Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Let me say at the outset that the Labour Opposition supports all three of these regulatory systems amendment bills. These are bills that are entirely technical in nature and are designed to tidy up legislation and to ensure that the legislation that they are amending works efficiently and effectively and in most cases as it was originally intended to operate.I will address the Regulatory Systems (Workplace Relations) Amendment Bill which was the bill considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. This bill amends both the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987 to clarify certain provisions. The bill is so technical in its nature that we received just one submission at the select committee—that being a submission from the Law Commission which predominantly related to drafting. So there were no questions raised by submitters about any of the policy intentions of this bill.However what is probably most interesting for the House is that in their work on this bill our officials whom we must thank for the fine work that they did on this legislation identified some additional areas where the Employment Relations Act and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act could be further tidied up. I want to particularly address the changes that were identified by the officials to sections 103(1) and 67B(3) of the Employment Relations Act. These arose as a result of amendments to the Employment Relations Act made by the Employment Standards Legislation Act.The Employment Standards Legislation Act added additional grounds upon which an employee dismissed under a 90-day trial period may take a personal grievance. The changes suggested by officials and recommended by the select committee simply ensure that the new provisions under which an employee may take a personal grievance under a 90-day trial period are appropriately cross-referenced. Due to incorrect cross-referencing it was possible that workers dismissed under a 90-day trial period had their ability to appeal that dismissal diminished. Specifically we are talking about three additional clauses affecting firstly employees who have been treated adversely for refusing to perform work in the absence of a valid availability provision; secondly employee's employers failing to pay employees the compensation they are entitled to when a shift has been cancelled; and thirdly employee's employers treating employees adversely for a prohibited health and safety reason that contravened section 92 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.The issue that exercised us a little at select committee was whether or not the changes proposed in this legislation ought to be made retrospectively going back to the date on which the employment standards legislation came into force and those new grounds for taking a personal grievance came into force. I was particularly concerned about that not because I thought there was a great risk of an employee having their ability to take a personal grievance diminished but specifically because we are dealing with the 90-day trial period.I want to refer to the judgment made in the case of Smith v Stokes Valley Pharmacy Ltd in relation to the implementation of 90-day trial periods. The judgment states that sections 67A and 67B of the Employment Relations Act which are the sections that implement 90-day trials—Sections 67A and 67B remove longstanding employee protections and access to dispute resolution and to justice. As such they should be interpreted strictly and not liberally because they are an exception to the general employee protective scheme of the Act as it otherwise deals with issues of disadvantage in and dismissals from employment." In other words the 90-day trial period is something of an affront to people's natural justice. It is an affront to their ability to take a personal grievance when they have been treated unfairly in the workplace and therefore must be dealt with to the very letter of the law. There must be no leeway at all.We had some discussion at the select committee about whether we needed to apply these changes retrospectively in order to be absolutely certain that no employee dismissed under a 90-day trial period would have their right to appeal that dismissal in any way diminished. Officials assured us that because of other grounds upon which a personal grievance can be taken specifically the—Jonathan Young: Section 103.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes what the member just said. Other provisions in the 90-day trial period sections of the Act do allow employees to take a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal. Just to be absolutely clear: in the unlikely event that the judiciary has to deal with one of these cases it is Parliament's intention—it was certainly the select committee's intention—that should an employee be dismissed and should there be any suggestion that they have the right to appeal on any of those three grounds afforded to them by the amendments made by the Employment Standards Legislation Bill it is Parliament's intention that it would be possible for an employee to take a personal grievance on those grounds notwithstanding the fact that we are not intending to apply this legislation retrospectively.Beyond that otherwise the changes are as I say largely technical. Other members from the Labour Party will address other bills and other sections of this bill but just to reiterate the Labour Opposition supports these three bills."