Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I'm ready pleased to stand and take call on what I think is a fantastic piece of legislation that we have before the House today. I just want to say that as a business owner and an employer I am really really really comfortable with this piece of legislation and I can't understand why many would not be comfortable with it.What this bill does is it sets out a strong regulatory framework for minimum employment protections and employment relations that will deliver a vision of a modern highly skilled and innovative economy that delivers good jobs decent work conditions and fair wages. I think it goes a long way to fix what we saw happen under the previous Government where workers' rights were chipped away—chipped away to the point where they were stripped of any rights in the workplace by introducing the 90-day trial period and by getting rid of the rest and meal breaks that people are actually so entitled to.We've heard a lot of rhetoric out there—a lot of scaremongering from the Opposition—that getting rid of trial periods is going to stop people taking on those that they might not have otherwise given the opportunity or given a chance to by employing. But I totally disagree with that. The fact that you've got the 90-day trial still in place for employers with 20 or less staff—we know that small businesses have the most to lose perhaps economically when staffing doesn't work out. So that provision stays in place for them. With the larger employers they still have the ability to have a probationary period. What that means is that there is the responsibility on the employer to show due diligence in supporting newly employed staff to fit into the business. So it just is about supporting them into that business—regular meetings and supporting them pointing out where they may need to improve and things like that. So it doesn't stop businesses having the ability to use that probationary period; it just means that the employer has to show due diligence and has a responsibility to the employee. What we had previously with the introduction of the 90-day trial we found that it was a bit of a fire at will". We know that the majority of our employers and business owners are good employers and good business owners.Hon Members: Scaremongering. What a scaremonger.JO LUXTON: And I'm hearing that from across the House—"Scaremongering" or "Don't scaremonger". Well actually I would like to suggest that you perhaps take your own advice because what I've been hearing as I travel around the country is there's been an awful lot of scaremongering from members opposite as they take their tirade around the country.I also want to talk about the rest and meal breaks and how they'll be coming back in. I've heard the fact that people say that early childhood centres will struggle to meet this requirement. Well my view on that is that if you are properly staffed even to the minimum ratios and you stagger your breaks—stagger your morning tea breaks afternoon tea breaks and your lunch breaks—you can easily meet the requirements to allow staff to have their rest and meal breaks. I've heard about people talking about the fact that a union representative will be able to enter the farmhouse or people's homes where employees work. Now this is really relevant in the area that I live. That's a predominately agricultural area where we have a lot of dairy farms and people live in houses on the dairy farm. There is nothing further from the truth than that a union rep can just barge on in to somebody's home. It's just absolute scaremongering in my view. They cannot enter a home without prior and explicit permission from the owner. We've heard about union access—just being able to also walk into the workplace willy-nilly unannounced and that again is simply not true. They must seek permission if there are employees there that are not part of a collective agreement or in the process of working towards a collective agreement.So what this bill is actually doing is we've listened to submitters and listened to their concerns carefully and there's been changes made to this piece of legislation after listening to submitters. What we have is a coalition Government here that's worked together really really well to come up with this final piece of legislation including the Supplementary Order Papers and I think this piece of legislation is going to give clarity to employers and business owners and clarity to employees. And that in my view is really important and hugely beneficial and I commend this bill to the House."