Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you for the opportunity to talk to the Employment Relations Amendment Bill on the title and commencement clauses. I just want to ask a few questions around why the Minister in the chair Iain Lees-Galloway chose the date of 6 May. He seems to have just gone through his calendar and looked for a nice-looking May Day and thought Oh well that's a Monday on a May Day and we'll choose that one." So he plucked it out of the air popped it in the bill and said "Well that'll be nice and convenient for businesses." Well I've just had a look on the IRD website to work out when businesses' tax is due next year and it seems to me that 7 May is tax day. So did he consult with the Minister of Revenue to work out whether there were any other conflicts or anything else that businesses might have to be doing around that date?Well 7 May seems to be quite a busy day for quite a lot of businesses and they've got these law changes that they're going to have to deal with on the Monday with tax due on the Tuesday. So I'd like to ask the Minister: what consultation did he undertake when choosing this May Day Monday when he decided to pop that in Supplementary Order Paper 153?Hon Scott Simpson: Mayday! Mayday!SIMEON BROWN: I think a lot of businesses will be saying Mr Simpson "Mayday! Mayday! We've got all this happening and we've got our tax due on Tuesday so that this Government can keep spending it on a whole lot of wasteful expenditure that it keeps popping money into." That's just another point that I think needs to be looked into and I'd like the Minister to actually take a call and tell the committee why this date was chosen rather than just giving some sort of floppy answer about why he decided to pluck a date out of the year.I also have a number of suggestions for what the title of this bill could be more accurately described as. It's currently the Employment Relations Amendment Bill which is quite bland—very boring—but we could probably make it a little more accurate if the Minister was to take on board some of the suggestions that I might be able to persuade him of. The bill talks a lot about union rights and union privileges and trying to support the unions—and I mean I don't know why but the word "union" should be in there. I see the Minister Tracey Martin across the other side of the Chamber. She gave me a chocolate fish once for being able to mention the word "union" I think 21 times in five minutes. The chocolate fish is still sitting on my desk up there. I haven't eaten it; it reminds me every day about how this Government is very very supportive of the unions and it will sit there for a little bit longer. But surely the word "union"—Hon Scott Simpson: Like the Government it's got a use-by date.SIMEON BROWN: That's right: like the Government. I did remind her when she started to suggest giving chocolate fish in the mail that there could be some health and safety risks associated with that. That's partially why I haven't even consumed it yet but I'd rather just look at it.But anyway why is the word "union" not anywhere in the title? Surely that should be recognised and the fact that unions will now have unfettered access to the workplace? They're going to be able to go and recruit members. They're going to be able to have more powers around multi-employer collective agreements and a range of other union rights which are sort of littered throughout this piece of legislation which the Minister is seeking to progress. So why is that not recognised in the bill? Surely the name could be the "Employment (Union Power Increasing) Amendment Bill" or "Increasing Union Power Amendment Bill"—"Employment (Access for Unions) Amendment Bill" or "Employment (More Union Membership) Amendment Bill". These are names which could more accurately reflect the actual intent which is inside this bill.We know that this bill is designed to increase membership. It is designed to increase revenue for the Labour Party's union mates and that's what this bill will do. So I think this bill should be clearly describing the actual impact and the actual effect that it's designed to have upon New Zealanders and actually have that in the title. And let's be honest; this bill should just be honest. Everything this bill does if you read a nice bland title like that you could think "Well this is just making a few changes around the edges of our Employment Relations Act." But this is going to the heart of it. It's about increasing the unions it's about making mayday for employers mayday for businesses and I'd like the Minister to now take a call and explain why he's going to be causing all sorts of mayhem."