Pugh Maureen; Belich CamillaCHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members the House is in committee on the Employment Relations (Trial Periods) Amendment Bill. Before the dinner break the committee was considering clause 3 Principal Act."CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. I enjoyed the last contribution I was able to make on clause 3 in relation to the amendment of the principal Act the Employment Relations Act and I did signal to the Chair at the time that I had another contribution that I wanted to make specifically around clause 3 which is the amendment to the principal Act. The main clauses which are amended in the Employment Relations Act are the sections 67A and 67B. So I will speak and I did note the comment by the presiding officer at the time and I'm not intending to—just for your assurance Madam Chair—speak to the entire Employment Relations Act even though that is included in the clause. The contributions that I want to make are specific to the particular sections which are affected by this new bill on trial periods. So section 67A—we've some amendments to that that will be discussed in the next debate on clause 4 but the amendments in relation to section 67B do open up a different area which is another fundamentally important part of the Employment Relations Act which is the provisions to allow personal grievances to take place or not in section 103. So that's specifically referred to in the principal Act—the section that 67B amends refers to the personal grievances section. So one of the main issues with trial periods is the removal of the ability for employees to take personal grievances in respect of their dismissal. So the language used in the bill—and that will be discussed in a subsequent clause—is quite specific around that not being permitted. However if we actually look at the Act which we're now looking at under clause 3 we see that there are a number of personal grievances that can still be pursued by people regardless of the fact that they might be under a 90-day trial period. And that is I think one of the issues with this bill and I wonder if the Minister could comment on this at all—the lack of clarity in what types of action can actually be covered and taken under the Employment Relations Act despite the bill which the Minister is proposing on trial periods. The bill says that if you're in a trial period you can't bring a personal grievance for dismissal. However it does allow a number of personal grievances to continue and I might go through those for your benefit and just ask if the Minister had considered any other types of personal grievances that she may want to protect by allowing them to continue with this legislation. I think the Minister did refer to this during question time today; it's clear then and it has been an established practice for a number of iterations of this type of legislation that discrimination claims and other acts relating to racial discrimination sexual harassment that type of claim is able to be taken whether you're in a trial period or not.In looking at this section in the Employment Relations Act again it was notable to me how many other exceptions have been added in more recent legislation. So there was the work done around zero-hour contracts and that was under the previous National Government and that's actually been included in this section which has been retained by this bill preventing people who have rights in relation to zero-hour contracts from actually being prevented from taking a personal grievance. So that is obviously interesting. And then there's the membership or not of a union that can also continue and then protection of whistleblowers. So I think the House can be united in being satisfied that these are protections that are so fundamentally important that of course regardless of whether you're in a trial period or not they should not be excluded from being able to take these forms of action. The difficulty that I have and the question I would like to ask the Minister is: what happens and what is her understanding of this legislation in how it would impact a dismissal which is tainted by sexual harassment family violence racial harassment. These are all clauses which are relevant to this particular bill and retained by the Employment Relations Act in relation to this particular bill.So what would occur in that situation from the Minister's advice if there is a dismissal which is tainted by some of these discriminatory reasons? And what would be the course of action under this new piece of legislation that she would recommend someone take in relation to taking a course of action in law? Is her advice that obviously the bill she's proposing says that they can't take a claim for a personal grievance because of that dismissal? However is the dismissal able to be part of some other personal grievances which remain under this piece of legislation? And what's your advice to the public really about how they would navigate what is quite a complex situation?So I want to thank the Minister for making sure that those provisions were retained within this principal Act which we are discussing in clause 3. I think that was the right thing to do. I do think that there is somewhat of a lack of clarity as to what people should be doing in those particular situations if they are in fact to find themselves in a situation where they have one right which exists but another right which is taken away. Obviously for lawyers and for unions they can offer advice to people but not everyone's in a situation where they have access to a union or a lawyer and it might be good to clarify how she sees that intersection of rights occurring.I thought it was helpful in relation to my last question when she confirmed that good faith would apply throughout the process of the trial period. That's really good to have that reassurance and that was my understanding of how the Employment Relations Act which is the principal Act that is being amended by this bill would work. So bearing that in mind and understanding that we do have this relationship of good faith which imbues all of the clauses including the bill which the Minister is intending to pass tonight can she dig into a wee bit more the type of advice that she would give to members of the public on how to navigate what is quite a tricky area. So a few questions here for the Minister and I look forward to her response."