Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Chair. As my colleague Todd Muller indicated earlier on the Minister's been speaking quietly about a massive big stick which is going to be wrought across the collective heads of businesses up and down the countryside and so whilst he's attempting to answer questions he's still not really giving good justification or indeed any justification for why the changes are necessary at a time when unemployment is low when businesses tell members on this side—and I'm sure on the Government side as well—that the biggest challenge they have is to find and keep good quality staff members. Recruitment is very difficult. What is really at issue here is recruitment of membership for trade unions and one of the issues that I want to talk about in this contribution relates to my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 112. This is a matter that was raised consistently and regularly by submitters to the Education and Workforce Committee by people that we've been engaging with around the countryside and by businesses up and down the countryside and it's the matter of union access to workplaces in an unfettered unreasonable way. Now Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has indicated that he's introducing his SOP 153 that makes some small changes in this area but essentially what concerns businesses is the matters that are contained in clause 6 and clause 7 in Part 1 and they relate to allowing union representatives to visit workplaces without notice in some cases without consent and without the agreement of the business managers and operators. Now this is a matter that causes business managers and operators immense concern for a number of reasons. The one that is raised most regularly and frequently is of course issues to do with health and safety. These are matters where businesses take health and safety incredibly seriously these days and businesses don't want just any Tom Dick and Harry walking on to the site unannounced and without forewarning or permission or consent and then just going about the place primarily engaging with staff to recruit union members. Now the difficulty here is that that kind of abuse of trust leads to a breakdown in the principles of good-faith bargaining and good-faith relationships between employer and employee and the question really needs to be asked as to what's wrong with the current situation where businesses almost always provide an opportunity for union representatives to visit. The union representative will ring up or send an email and say for example Hey Dan Bidois we'd like to come and talk to your staff at 10 o'clock at smoko time next Tuesday and we'd like to talk to them about union matters." and inevitably the employer will say "Yeah that's fine." because the employer knows who's coming when they're coming what they're coming for and what they'll be doing and there are no issues around that sort of thing. So businesses are naturally concerned about this proposed change which—according to the bill in clauses 6 and 7—would be reasonable. Now the difficulty with this question of reasonableness is that the reasonableness test is of course a bit like beauty—it's in the eye of the beholder—and what is reasonable access to one person may be entirely unreasonable access to another person. These are the sorts of things that concern businesses and employers up and down the countryside. It was without doubt one of the issues most regularly raised with me as I was talking to business people up and down the countryside over the last several months and they remain unconvinced of the need for change. The Minister has failed in my view to provide a case that is cogent or indeed compelling for change. What will essentially happen here is that in terms of this bill when it's passed—because the Government has a majority—some poor employer will become a judicial guinea pig for a judicial definition as to what is reasonable access and what is not reasonable access and for what's reasonable notice and what's not reasonable notice. That is inherently unfair. So my Supplementary Order Paper 112 addresses that matter and simply provides an opportunity that means that union representatives if they want to visit a site must seek consent."