Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate Mr Simpson deferring because he is of course our workplace relations and safety spokesperson but I could not let the comments from the Minister for COVID-19 Response pass in respect of his commentary on my tabled amendment around Schedule 3A. Now his comments actually underscore the confusion—I'll call it confusion; that's the kindest thing I can say about the Government's position—on what's really going on here about whether or not the assessment tool that has just been passed in Part 1 is compulsory or optional. What we heard from the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Michael Wood was that it is a guide a tool that a business can use but is not compelled to use and indeed in Part 1 that's exactly what it says. It says that a business may" use the assessment tool and when questioned about that the Minister was kind of all over the place particularly when compared with what he said on Newstalk ZB this morning. But I certainly interpreted his response as it's an option it's a tool they can use and they can use other tools. But what the Minister has just said is that it's not an option and not only is it not an option but if a business determines that there should be a vaccine mandate and hasn't used the tool or hasn't used it exactly in the way the Minister has described it—and we have to just go on the Minister's words because we still haven't seen the Order in Council or any detail of what's actually going to go into secondary legislation—Hon Member: Nothing there. It's a straw man.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It is—it's a straw man another straw man. We still have to estimate guess what this mysterious secondary legislation might look like. Now we've got Minister Wood saying it's optional it's assessment. We've got the bill saying that but Minister for COVID-19 Response has said "No no you can still take a personal grievance if a business complying with its obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act and this piece of legislation determines that their staff could need to be vaccinated and could be terminated as a consequence of not getting it." They're going to be subject to a personal grievance. So my tabled amendment is kind of belts and braces with what Michael Wood said not in accordance with what Mr Hipkins said. But it simply says this "For the avoidance of doubt a personal grievance or legal proceeding cannot be taken under subclause (a) if it solely relates to an assessment by a PCBU that it was reasonable for workers to be vaccinated where they have not made that assessment in accordance with the assessment tool". They could've used another tool. Hon Member: So they do have to use the assessment tool.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well it sounds like it. That's pretty much what Mr Hipkins has just said which is in marked contrast to what Mr Wood said. Mr Hipkins then went to say that somehow this position is at odds with the Leader of the Opposition in respect of vaccine mandates. Not true—another straw man argument from the Minister for COVID-19 Response. This party has been very clear about mandates. We support them at the border. We support them in healthcare. We support them in education. Everywhere else we trust business. We trust business to do the right thing for its customers for its stakeholders and for its staff. That's the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House—we trust business. And if they did they would support this tabled amendment. I don't personally think—and I don't agree with the Minister's assessment of what deleting clause 7(a) would do but nevertheless if we're going to have this and we are going to lose it then at least the Government should be putting its cards on the table confirming by supporting this tabled amendment that the assessment tool is a guide only it's not compulsory that businesses can be trusted to make those risk assessments even if they are different from the framework that eventually the Minister will bring into a regulation—use it as a guide but trust business to do the right thing by its staff."