really long way to making sure that the situation for workers when they do have a restraint of trade is fairer and I think it will not only improve the situation for working people but improve the clarity and the accessibility of the law for most people which to this date has been only outlined in case law which is not very accessible to the majority of the population. So I commend again the member Helen White for bringing this bill. Well done Helen and I think it will make a real difference to New Zealand workers. I commend it to the House."