Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. And thank you for the opportunity to speak on this the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill in the name of Dr Deborah Russell MP. This for those people tuning in is what's called a member's bill where this member has had the good fortune of having won the ballot in order to get this bill considered by Parliament. And she's had more luck than I have on these matters.This is a bill that we in the National Party will support to select committee. And we do want to put this legislation in front of the wider public for them to comment on and give some feedback on because we all know that the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be something that many workers and employers have to face. It's nothing new; it's been around since the dawn of time and my sense is that there is far less tolerance for it now than there was in the past and that's a good thing. But there is still an enormous amount of work to do to show and give a clear indication that any form of harassment is not acceptable in the workplace let alone sexual harassment. It extends in all sorts of workplaces in all circumstances. Certainly I remember being a victim of it myself in my teenage years and many people in society have had to deal with unwanted attention in this way and have had to cope with it and all the things that have come along with it and have had nowhere to go not knowing what to do and it takes time to work its way through. So the basic argument behind this bill or this proposal is that 90 days—three months—in order to lodge a personal grievance on this matter may not be sufficient time given the nature of the circumstances behind what kind of harassment went on. And so on the face of it definitely worth considering.I suppose the issue that we have to consider and what we'll hear some advice from of course would be to say if we were to extend the time available for personal grievances across the board from 90 days to 12 months then that would create I think a lot of problems. Because you've got to think in terms of small businesses and small business owners and the uncertainty that would be created in the minds of those business operators having the potential for some sort of personal grievance to be raised extended over many many months and towards a year. So at least at 90 days people have some sort of sense of certainty of how things are going and what's going to happen. If you extend that to 12 months then that uncertainty hangs in the back of the minds of a small business owner in particular because of the very severe consequences that that can have for their business if a personal grievance is raised and the whole process drags them into the ERA—the Employment Relations Authority—the court structure the many thousands of dollars involved in lawyers and in pay-outs and things like that can be an absolute nightmare for small businesses struggling to stay afloat. And so we certainly wouldn't want to be adding to the challenges that those businesses have to face at the same time. So we'll be very keen to get a sense of how this would work in practice and whether or not this particular aspect sexual harassment is a special case. Then naturally we would be very cautious about extending this to all sorts of other cases of personal grievances so that that uncertainty that many small businesses would face would be extended further. So that is something that we'd be very keen to hear from in the select committee process.So just for those people tuning in what happens is this is a bill that's been introduced by a member. We're having our first reading now and if it passes which it looks like it will do then it goes off to the select committee who will call for submissions and everybody in the public will have an opportunity to have their say. I'm sure we'll hear from many people advocating for this extension. We may hear from some people voicing a note of caution about how this should operate and some of the dangers therein and then we'll reflect upon that and report back to the House.So that's a process that we'll be looking forward to but overall we in the National Party do share deep concerns—well do share a common opposition that everybody in this House I'm sure extends to sexual harassment in the workplace or indeed in any part of our lives and wanting to send a very clear message that it can't be tolerated and that all New Zealanders male female whatever should be able to work without feeling the oppression that comes from ongoing sexual harassment. So there is no clearer message that can be sent and so we're looking forward to the discussion and thank the member for bringing this opportunity before the House and look forward to the further debate this evening. Thank you Mr Speaker.