Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Chair. You know it was Geoffrey Palmer in 1979 who said we were the fastest lawmaker in the West" and it was also said later on that MMP had changed that but we've now discovered that that is not really the case. In just the last two hours Parliament has given the Government enormous sweeping new powers to impose all sorts of restrictions and we've barely had a debate on it actually. And I predict as I said earlier we will be back at some point probably in 2022 to fix up this debacle of a situation. But we come now to Part 2 of the bill and the major part that this deals with inserts Schedule 3A relating to the Employment Relations Act 2000. This whole COVID public health Act by the way is actually highly confusing to navigate—because we had the original Act passed last year we've just passed another Act literally last week that has just come into force and now we are passing another piece of legislation. It's yet another example of legislation done very quickly in a very confusing way.So we now have Schedule 3A relating to COVID-19 vaccinations and I know my colleague Scott Simpson will want to get into this our employment relations spokesperson. But the critical question here is in relation to personal grievances and legal proceedings in respect of dismissal. Subclause (7) of clause 3 of Schedule 3A says "nothing … prevents an employee whose employment agreement is terminated [under subclause (3)(a)] from bringing a personal grievance." And so the question is this: business we're told by the Government wants certainty and clarity about how all this will work and the requirement for people covered by mandates to go and get vaccinated. They want certainty and they want clarity but the Government is preserving the ability for personal grievances to take place. Well what sort of certainty and clarity does that provide? I would put it to the House not a lot.So the real question that we need an answer to from the Government is to why that provision has been put in this bill. I understand that my colleague Scott Simpson has a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to that effect—he's nodding and confirming. So far sadly none of the SOPs put up by the Opposition in good faith have been accepted including the very reasonable point that Parliament should have an opportunity to review this legislation given we're passing it in literally less than 24 hours. How about a select committee has a mandatory review of the legislation after it's passed? Now normally we do things the other way around. Normally bills go to a committee we ventilate the issues and then we have a look at it. But how about we just do the—not unreasonable—thing where the Health Committee has a look at this massive new power or powers plural that we are giving to the Government? We raised a whole series of issues earlier on in this debate that have never really been addressed. The most obvious one is: do the powers the Government claim that they are giving themselves to give effect to the traffic light framework actually exist in the bill? The Minister claims they do. I think in light of various High Court judgments that is up for debate. The time for that debate is sadly gone because it's all finished apparently. The Government's decided that they've given themselves the powers and that's all that we can say about that. Well actually the courts will have a say on that in the end and maybe others will as well.But we move on to Part 2. And as I say the critical question here is in relation to personal grievances and legal proceedings in respect of dismissals for people who have had the opportunity to get vaccinated: why is that still there? Thank you Madam Chair."