Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to talk about the vexed subject of meal and rest breaks—a very important issue particularly for MPs—and I want to ask: when did you lot last have a meal break? Hon Member: Oh I didn't. ANDREW BAYLY: Did you get a meal break? I just heard from a member beside me who was saying that he didn't have time for a meal. What about a rest break during the course of the day? Have we had them? Well I'm so glad that this bill caters for this very subject because if you look at new section 69ZD Employee's entitlement to and employer's duty to provide rest breaks and meal breaks" in clause 35 it is a beautiful series of prose. So what's interesting? Just look at the hours. Now if you work between two and four hours I understand you're entitled to a 10-minute rest break—a very good thing. If you work between four and six hours you have a 10-minute rest break plus a 30-minute meal break—very good. If you work between six and eight hours you have two 10-minute rest breaks and one 30-minute meal break and over eight hours you have two 10-minute rest breaks and one 30-minute meal break—very very good. But then we move on to their timing in new section 69ZE—particularly subsection (4). So if you work the same two to four hours this is what I find fascinating—the specification of when you should take these is just fabulous. Between two and four hours you must have your rest break during the middle of the work period of two to four hours. If you work between four and six hours you must have your rest break one-third of the way through the work period and your meal break is at two-thirds—very good. If you work between six and eight hours you must have one of your rest breaks halfway between the start period and the meal break and of course the meal break must be in the middle of the period and the second rest break must be between the meal break and the finish time. These are wonderful things. I just can't believe the detail we've gone into through this. But my first question I want to ask the Minister is: who is responsible for this? Is this the Labour members is it New Zealand First members is it the Green members who have gone to such extremes to write this stuff into the Act? The next issue I want to talk about—[Interruption] Well that raises some speculation doesn't it? The next thing I want to talk about is: what about contracting out? Of course now we turn our minds to new section 69ZEA(1) in clause 35. It's very interesting actually under subsection (1)(a) that "An employer is exempt from the requirement to provide [the said] rest breaks and meal breaks … if—(a) the employee is engaged in—(i) the protection of New Zealand's national security; or … an essential service". So that's my second question: what is an essential service? Some would say that being an MP is an essential service. Stuart Smith: A wine waiter. ANDREW BAYLY: A wine waiter can be essential at certain times I must admit. But what is an essential service? I think the issue about that is very very important because if you think about businesses there will be elements of a process in that factory that will be absolutely essential in that if you do not conduct it and complete it the factory process will stop. So do you define it on the importance of the process to the factory? Do you define it when it comes to a service as the critical element of delivering that service? Or is it just around some nebulous definition of "essential service" and how do you construe that and who determines that in time? As we all know in time many jobs are going to be lost to the New Zealand economy and we're going to have robotics involved and of course the nature of jobs changes over time. So I'm very very interested in knowing how that's going to be defined. The main thing I think turning over the page—which is of course subsection (2) of new section 69ZEA—is what about an agreement to contract out of this? It only references national security and the public safety and I think that question needs to be asked. Fourth question: when can someone mutually agree to contract out?"