Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Chair. I've got some quite specific questions around new Schedule 3A in Schedule 4. We heard earlier from the Hon Scott Simpson about the period of gardening leave or whatever we refer to it as: the four weeks if a termination is to be undertaken of the employee's job as Mr Seymour's pointed out. But I want to just go back to the part right before that where we talk about the employer must give the employee reasonable written notice". I'm keen to know from the Minister what he believes "reasonable written notice" is—whether that's two weeks three weeks four weeks—because then we also have the situation where if the employee decides to get vaccinated if we are assuming he does decide to get vaccinated then he or she would need another three weeks on top of that. So we might be talking about at least a minimum of say five weeks—maybe six possibly more. Now if that employee then decides not to get vaccinated there is of course the four weeks' paid leave. But if you go back to that original waiting for them to get vaccinated if a company has decided that it is risky for that person to be on the premises because they're in close contact with vulnerable people or they're in close contact with other people working with them and they decide that it's a risk—I assume the Minister can answer this—I assume that then the business would put them on some sort of paid leave to manage the risk in their business to their employees and also people coming on to their premises. So then the cost to the employer is not only the four weeks paid out at the very end upon termination but also possibly the five or six weeks prior to that making the total cost to the employer much greater. So I'm keen to know what "reasonable written notice" is and what he expects that to be. Furthermore I also want to know whether or not if an employee makes it very clear right from the get-go that they do not want to be vaccinated—that it is not going to happen under any circumstances—that notice period to get vaccinated can be waived. It is a significant cost on the employer if they're trying to keep their people in their business safe and their customers safe. If that person says "Not on your nelly! It's not happening" has the Minister thought about that period being able to be waived? Because it will be a significant cost on the employer.I want to just go on to talk just a little bit more. I'm keen to hear the answer to those questions but I'm also keen to talk a little bit more about the fact that there hasn't been a provision for waiving personal grievances. I hold the early childhood portfolio. When we saw the health order for early childhood centres the very first thing that we saw was the very litigious nature of some people in that sector—actually it was Sue Grey and others—writing to everyone in the sector all the teachers saying "Don't quit because you won't get any Work and Income payment. Here's what you need to do: you need to hold out. You need to bring a personal grievance." We saw that so I expect especially with people who are very resistant to being vaccinated that they will be very ripe for the picking when it comes to these litigious people like Sue Grey who will target them and say "Hey it's really important that you follow these steps and bring a personal grievance." It's happened before; we saw it. I've seen the letter that these people sent to the early childhood teachers and this will happen again. We know that. The Minister pointed out himself just earlier that small to medium sized enterprises don't have the human resources capacity or the legal capabilities or the funds to be able to fund these types of actions against them and they are really scared of that. So having a provision and the amendment that Scott Simpson's brought is a very good one that I'll support takes that risk off there. If the intent of the bill—if we go back to the intent of the bill—is to "make vaccination a more prominent part of New Zealand's COVID-19 response" then we want to encourage these businesses to take these steps not discourage them because they are really scared of the fact that there will be potentially a personal grievance taken against them. We've seen it already with the health orders and it will happen again. So my point to the Minister is I understand his arguments but my question to him is: doesn't he think that it would be better to encourage more businesses to take up the tool and go through the process to try to encourage people to be vaccinated than to put them off at the thought of the huge cost that will be put upon them potentially and that most likely will happen if there is the ability for personal grievances to be brought?"