Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. Here we are just 10 days out from the implementation of the provisions that this bill seeks to create debating under urgency a bill that was supplied to the Opposition less than 24 hours ago—a bill that will have no scrutiny at a select committee and no input from stakeholders and there will be no opportunity for members of the public vaccinated or unvaccinated to have a say. People are therefore right to ask What is this Government doing? What have they been doing for the last 18 months? Where was their planning?"Barbara Kuriger: Not much.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: "Not much" my colleague Barbara Kuriger says "Not much" she says and she's right because they've been asleep at the wheel.I want to start my contribution on this first reading of this bill under urgency in much the same way that my colleague Chris Bishop did by reconfirming that on this side of the House we support vaccination. We encourage New Zealanders to be vaccinated to be double vaccinated and we understand the benefits that come not only to individuals from being vaccinated but also to us as a community and as a society. We understand that often the greater good is achieved by individual actions taken by us as individuals. But this is a bill that provides the Government with an incredibly wide-ranging tool kit of regulatory power over the lives the workplaces and the day-to-day activities of New Zealand citizens. And for that reason alone it needs the scrutiny that goes beyond the short process of a bill presented to this House that is going to be passed and rammed through every single stage by the Government's use of their absolute majority.One of the areas that I want to focus on are the impacts in relation to the workplace. Now we understand—I think most New Zealanders understand—that businesses need certainty about issues relating to vaccinated and unvaccinated staff in their workplace and also issues relating to what to do if they have customers or suppliers or contractors who are unvaccinated. What are those issues? This is a Government that has had more than enough opportunity over the last nearly nine months—since the vaccination programme in New Zealand commenced albeit very late—to have got their act together and to have done some serious thinking on this issue. The Government needed only to have a cursory look at international media and debate and commentary about what was happening in other jurisdictions around the world—countries that actually started their vaccination roll-out programme months and months ahead of us—to see that issues relating to the workplace were going to be a crunch point in terms of eventually rolling out a vaccine programme that was focused on managing and living with Delta in our community and in our society rather than trying to hang on and cling to the elimination strategy that they did for as long as they did.Now for all sorts of reasons Delta is in our communities. It's coming sadly to a home a neighbourhood a community a town near us all soon. And the best option for the health and safety of not only workers but of all citizens is to be vaccinated. So issues relating to who decides and how decisions are made about employers confronting employees who choose for whatever reason not to be vaccinated are primary and fundamental to the legislative and regulatory regime that a Government a good Government a careful prudent and thoughtful Government should have put in place a long time ago. But no we are now in a position where businesses are going to be given 10 days to get their situations sorted.So it's been obvious now for quite a long period of time that an employer actually did have a right to exclude from the workplace non-vaccinated employees as long as they had gone through an appropriate and detailed health and safety risk assessment. WorkSafe provided guidance for that process and actually many businesses have gone down that path. I note for instance that The Warehouse one of the country's large employers has actually done that—they have developed a process using that health and safety risk assessment model and that tool. But for many businesses that prospect was going to be difficult and challenging in terms of the process the formula that needed to be applied and the dotting of i's and crossing of t's. So there is one good thing that's come out of this piece of legislation and it is the tool that the Government's established that will give employers another option other than that formal process. Now it's not going to be a tool that is going to be a silver bullet panacea for every single situation but it will be of help. Businesses have been calling out for months now for some certainty some clarity from the Government and some clear sense of what the Government's direction was going to be. Well finally this morning the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Michael Wood did provide at least that but it's been very slow to come. So for those that choose not to be vaccinated for whatever reason what this bill does is actually provide an opportunity for regular testing. And I think that's not a bad idea either but it's been a long time coming. And it's been obvious for a very long period of time that this was needed but we've just had a big big silence.Now one of the aspects that's not so good of this piece of legislation is a provision that will mean that once an employer has gone through the process—either the health and safety risk assessment process or the tool kit process that is provided for in this legislation—and a decision is made that an employee can't be redeployed into another role within the business or can't do a different type of job in maybe a different geography or a different building or somewhere that is going to separate that person away from vaccinated either customers or other staff members eventually that employee can have their employment terminated. But what this bill provides for is a situation where that employee will be given then paid four weeks' notice—effectively gardening leave for four weeks at the expense of the employer. It's another cost just another cost. In a year when employers have had so much to bear and such difficult trading circumstances this Government decides that another four weeks of paid leave for an unvaccinated employee is appropriate and right. Well I don't think that is right. I think that's wrong and I think that's unnecessary. But then there are a whole lot of questions about what happens during that period of time.So the process—and we'll get into this during the committee of the whole House stage of this bill and we'll ask a whole lot of questions. But what's the situation if an employee goes through all that process and then maybe resigns halfway through it? That employee then is still able to bring an action for constructive dismissal and that will mean a long time in the courts expense and uncertainty for the employer. Even if the employee goes through that process and a termination ensues this piece of legislation still means that a personal grievance claim can be brought by that employee. And that again means uncertainty cost litigation lawyers' fees all that sort of thing for that business. I think that's unfair. So on this side of the House we have said for a long time that if a business goes through that process of a health and safety risk assessment and comes to a determination that the employee the unvaccinated employee needs to be terminated then that business should be protected from constructive dismissal and personal grievance litigation action. Because we think that's the fair and right thing to do. But what happens if that employee halfway through that process—say they've had two weeks of the four weeks' paid leave—then suddenly decides to get vaccinated? Does the employer have to rehire them? Do they have to be reinstated? Will that effectively be a two-week holiday that they have just had? These are questions that the bill doesn't answer and that aren't made clear in the regulation.So on this side of the House we think that businesses should be given the choice. They should be given an opportunity to make sensible prudent business decisions not only for their unvaccinated employees but for the employees that are vaccinated for their customers for their stakeholders and for their suppliers. We think on this side of the House that these are issues that go to the very core and principle of free enterprise of property rights and of the rights of businesses to conduct business as they see fit with whom they see fit. And they will make choices about who they wish to trade with and who they don't."