Simmonds Penny; Wood Michael; Salesa JennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Madam Chair thank you and really it is leading on from the discussions that we have been having and the concerns that were brought up in the Primary Production Committee from a lot of employers about this flow of information up and down. Many employers were concerned that they may not know or as the Hon Michael Woodhouse has said might find out at a later date that their entity is being covered by another set of negotiations. This was very much the crux of a number of employers' concerns about this legislation: that it was going to be very difficult for employers to know when they were going to be covered and the fact that they might be pulled in under other coverage that they were not involved in the negotiations for. I guess as an employer for 23 years the thought of setting your budget on what you thought were the known costs that you were going to have for the coming year only to find perhaps that at some stage down the track better terms and conditions then have overlapping coverage with part of your entity throw your budget out completely. And so we can understand why employers were so concerned about this.And I guess the other part of the voting component of it are concerns there about what will constitute votes that will be able to be counted if the employer hasn't been able to motivate their employees to be voting and therefore if there are a lot of small employers with small pockets of employees who might feel that it wasn't worth them voting because within their coverage area there are some very big employers and they might feel that it won't be worth them even voting on it. So the voter turnout: is the vote going to be on the majority of those that would be eligible or is it on the majority of the turnout that will be determining this? Because I think that's where we are going to see some very sort of perverse disincentives for people to bother to vote on this. These were all the kind of things that came up on a regular basis from the select committee submissions process with employers and employees. A number of employees that had been employees in other jurisdictions—in Australia for example—where they saw how confusing this could get for them expressed their concerns. And I don't think that the Minister has allayed those concerns for us about how confusing this actually could get particularly for those small businesses and employers that are trying to motivate and get the right information through to small groups of employees who might feel quite disenfranchised from a process where there is a number of quite large groups of employees. So I just think that this is a really meaty part of the legislation that caused a lot of concerns and I don't feel that we've heard the Minister address those concerns in such a way that it will be allaying the fears of the confusion that's going to arise both for the employees and the employers. And so I would be keen for the Minister to perhaps try and give us a greater level of clarification and a greater level of comfort that this isn't going to bring about an enormous amount of confusion and disarray and people feeling disenfranchised from the process. Thank you Madam Chair.Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I can provide some clarification and correction to one of the points the member raised which might assist with her question. It would not be the responsibility of employers to round up and organise the employees to vote; it will be the responsibility of unions to run a voting process for employees and it will be the responsibility of the employer bargaining side to run the voting process for employers. The voting process as is the case for collective agreement processes will be about those who vote not the overall number of workers in that area. In respect to the member's assertion that through this part employers might get pulled into the process" that is not accurate. Employers will be covered by fair pay agreements based on the coverage provisions in Part 3 of the bill which we have already debated.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before I make the next call just a reminder that we have a maiden statement soon so this won't be a very long time."