Roche DeniseDENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a short call for the Greens on the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill's first reading and what a treacherous bill this is. I cannot think of a different word. It is treacherous. This bill is the result of basically a breach of the goodwill that was happening about the negotiations that were setting out the principles to deal with pay equity cases as a result of the Kristine Bartlett case. So let me just recap a bit. We are here in the House debating the first reading of a bill that will actually undermine and prevent women from getting equal pay because that has already been settled with one particular group of women workers which was the women represented in the persona of Kristine Bartlett as one of the carers. The Government says: Right we've done that one. That was $2 billion worth. There is no back-pay claim. Now we're going to make it harder for anybody else. So we're going to pull that ladder up away from anyone else." This begs the question—I get quite concerned about this. This Government has a history of overturning inconvenient law. It basically has a history of overturning by legislation legal cases that have been won and this is another example of it. One of the other ones that comes to mind straight away is for the family carers: that case that was won for that family member who finally got equal pay—well actually minimum pay—for the work that he had done over a very long time over decades in looking after his adult children thereby saving the taxpayer an enormous amount of money. The court ruled that yes this person was entitled to minimum employment standards and minimum wage at the least. So what did the Government do? Straight after that and under urgency it introduced legislation that basically said: "Well we'll deal with that one but we're not dealing with any more." This legislation is exactly the same. So you kind of start to wonder where that line is the separation of the State and the Government from the law and who defends the law. I mean what is the point?The proof of how unwilling the Government was and is and the proof that it was dragged to that negotiation table by the E tū union by the Public Service Association by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and with the businesses—it was dragged to negotiate that—is this legislation. This is the legislation that says: "We've got equal pay we've had that since 1972 and as far as pay equity goes you're not going to get it. We're not going to allow anybody else to get it." One of the most pernicious parts of this bill is that it says it actually prevents any of the other claims that are in the works at the moment from being seen by the courts. That kind of retrospective lawmaking really really gives me the heebie-jeebies because I do not think it is fair in any way whatsoever.Other people have talked about how what this bill does is implement a whole series of hurdles that women workers are expected to go through in order to get a discussion about pay equity in their workplace and it leaves it up to the woman worker. It does not leave it up to anybody else. The only people who are really going to benefit from this piece of legislation if it goes through—and it will not on 23 September; it will be turfed—will be employment lawyers.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call David Seymour—5 minutes."