Collins Judith: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Employment Relations Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
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JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Following on from the contribution from my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp I would just like to tell the Committee a little story about somebody who could chose between whether she claimed under the Employment Relations Act or the Human Rights Act. Before I came to Parliament I did do the odd bit of employment work for employers and sometimes for employees—in fact quite often. After the second case I took for one particular employee who was alleging sexual harassment against an employer I decided that she probably would not come back for yet a third go. Each time she ended up with a payment and was able to further her university career. 
The third time she turned up claiming sexual harassment from yet another employer she really did not want to go through the Employment Tribunal where such cases were taken in those days because maybe they might know her too well. By that stage I have to say I was starting to feel I had too much employment work on my hands. So where did she go? She went off to a human rights lawyer who not knowing the history was much more sympathetic. 
That is unfortunately one of the situations we have. I take the Minister’s point that the provision is an improvement over the ability at the moment for people to switch halfway through and decide on where they might get a more sympathetic hearing where they might get more money or where they might not have to front up with better evidence. Unfortunately there is still the provision whereby people can take a couple of cases under one particular Act then at a later stage come back through under another Act against yet another employer and not be found out. Unfortunately this can still happen under the provision the Minister has here. As Dr Mapp pointed out this is about an employment relationship. Why is it not under the employment relationship law? Why does it always have this other human rights provision as well—the dual track which unfortunately still allows people to choose whichever system they think they might be able to get a better deal out of or that they think might be more sympathetic to their cause? 
Of course it is the human rights track that has been the cause of so much angst in the House in relation to prisoners in the management systems. I know that the Government is not enjoying that. The Minister in his other role is probably not enjoying it. It is the human rights provision that the Minister is going to confirm yet again on the poor old employer who has to try to deal with all the compliance costs all the litigation all the difficulties and is sitting there waiting for someone to bring a claim on something. 
That is not to say of course that many claims in this area are not genuine because many are. Having said that there are always the odd ones—in fact quite a few odd ones—that are not particularly genuine and would not stand up to a huge amount of scrutiny. 
We know that employers have got very used to just paying out. There are lots of people who advise employers that it is cheaper just to pay out. It is true. It is good advice in the monetary sense—absolutely—because the time the effort the angst and the money involved in defending these claims is huge. 
Of course there is always the probability of the threat of publicity—basically an extortion situation—if they do not pay up. Unfortunately that will still be relevant here. By having this dual system someone will be able to say: “We’re going to go down this track. We’re going to do this or else we’ll claim publicity or try to do something to embarrass the employer.” So unfortunately we do leave ourselves open to that odd employee—very odd—who happens to think that that is the way to pay for his or her university education. It is a very very sad fact but it is true. If I have struck it then I am sure there are other people who have struck it as well in this area. 
So the Minister could maybe take a call and say why it is that it is necessary to have two different strands. I can see him nodding and I know he is thinking about it. Maybe he is thinking about the prisons.