Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Could I begin by agreeing with the member in charge of the bill Kieran McAnulty that it's really not necessary to attack people for being a list MP or for any other characteristic of their own when there are so many good reasons to attack the bill and I was just getting to them when my last speaking slot ended. So I hope that this time there won't be too many interruptions from other members around the committee and we can get down to some really good economic analysis of clause 5. This is now the third call in which I've been trying to do this—Chris Penk: Repetition. DAVID SEYMOUR: —and it hasn't been particularly easy to get there. But I think what we've established so far as we've traversed through chapter 20 of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson—someone's saying I'm being repetitious. Well you know I guess the problem is that there have been so many interruptions so far. The difficulty with constraining the supply of workers who can work on a particular worksite is that it may push up wages for them but workers are also consumers and if the same thing happens on every worksite then we may get higher wages in a nominal sense. But the great difficulty is that those higher wages are passed on in costs which of course in their role as consumers those same workers have to pay. So what union membership can do if it's restrictive of who can work on a particular worksite—as clause 5 would propose—is it can certainly push up the wages of a certain worksite but that is just to advantage some workers at the expense of others who have to buy the goods that those workers consume. Then the next question is: what if everybody did it?Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: No still not talking about the bill.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well then we'd end up with no particular worker being better off because productivity hasn't increased just price levels. Iain Lees-Galloway—he's come to join in the discussion and I welcome him the Minister for labour—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: If I did I'd speak to the bill. DAVID SEYMOUR: He's very welcome and he's complaining that I'm not speaking to the bill. Unfortunately Iain Lees-Galloway hasn't been here to enjoy this committee stage and if he had been he would understand that we're talking about the removal of clause 5 from the bill during the select committee phase. I'm saying why I think that's such an important change that's—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes but this is the committee stage. DAVID SEYMOUR: —been made and it's taken some time. Well no it's really about—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Do you remember what stage you're in? DAVID SEYMOUR: The committee of the whole House stage as Iain Lees-Galloway will know—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes I do know. DAVID SEYMOUR: —is all about—well he doesn't know what he knows and he doesn't know much. But the problem is that the committee stage is all about deciding whether the wording of the bill as reported back from the Education and Workforce Committee truly reflects the intentions that the House agreed to at the second reading. I'm not sure that Mr Lees-Galloway did know that because he just looked a bit surprised right then. So that's what we're debating. I've been saying and I've been giving a very robust public policy and economic case for why clause 5 as currently drafted certainly meets those criteria. However I'd like to push on to other clauses namely clauses 6 and 7 because those ones as Mr Lees-Galloway being a King's College old boy—great result on the weekend incidentally—will know come after No. 5. Numbers 6 and 7—25 grand a year and he learnt that much I know. The fact of the matter is that those sections as the member in the chair has said multiple times extend the personal grievance provision to people who are on the same worksite. We've heard a bit about this. The member in charge recently challenged the National Party to decide where they stand on the existence of personal grievances and I think the member in charge has got a point. If it's true that personal grievances are a good thing then surely they should apply to people whether or not those people are in a triangular employment relationship. It seems like a rather strange and arbitrary division to make. So I think really in order to decide whether to support clauses 6 and 7 does the committee think that personal grievances are a good legislative instrument? This got me thinking about another I guess labour economic theme. Mr Chair with a little bit of luck you'll give me another five minutes and I can actually really get into it and who knows? Mr Lees-Galloway might join in the discussion and Dr David Clark might look up over his papers again having put away the white flag that he was waving last time he got into a debate with me and then we can really get into some detail around whether personal grievances are a good thing. I suspect that I'm going to run out of time but I'll try again.