Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): If I may I'll just deal with the three speakers and respond to each of them in turn. So thank you for the questions.The Hon Paul Goldsmith talked about the uncertainty for small employers and small business. I agree that that 90-day period does raise a period of uncertainty for employers and that can be very difficult for small businesses in particular. The cheap answer to this we'll say is don't engage in sexual harassment then—all right? So that's the cheap answer. I think the rather better answer is to say that this does create an opportunity to ensure that those businesses do have good policies and practices in place. It's always possible if an employee comes with a claim of sexual harassment to actually deal with it properly. So that would obviate the need for a grievance in the first place and of course if the employer themselves is committing the sexual harassment I'm not quite sure why they should be relieved of responsibility for that after a mere 90 days.So I see an opportunity sitting in there as well for small business because it should I hope prompt the need to put in place good policies and to put in place good workplace procedures so that it does actually assist businesses to develop those really good workplaces. So there is that.Mr Goldsmith spoke of—and my colleague Camilla Belich also mentioned this—whether or not the extension of time related only to sexual harassment or whether someone could perhaps take the one-year period to make a claim of sexual harassment and then use that to pull other matters into contention as well. As Ms Belich said that was discussed by the Education and Workforce Committee and it has been explicitly dealt with in new section 114(7) in clause 6 of the bill where there have been a couple of clauses introduced which very specifically name section 103(1)(d) of the Employment Relations Act. Now that is the clause that specifies that someone may bring a claim of sexual harassment. So you'll see there's subclause (7)(a) and (b) and it says that for a personal grievance under section 103(1)(d) it's a period of one year and in respect of any other personal grievance the claim has to be brought within 90 days. So that is dealt with. Though I agree it's a very important matter to deal with when I said that this bill is very narrow it is indeed very narrow and I think we need to keep it that way. There are certainly other areas that could be considered for an extended time but perhaps in the subject of a separate bill rather than doing it in this particular bill.Chris Bishop: What areas in particular?Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Well for example perhaps we might consider bullying or something like that. But I would like it be considered under a separate bill where the issues could be discussed separately.My colleague Helen White wanted to know about some of the submissions on the bill. I haven't brought them with me unfortunately or I could have read some of them to you though we have traversed them at some stages. But I was rereading some of them today. They came from a law blog set up by Zoë Lawton called under the influence of the—oh I can't remember what it's called.Helen White: The Me Too movement.Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yeah the Me Too movement. I was going to say the What me?" movement but it's the Me Too movement—thank you. Under that a number of the submitters there talked about the experiences they'd had in law firms of senior employees pressuring them of them being pressured to drink and to engage in various activities which then led to sexual harassment and the impact that it had on their careers. However I think the one that I read just today was a different one. It came in as an anonymous submission to the committee and was accepted and it was from a person who had worked in the hospitality industry for a long time. In the hospitality industry employees—waiters wait staff bar staff—are routinely subjected to sexual harassment from customers so not just from their employers and not just from their fellow employees but from customers who think it's quite OK to pat a waitress' bottom or to pinch her or to make a sexual suggestion. Frankly people should be do their jobs without having to be sexually harassed and she talked of the impact that that had had on her. So this is going to be an interesting problem too or it should be an interesting problem within the hospitality industry as to how to ensure that customers behave appropriately as well. Thank you—we've addressed the idea of retrospectivity but Ms Belich wanted to have a little bit of a think about the consistency with the Human Rights Act. Under the Human Rights Act of course a person can bring a claim for gender discrimination. Sexual harassment is one of those things sitting in that space and it is a 365-day period. So yes this 365-day period does now align with the procedures that are available under the Human Rights Act. I think it is good to align the two and again it does raise the issue as to whether there should be other matters that should be extended out to this 365-day period to enable that consistency. I think it is useful that an employee can go to the most obvious solution for an employee in respect of sexual harassment and that is the Employment Relations Act because that's the context in which it has occurred. I don't know that I had that intention with this bill but it turns out to be one of the happy accidents that make it a better bill for that matter. Thank you Madam Chair."