Edmonds BarbaraHon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you Mr Chair and I want to thank the advice that I received from the Clerk who clarified that actually the amendment that I have tabled—I should actually discuss it in this part of the debate. Following on a couple of weeks ago in my reply to the Speech from the Throne one of the queries I had was around the vision that this new Government has for our country and my concern has been over the last couple of weeks that there has been a lot of urgency there's been the inability to be able to actually scrutinise particular bills except through here in the House. I thank Mr Chair for allowing us to be able to speak to the different amendments because as you can see there are a lot of amendments that a number of members on this side of the House do want to be able to speak to. One of the issues that I did have in relation to this bill other than the fact that it's reinstating those trials is the imbalance of that policy decision. The imbalance of it is that it weighs heavily on the employer's side so one of the solutions which I have tabled is to be able to provide a safety net for the employees who have been subject to this trial because ultimately again if you look to the regulatory impact statement it provides—further to what Tangi Utikere spoke of earlier today—the purpose of the employment relations regime the framework in which this particular bill sits within. Therefore my new amendment which I have tabled is that following the new clause 6 section 67B be amended: (Effect of trial provision under section 67A). After section 67B(5) insert subsection (6): 'Any employer that wishes to use trial periods into their employment agreements must register with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment'." Some people may say that well that's just providing an additional compliance cost. However one of the very new features that had actually come through—and I think it was around 2015-16—was the New Zealand Business Number (NZBN). Now that was a policy that the previous National Government had put through. Obviously businesses are applying to get New Zealand Business Numbers through the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). Again this would be the type of advice that you'd want to seek from officials around: could this work—sort of leveraging off the NZBN—so that you'd ask employers who want to use those 90-day trial periods that as part of that process they just basically tag on to their New Zealand Business Number that they're using the trial periods. Then I look to the second part of my amendment around subsection (7) which is "Businesses registered with MBIE under this clause must pay 1.39 percent of the salary of the FTE employed at their business into a fund overseen by MBIE and ACC." Again that is a new regime; there would need to be some real thought around the implementation. Obviously like when you have tax the incidence of tax and where that falls the incidence of this particular levy might fall on the employee; however it is for the employee's benefit. Again similar to the ACC system where a collection of a levy is used for the greater benefit of ACC provision this now leads to subsection (8) which is what I've tabled and this will create a fund that will be used to pay workers dismissed under trial periods 80 percent of their wages for up to seven months. This may sound controversial; however I believe that the reinstatement of the trials is imbalanced; it totally balances and weighs in favour of the employer. Therefore this particular tabled amendment is about providing additional balance for the employee in the respect that because they are unable to put forward a personal grievance because they've been dismissed they aren't able to actually ask as to why. They could ask why however. There's been a number of amendments where members have tabled asking them to be able to provide a reason. This provides an additional safety net. Again the Minister will probably have to work through the incidences as to who this falls on but again if businesses have to comply in other aspects of the regime particularly when they're touching base with MBIE in relation to the NZBN my suggestion is that this particular tabled amendment is just another way to be able to rebalance it to allow employees to have a safety net in relation to the reinstatement of these 90-day trials. My question really to the Minister is if she has any particular views. If she doesn't agree with my Amendment Paper then what is her proposal in order to rebalance the 90-day reinstatement to help our employees?"