Sio WilliamAupito WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I appreciate the opportunity. I want to take a different tack and address a part of this bill that I do not believe any other member of the Committee has pursued and that is the fact that this is legislation written in my view to benefit and to enable workers to understand. One of the points I want to bring to the attention of this Committee in Part 1 is clause 3B Section 110A (Adverse conduct for prohibited health and safety reason)" which says: "In section 110A(5) replace 'section 103(1)(h)(i)' with 'section 103(1)(j)(i)'." When I look at the report by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee it essentially says that the original "Section 110A(5) of the Act sets out an employer's possible defence to a personal grievance claim for prohibited health and safety reasons." and the committee then recommends changing that. What concerns me is the reference "This would ensure that employers have the correct defence available if an employee makes a personal grievance claim on the grounds that they have been treated adversely for a prohibited health and safety reason." Is this legislation about protecting workers or is this legislation about enabling an employer to have the right argument to rebuff any grievance by a worker? Because that is what I am reading—that this is what it is saying essentially. I am not a member of that committee so I do not know what the answer to that is and I do not know whether the Minister is aware of whether that is the correct intention as I understand it. My understanding is we are arming employers with arguments to rebuff any personal grievances by a worker who may have a personal grievance on the grounds that they do not want to carry out a function or work for health and safety reasons. Why that is important is we know in this House about the hundreds of workers or maybe thousands or tens of thousands of workers who die each year as a result of a lack of health and safety protection being provided in the workplace. It just seems to me that that particular clause is enabling employers to get away—it is enabling employers not to provide the protection that workers may need because the workers refuse to carry out a function because of health and safety reasons. So I clearly do want to understand and that is why I am posing the question to the Minister as to whether she would be able to help me to better understand that. I do not see any other avenues here to help me better understand that particular clause—clause 3B in Part 1. I will give time to the Minister to think about how to respond to that. The other factor is—and I do not know whether this is deliberate or not or whether it is just legal jargon but when I read the entirety of this particular bill it is not very helpful in the way it is written. It is not very helpful. How on earth can one expect workers in the workplace to be able to use the legislation and understand what their rights are if it is written in this form? Surely in the new millennium we can find appropriate words to convey messages to the working-class people of New Zealand so that they can better understand their rights and responsibilities and ways of helping them protect themselves. If I refer you to clause 7 "Section 71L amended (End of parental leave payment)" this is how I read it: "In section 71L(2) replace 'Subsections (1)(b) and (c) do not apply and parental leave payments continue to be"—[Bell rung] Mr Chair let me just finish that. The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I will let the member finish but I think I know what the member is going to say. Aupito WILLIAM SIO: So let me start again: "In section 71L(2) replace 'Subsections (1)(b) and (c) do not apply and parental leave payments continue to be payable until the date specified in subsection (1)(a)' with 'Subsection (1)(c) does not apply and parental leave payments …". How on earth does a worker understand this jargon? So surely now we are in the year 2017 we have lawyers and we have Ministers who can better understand the working people of New Zealand who just want simple messages. Simple messages—be safe stay away from this machine and put the cover on that machine. Surely we can come up with words that can better convey how to enable the workforce—our workforce which this country relies on—to make sure that they are safe because if we do not do that then we will continue to add to the numbers of injuries and the numbers of deaths that have occurred year in year out in the 8 or 9 years that this Government has been in power. I think and I hear this from the trade unions themselves that this is a Government that should be—my colleague Damien O'Connor raised the fact of the Pike River mine. This is a health and safety issue. Coming back to that I just think the Minister should be able to take the opportunity to now just respond and help me understand whether this is what that particular clause is about. Is it arming employers to rebuff workers from taking up a personal grievance on a matter of health and safety? Thank you. Part 1 agreed to."