Willis Nicola; Williams PotoNICOLA WILLIS (National): Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to take a call on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. In this contribution I want to draw particular attention to one of the more egregious aspects of this bill that affects the privacy of every single New Zealander and that provision is new section 62A in clause 18. What that provision essentially requires is that any employer who signs an employee up to an individual employment contract in the future under this legislation will be required to give the personal information of that employee to the union. I stand with the Privacy Commissioner who views that this approach goes both beyond what is necessary and creates a step backwards both for New Zealand's privacy laws and for our employment laws. National has a remedy for this in the form of Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 147 in my name which will ensure that an employer gains consent from their employee before transferring their personal information to a union. So as it stands in the draft that the Government has prepared this is what would actually happen: I'm a new employee I sign up to an individual employment contract my employer is now required to come to me and say Here's a form that I need you to fill in outlining whether you're going to join the union or that you're not going to join the union." and then the employer is required to give that form to the union giving my name and giving the fact that I haven't joined a union. Then of course the union gets that information about me and is absolutely welcome to come and ask me questions about why I haven't joined the union and potentially do that in front of my workmates embarrass me and put me under pressure. But what's even worse is that if I don't fill in that form—let's say I'm an employee in my first few days of employment I'm busy at work I have family commitments and I don't get round to filling in the form. Well the default position that this law sets out is that in that circumstance the employer automatically tells the union "She hasn't filled in the form this is her name—over to you." and of course not only is this unfair on the individual employee in terms of jeopardising their privacy but it is also very unfair on employers. They are employers who I'd like to remind members opposite are in almost all cases—at least the vast majority of cases—good people and good New Zealanders who are often entrepreneurial and hard-working who have set up a small business to advance a service or good in their community and who are hiring good people that they want to do well by that they want to give an opportunity to that they want to pay an income to that they want to support well and that they want to remain part of their business into the future. What this law requires of those good employers is that suddenly they have a sub-duty. Instead of their duty being to look after their staff their duty is now to promote the union by giving information about their employees to the union. What an invidious position that places employers in because suddenly the employee may go to the employer and say "Hey look. How did the unions end up knowing that I wasn't in the union?" and the employer says "Well I'm sorry. I passed that information on." The employee says "Well why did you pass that information on? That's my private information. The fact that I have not joined the union is none of your business employer and I do not expect you to be passing that information on." and the employer says "Oh well sorry but that's the law." Now what Mr Lees-Galloway is going to stand up and say is "Oh well look there's already an exemption clause. They can tick the right box on the form to explicitly say that they don't give consent." Well I would draw his attention to the statement of the Privacy Commissioner about that who said that "Requiring an individual to opt-out of having their personal information disclosed is poor privacy practice and is against an individual's right to exercise some autonomy over their personal information." So in SOP 147 the Government has the opportunity to correct this egregious error because I believe that the vast majority of New Zealanders would view this invasion of their personal privacy as egregious and as wrong. It goes too far and it is an unacceptable breach. I agree with the Privacy Commissioner who says that this is a step backward for employment law and for privacy and there is a questionable basis for having such a thing in the law. There is no reason for this—this advances no one's rights. CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I call the Hon Lees-Galloway—Iain Lees-Galloway."