Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill that the National Party will continue to support. We are of course like all New Zealanders concerned about sexual harassment in the workplace. To be honest I'm very surprised to hear the previous speaker Dr Deborah Russell and backer of this bill being surprised to discover that men might be the subject of sexual harassment as if this was a new discovery. Of course that is the case. Men have always also been victims as well as perpetrators of sexual harassment and that should come as no surprise to anybody who's been in the workplace for a long time. This affects potentially all New Zealanders and all people who work in our workplaces. It's a sad reality and I certainly myself as a young worker have experienced it and wouldn't wish it on anybody. So we're all conscious of the impact of unwanted sexual advances in the workplace and want to ensure that the laws that we have in place give the opportunity for people to deal with that effectively. So the proposition here is that the current laws enable a complaint to be made and a personal grievance to be made on sexual harassment grounds but it has to be done within 90 days of the incident occurring—or becoming aware of the incident. You might ask Surely that's the same moment". During the select committee we of course were referred to things like if there's been communications emails passed around which amounted to sexual harassment that somebody became aware of a month after it had occurred. Well then it's from that point. That's where the dates come in to impact. That 90-day limit is the basic cut-off for personal grievances throughout the piece of legislation and we think that is generally appropriate because again you've got to think of the context of particularly small businesses. If there is an extended liability and period of uncertainty around personal grievances generally then that can have a huge difficulty for small businesses who are overwhelmed with all sorts of uncertainty and uncontrolled liabilities as it were and this is one thing that they certainly wouldn't appreciate having extended across the board. But the case was made by Deborah Russell and by this legislation for treating sexual harassment cases differently and for extending that period out beyond 90 days to a year. The case that was put forward was this is an offence of a special nature. It does take time for people to reflect on it and consider it. It's difficult to come forward it's complicated and the member has outlined all the range of emotions that go through them. In most cases the reality is that people don't do anything about it. That is something that is changing for the better over time and more people are coming forward not putting up with it and raising their case and things have been done. This legislation—my hope is in supporting it—will lead to more people coming forward over time behaviours changing in the workplace for the better fewer people being subject to this sexual harassment in the workplace and fewer people going through all the difficulties that flow from that—particularly where they have few opportunities or few choices to do something else or go somewhere else or get another job or just depart from it. Those people who are trapped in a situation are the ones who are worst affected. We certainly see the logic in that. That's why we're broadly supportive of this legislation. There was sort of debate throughout the select committee around just how targeted this is and the person who brought it forward Deborah Russell did make the point that it was her expressed desire in this legislation to have this extension focused exclusively on sexual harassment. A number of people made cases for other grounds for personal grievances—whether it was bullying whether it was general personal grievances or a number of other matters—and we certainly weren't in support of that for the broader reasons around being mindful of the uncertainty that many businesses—particularly small businesses—face. We were reassured that the member did make it clear that this bill had a narrow and singular focus on this area. That's why we are supporting it. We're looking forward to the discussion. I do also want to take the opportunity to thank my fellow members of the Education and Workforce Committee—I'm not a permanent member but I subbed on to it for the discussions—Marja Lubeck: We miss you.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —well thank you——on this legislation and it was a nice contrast to many of the other bills that we've had to deal with which are slightly more contentious in that area. We certainly don't do this lightly. We are very conscious of the pressure that many—particularly small businesses—are facing right now. They've been through very difficult times with COVID. They are struggling with broader cost of living pressures and with additional expectations being put on them on a regular basis by this Government. In general we've been pretty critical of those. We've been critical of the sort of almost casualness with which this Government has added to the businesses: "An extra week of sick leave? Sure; fine." Extra holidays higher minimum wages now fair pay agreements—a whole series of things which individually are well motivated and sound fine but collectively just make it so much more difficult for those small business to keep going and collectively certainly add to the overall cost structure and the cost of living pressures that New Zealanders are facing. There's no sort of free lunch. If you do add substantially to the costs that businesses face it does flow through to the prices that people pay and that is something that is not recognised generally. So as a general rule we are pretty careful—pretty cautious—about adding either direct costs or adding extra uncertainty on those small businesses. Now this bill does add a little of extra uncertainty around liabilities for personal grievances. It just means that there is a longer period when people can bring cases forward but we think on balance that is justified because of the nature of the particular area that's being covered—sexual harassment. And it has of course as I say had an impact on people and it's had terrible impacts on many people—mainly women but not entirely women as the point I made: men also—over many decades. I think we have made improvement over the last decade or so. People are much more willing to stand up and say "No it's not appropriate." and to put more pressure on the employers—and not just employers but the general culture of workplaces—to have less tolerance for that behaviour. We think this is a useful step along that way. So we do support this legislation."