Utikere TangiTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you Madam Chair. Again can I thank the Minister for providing the regulatory impact statement. It seems to be something of a rarity before the House under this Government these days. I note from that that when we're looking at paragraph 32 in it it does provide the overarching sort of focus or objective really of this regulatory system when it comes to employment relations. It says in there that it is to enable productive mutually beneficial employment relationships" and that "As such the system assumes an ongoing relationship between the employer and the employee."Again that sort of lends itself that the process around this in this clause is obviously pretty important. I note that my colleague Camilla Belich referred to the global context and the regulatory impact statement also does touch on some of the international context in the sense of arrangements. My question to the Minister firstly is around her comfort in that this proposal sits or aligns adequately with other international jurisdictions and contexts when the regulatory impact statement itself points to for example the fact that in the United Kingdom there's generally an agreement between the employer and the employee. When we look at Germany there is a discretion about a probationary period. In the Netherlands the probationary period must be agreed in writing.That brings me to two amendments in my name. The first one is I guess a pre-emptive one. It seeks to amend section 67B which falls under clause 5 and seeks to insert a new provision which is: "Any employer seeking to utilise a trial period must first"—so there is the timeliness—"meet with the employee and consult on the decision to implement the trial period." This includes seeking the employee's feedback on other options that do not include utilising the trial period.I'm interested in the Minister's thoughts around whether that is something that she would accept because it might be that in an employment situation those other options could be things like starting out with some other level of support. It could be around putting in place some guidance for the new employee and while many think that that is automatically something that would kick in as part of a new employment relationship it may be that if there is agreement between the two parties actually there is no need to utilise the trial period. It also I think goes back to what has been covered in this Chamber tonight around the tenet of good faith and that being a key provision. So I'd be interested in the Minister's thoughts around that.The other amendment is an additional amendment to section 67B and that is inserting an additional provision which is "employees have the right at no cost"—which is important because it is about it being accessible—"to seek a determination from the employment authority that a trial period used to end their employment is valid and has been used correctly and appropriately." My question for the Minister is: what comfort in this clause as currently drafted is there to ensure that there is an adequate process that allows for the employee to understand what is happening? We've talked about the fact that there are many individuals who are in employment situations who would not be familiar with legalities familiar with contractual law familiar with contractual obligations and so this amendment is really focused on ensuring that if an employer does seek to action that part of the agreement there is an accessible avenue available to any employee to effectively seek the determination from the appropriate authority or agency which in this case would be the employment authority that exists to ensure there is a sense of validity to it but also that it has been used correctly and appropriately. These two amendments are about process both pre-emptively before engaging a trial period and also in circumstances where a trial period may actually be utilised so that there is an accessible avenue available to the employee as part of the employment relationship to seek some validation that the process whatever may have been followed that has been taken by the employer has been done so correctly and appropriately."