Pugh Maureen; Belich CamillaIn CommitteeClause 1 TitleCHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members the House is in committee on the Employment Relations (Trial Periods) Amendment Bill. This bill is drafted in clauses. We will debate the bill clause by clause starting with clause 1. Members may wish to consider Speakers' ruling 127/2 which indicates that clause by clause debates are generally narrow and should confine themselves to the words of the particular clause and issues contained in them. Having said that because the bill has not been to a select committee the debate on clause 1 may be more broadly about the bill—Speaker's ruling 127/1. Members we come first to clause 1. This is the debate on the title. The question is that clause 1 stand part.CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this debate on this bill which as you have correctly stated is not a particularly long bill but particularly impactful to a large proportion of the population.In relation to clause 1 that we are debating at the moment I think there is an amendment on the table from one of my colleagues to amend the name of this bill because I think that there could be other titles that could be more appropriate to the Act than actually the Employment Relation (Trial Periods) Amendment Bill. Actually what this bill does is not just amend trial periods it takes it from a rather smaller proportion of the population—and that's 28 percent of the population that are currently covered by trial periods if they are new to their employment—to 100 percent of the population or almost 100 percent of the population. I do have a question for the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety around that. I'm just trying to think where the correct place in the bill would be to discuss that and I think probably the title clause as you've said because it can be slightly more widely interpreted might be the best part.In the regulatory impact statement which I do commend for being very thorough and going through a lot of the details surrounding the bill and citing a lot of the evidence relevant to this bill one particular area is noted that is excluded from employers being able to implement trial periods within their employment agreements. It's not particularly mentioned in the bill so that's why I'm bringing it to your attention in clause 1. But in terms of my suggested amendment—my colleagues have another suggested amendment that this more correctly reflect the fact that we're going from a small percentage of the population to a large percent of the population being covered by trial periods.It's important to ask I think the Minister at this stage about the accredited employer work visa which as I understand are covered by the immigration rules which would effectively mean that people coming into work in New Zealand won't be able to be covered by trial periods and New Zealanders who already are here working would be covered by trial periods. Of course I'm not advocating for a further extension of that. I think that it's better if fewer people are covered by trial periods. I agree with the regulatory impact statement which states the status quo is the best and most preferable option here.But I do think it's an unusual position to be in to be saying to people under the accredited employer work visa scheme that it is not appropriate for you to be covered by trial periods but it is indeed appropriate for everyone else not covered by that visa to be covered. So I wanted to ask the Minister about advice on that in relation to this first clause of that bill and also to consider if she has in fact considered a more accurate title for the bill. If you were to read the title of this bill you may perceive that this is a small amendment. In fact actually it extends the coverage of the trial periods quite considerably from only 28 percent of the population who enter into new jobs to in fact the entire population of employees. So those are my really initial questions for the Minister in relation to the first clause.