O'Connor GregSCREEN INDUSTRY WORKERS BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Preliminary provisionsCHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Members we come now to the Screen Industry Workers Bill. Members we come now to Part 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Oh well look thank you; an unexpected initial call. I thought the Minister may have started; I'm not sure of the general protocol. So apologies to the Minister there if I've jumped in front of you or—Hon Michael Wood: Go ahead. My folder's open.SIMON O'CONNOR: Thank you. Look I'm very conscious this is obviously the committee stage. I think it's important to say that National does oppose this but not all aspects of it. There remain elements of the bill which we are quite happy to see strengthened. But overall we see that this goes far too far in the overall intention—and this is ultimately the first question of many to the Minister. The ultimate intention we think is going to actually harm the screen industry. So I just want to draw the Minister's attention if I could to his department's impact statement where it makes very clear that he believes that this is a low-wage industry. I would welcome some examples from the Minister of that. I'm not disputing whether it is or not. I think it would be just really interesting if he could provide some examples or his officials could of what would be perhaps I don't know the average wage of a producer or a grip or a stagehand. And importantly as well in the spirit of rather short questions where and how were these wages compared to? So we get in the impact statement—on page one if it assists. Granted the officials know; they wrote it. In section A it says that the low wages in this industry were compared to others. I'd welcome knowing what those industries were. So again I'd like some examples of what the wages are that he sees and what they were compared against.Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Apologies; I didn't stand up as expeditiously as was expected. I was just carrying my things over to my chair here and the previous Chair got things under way very quickly. But I'll make some opening comments in respect of Part 1 which we are set to debate at this point of proceedings in this committee stage hearing in the Chamber. Part 1 of the bill primarily contains the preliminary provisions of the bill including key definitions including the critical definition of screen production workers who are the group of workers who are covered by the provisions of this legislation. Can I at this point of proceedings just acknowledge the work of the Education and Workforce Committee that did consider this bill. It was of course about two years ago now. So it was a select committee of the previous Parliament who considered and reported back the bill that the committee has in front of it at this stage. The main change that the select committee made to Part 1 of the bill was to enhance wording in this part of the bill to ensure that workers do have the freedom to make complaints without any fear of there being any comeback on them. That's an important part of the bill. It was something that was heard from the sector that there was a strong desire from workers—from workers' unions—but also producers in the sector that we have strong prohibitions against practices such as bullying harassment and discrimination. So I think that's a good improvement that's in there.I've introduced a significant Supplementary Order Paper. When I say significant it's a relatively large one that we'll work through as we go through the different parts of the bill in the course of the debate today. It's fair to say that many of the changes in the Supplementary Order Paper are relatively small and technical and quite often relate to a reordering and restructuring of the bill to make it more readable and easy to interpret. The most significant change in Part 1 of the bill that's reflected in the Supplementary Order Paper relates to the fact that we're ensuring that workplace relationships as defined under the bill are not just restricted to the bargaining period. We need to understand workplace relationships in the broader context of the relationship between workers and engagers in the sector and Part 1 of the bill confirms that that occurs across the entire scope of the employment relationship. Those I think are the key opening comments I'd like to make in respect of Part 1 of the bill and I'm happy to answer any questions that do relate to the provisions of Part 1 as reported back to the committee by the select committee.