McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker thank you very much. Madam Speaker can I ask: are we finishing at 4.30 or are we continuing?Hon Member: No you can keep going.Hon TODD McCLAY: I can keep going. Thank you—because I was going to speak very quickly otherwise.This is a very important debate that we're having at a time when so many New Zealanders this week have started to go back to work but so many others are still not able to. I'm going to ask the Minister some questions around the certainty that can be provided to those New Zealanders around their health and safety but at the same time to the businesses who want to open up and will be employing them or indeed who this week are open but are still not entirely sure what it is they should be doing to be within the guidelines that have been put out or to be within the law.Before I do though I want to make a plea to the Minister for him on behalf of more than 3500 New Zealanders who work at Air New Zealand if he hasn't already to engage with the company. He will know that Air New Zealand has announced that they're looking to make up to 30 percent of their workforce redundant—they have started a process. We can understand the reasons for that but the Government has given Air New Zealand the thick end of a billion dollars over the last five weeks by way of $70 million for wage subsidies and at the same time a $900 million loan. It's appropriate that that happened at least in as far as the information the Government has provided to the taxpayer and the public but I do believe that every degree of certainty that can be delivered for those Air New Zealand workers from the Government is very important.There are a couple of things the Government could do very very quickly here when it comes to making sure that this process through redundancy is better than it could be otherwise and that's around giving not only Air New Zealand but every business in New Zealand certainty about what level 2 might look like as we transition there. I'm saying this because actually without that certainty without at least information becoming available a week or more before the Government looks to move to level 2 then much of the workplace relations legislation we have in New Zealand on our books is going to be needed—or more is going to be needed than it should be—because so many more New Zealanders will face losing their jobs and have to go through redundancy and won't have certainty.If the Government can provide Air New Zealand and other companies with certainty around what level 2 will look like Air New Zealand will know what routes they may open and New Zealanders will know whether they can start booking flights. Every single flight that is booked means that one more person at Air New Zealand may well keep their job. The Government too could start talking about when and what the opening of the trans-Tasman border might look like because there are thousands and thousands and thousands of other jobs that depend upon that and the workplace relations legislation that deals with people when they lose their jobs won't be needed to the degree it is likely to be. If by the end of the year that border can be opened and under what condition it could be opened then Air New Zealand and every other company can start planning for that many months before.If Air New Zealand knows at a point in time in the future—six months away or even sooner—they could be flying trans-Tasman some of those 3700 people that are now negotiating as to whether they will keep their job or not who have been told they are losing their jobs could well keep those jobs. So I make that plea to the Minister with some urgency.I want to touch on the fair pay agreements that he mentioned. We don't need a long-ranging debate about this today because it doesn't actually feel appropriate given there are so many people that are still not at work and will take any job at the moment if they could just get out of their homes and back into their businesses retail and elsewhere. But the Minister knows along with everybody else in the country including the Ministers that he's lost this fight for the moment. Nobody wants it not even his colleagues—there will be no legislation passed before the election and the only people that are pushing for it hard are the unions who are putting social media advertisements up on Facebook to tell him to do it. So it sounds wonderful—Hon Member: Really? In the middle of this crisis?Hon TODD McCLAY: That's right. Well they might have stopped in between but they'll come back right?But the point here is that it's wonderful the Minister keeps talking about this it's wonderful he promised it before the last election and hasn't delivered it but actually every small business or large business in New Zealand knows that it will impact upon them significantly and that's why he's going to limp to the election promising it again if re-elected. It's a good thing it hasn't gone through although the unions are very unhappy about that.A question though is can somebody be in the workplace and not have a fair pay agreement apply to them if one has been negotiated and delivered? If the answer to that is no it's not the flexibility he's talking about and it is the equivalent of a closed shop.In as far as COVID-19 is concerned I have two specific questions about what's happening in the workplace today and my colleague Michael Woodhouse did largely mention some of this too: whether or not an employer could be held responsible or liable in the case of somebody who was to contract COVID-19 in the workplace. I think what the Minister said was that as long as the workplace the employer had taken reasonable steps they wouldn't be. But therein lies the problem because we've seen away from COVID-19 many instances where an employer has taken every precaution possible and WorkSafe has still looked to prosecute. So could they be prosecuted in that situation where they have done everything possible?The second question here is what happens where an employer says to an employee You must take a test—we want to test your temperature before you come into the workplace." and that employee says no? Can they be forced to or not? I would assume under current New Zealand law that no they can't be. So is the employer then able to say "Well he can't work here; I must stand you down." And then what happens because I know under existing health and safety and employment law there would be a very big problem there. But putting that aside we're not under existing law as far as COVID-19 is concerned and we shouldn't be. So I hope over the last five or six weeks as the Government moves towards level 3 and they are moving towards level 2 that thought has been put into this because that is the type of uncertainty in the workplace that is going to make it very difficult for employers. Employees also need that understanding and that certainty and if an employee says "No I don't want to have my temperature taken." what does the employer do? Ultimately there is a very challenging issue there. Madam Speaker thank you for giving me additional time. I'll stop there."