Lee DeniseDENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I appreciate the chance to speak on specifically clause 39 Section 125 replaced (Remedy of reinstatement)". I'd like to further underscore some of the comments that my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson made earlier but raise a couple of different points and a couple of different questions to the Minister.Now those of us who sat on the Education and Workforce Committee and heard many submissions of which I was one heard from several different submitters in regards to reinstatement and some of the difficulties that this section will impose for them. Now what's interesting is that most don't dispute the idea of reinstatement but they do have deep concerns about what this particular amendment will do. I'm going to refer in part to the Simpson Grierson submission and their very thoughtful contribution not only in this section of course but in many instances. What we know is the current wording of section 125 of the Act provides that the authority may provide for reinstatement and what the amendment's doing here of course is saying that it must be the primary remedy.The current wording Simpson Grierson and others have argued is working well and should be retained not with the new amendment. When reinstatement is sought as a remedy to state the obvious it's not always the appropriate remedy to go after. In Simpson Grierson's experience they've said that a disproportionate number of employees seek reinstatement for tactical reasons only and they do that in order to strengthen their bargaining position at mediation or in settlement negotiations rather than out of a genuine need to return to their former role. Now what this does is add on significant costs and procedural delays. Now that's a reality and that's come from Simpson Grierson and also employers and I'm going to refer to some of those employers soon having heard them in person.So if this bill was to pass and have reinstatement as the primary remedy wherever practicable and reasonable there will undoubtedly be unintended costs and implications for employers. Now that stems from the fact that by nature trust has broken down between the employee and the employer and there could be as a flow-on effect an unnecessary burden on other staff if in fact the primary remedy is reinstatement. Some of those other staff could have been directly affected by misconduct or in other situations. So what we've seen from different submitters and we know from for instance Port of Tauranga Tourism Industry Aotearoa Business New Zealand Hospitality New Zealand is that most who have been dismissed prefer to move on.Now how do we underscore that particular statement or something that the submitters said? We just need only go and look at some Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment statistics and we did that in the select committee. So we asked for the ministry to provide us with evidence of dismissals and reinstatements and what they provided us with was a chart and I've got that here. What they've said is that in 2013—from the Employment Relations Authority—there were two permanent determinations for reinstatement; in 2014 eight; in 2015 four; in 2016 five. That's not a lot. That's not a lot at all. So in respective years: two eight four and five. What we may deduce from that is that it's actually quite difficult for all for reinstatement to be a remedy let alone the primary remedy and that's why we oppose this particular amendment."