Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you. The Minister doesn't seem to be in any hurry to answer any questions but a couple of things further on in relation to this question of WorkSafe's performance I would like to know from the Minister whether he thinks it's right that a full 12 percent of WorkSafe staff have Koru Club memberships. It's just a minor little matter; he might answer that. I also want to know what progress if any has been made in regard to the focus on hazardous substances—you know the fact that worker injuries whether it's poisons or noxious gas or all sorts of other agencies in the workplace which have significant impacts—whether they've made any progress on doing a better job than they had in the past around particularly the compliance of the certifiers regime. There was a report called the Smith Report which was published in March which showed some real shortcomings there. I was just a little bit surprised that you didn't see too much in the way of reference to that side of things from the SageBush inquiry. And so I just want to hear from the Minister on that topic. Finally another question for the Minister was when we looked at the Budget documents we got one where the Minister of Finance wrote to him saying I would like to see greater prioritisation and coordination between Ministers of initiatives that will be administered by [MBIE]. I expect you to work with [Minister Nash and] other MBIE Ministers to achieve this prior to package submission." And I'm just curious as to what submission incurred the wrath of the Minister of Finance on that particular occasion and whether he had learnt his lesson from such a telling-off from the Minister of Finance. I'd be intrigued to know as to which of the particular issues he was dealing with. I want to move on to the question of fair pay agreements where in the Estimates there is extra funding for the potential use of taxpayers funding for particularly the union side but also the employer representations in these proposed fair pay agreements over the next four years about $6 million or so. We've traversed this and we obviously don't support the fair pay agreements as in principle we're just adding rigidity to labour markets at a time when we need flexibility and innovation more than ever. But I'd be interested to know from the Minister whether he'd given any thought in this legislation—if they were to ram it through there are a couple of categories of things that need to be either mandatorily included in any fair pay agreement to be considered by parties or optionally considered—to ensuring that discussion and debate around the issue of productivity in the sector or the industry should be a mandatory part of the discussion. Because if you're discussing all sorts of things such as pay and conditions and hours and potentially superannuation and safety and a whole bunch of things—research. But nowhere is it ever mentioned this issue of the productivity of the sector and I think it should be—if you were to press ahead with this—part of the discussion. I'd like to know from the Minister whether he agrees with that.The other question I have for him in relation to fair pay is in relation to—the problem is it's difficult to force the employers to get together and how you actually do that in a way that ensures that all employers are dealt with. If you were thinking of cleaners for example you might have a very large corporate that employed thousands of cleaners and you might also have a mum and dad operation up in the Hokianga employing two or one and they're very different. Or if you're thinking of a shop teller or operators you might be dealing with two duopoly supermarkets with tens of thousands of employees and little shops with three or four. The needs and requirements of both are very different. With the way that it's organised is he worried that you might end up actually once more making it easier for the big operators to control this situation the way that this operates—is it possible that it will be organised in such a way that it's the big operators that control the employer negotiations? They're the only ones who have got the resources to deal with it properly and the mum and dad cleaning operation up in the Hokianga or the small little shop with one assistant employee just have to go along with what suits the big guys. What I suppose I'd be interested to know is whether he's been talking to his colleague the Minister of Commerce who's on the one hand beating his chest saying he's going to come down tough on the big supermarkets duopolies for example and yet at the same time he's passing legislation that because of the onerous regulations and burdensome requirements of the fair pay agreements that are being established by this Government will inevitably help the big guys because as we all know it's the big forms that survive the best in a heavily regulated environment generally. They have the clout to make sure the regulations and the arrangements suit them the best and it's the small people the small businesses which are the backbone of the economy that struggle. So I'd be interested to know that given the fact that we are going to be spending money supporting both the union negotiators or the employee negotiators and also some more money is put aside in this Budget to potentially support some of the employee negotiators as well. So it fits squarely in this debate.One other issue that he might also consider if he's got plenty of things to answer and I hope he might is the interplay between—actually I suppose that might not necessarily fit entirely into the Estimates debate so I won't trifle with the Chair on those matters. So I'll leave it there and I'm hoping that the Minister might have something to say on all of these questions and topics."