Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a privilege to speak on the third reading of this bill. The National Party this afternoon walked off the job to express their views and feelings after the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Leader of the House were ejected by the Speaker. Now I make no comment about that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Speak to the bill not—Hon CLARE CURRAN: I am Mr Assistant Speaker. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No you weren't. You were speaking to procedures in the House earlier today that the Speaker has already ruled on. That's the end of it. Kia ora. Hon CLARE CURRAN: This afternoon that party is voting against a bill which will stop employers from being able to dock the pay of workers who like them went on strike and walked off the job—one rule for them and another for everyone else. There have been some extraordinary statements made by the Opposition during the debate on this bill. Andrew Bayly stated that and I'll quote from what he said People should have the right to work out when they want to work how they want to work and on what basis they want to work." Lawrence Yule argued that employers should not have to pay the minimum wage base. Jacqui Dean claims that union organisers would be bursting on to the shop floors of hot jam factories demanding to talk to members and creating health and safety risks. I want to read to you—yesterday I spoke about the Woodhaugh Rest Home in Dunedin where a union organiser was called in by members of the union where they had a collective agreement because of the hours being cut of full-time workers and because there were other issues going on in the rest home. The union organiser was served a trespass notice and wasn't allowed to enter that rest home. I just wanted to tell you that that rest home was subject to complaints in 2015 with an anonymous phone call to a district health board where a clinical manager had fainted from exhaustion and broken her pelvis. She was claimed to have been working 80-hour weeks the residents said the food often ran out relatives were being asked to bring in food and there were many other issues taking place and the union organiser legitimately wanting to go into the workplace was served a trespass notice by the owner. Those are the sorts of issues that this bill is trying to address—more than trying to address; will address will take us back to a place of fairness. It's a bill that undoes the wrongs of the previous Government for those who earn the wages in the workplaces where the employers have disproportionate power over their working conditions and their right to be represented by a union. It's a fairness bill. It rights wrongs and it demonstrates the close and constructive relationship in this coalition Government with our coalition partner New Zealand First and with our confidence and supply partner the Greens. It absolutely demonstrates how constructive that relationship is. It's about sharing economic growth. It's about improving well-being. It's about valuing workers vulnerable workers and it's about acknowledging the importance of unions the voices of working people. We've had speakers talk about the evidence of the decline of unions and collective bargaining that has been strongly linked to the growth in inequality and how—I think the Greens talked about this—the IMF and the World Bank have reversed advice they've given and are now encouraging collective bargaining.This bill is not the be all and end all of what needs to be done to right the imbalances in this country but by God it's a good start. Thank you to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway. Thank you to the Education and Workforce Committee who worked hard on this bill to all the officials that worked hard on this bill and to the people that submitted on this bill. Thank you to the Wellington Hospital cleaners to the Tegel chicken workers to the real working people that came and said what this means for their working lives. I want to address finally the workplaces of the future. Comments were made by some member across the House bemoaning the workplaces of the future and how this is going to suddenly be doom and gloom. The workplaces of the future will be successful with a constructive collaboration between businesses and the people who work for them. Look at Air New Zealand look at Fonterra look at KiwiRail—they get that. Just recently there's been a union set up in the tech industry. Now why has that happened? It's because that is a workplace of the future that needs organising needs more fairness and needs consideration of how you get more women into working in that industry. High-wage highly productive economy—that's the future. That's what we should be talking about. I'm proud of this Government for this bill. I'm relieved for working people and I'm proud of our unions. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."