Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Chair. It's an interesting debate that we're going to have on Part 1 of this Employment Relations Amendment Bill. It's been quite a long time coming to the committee of the whole House stage because clearly there have been a lot of negotiations going on and occurring on the side of the Government coalition parties and those discussions and debates and arguments have ultimately manifested themselves in the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper that the National Party opposes. Colleagues of mine on this side of the Chamber will over the duration and course of this debate detail clause by clause segment by segment paragraph by paragraph the particular issues that we have with Part 1 and indeed the whole bill. But for the Minister in the chair this is actually something of a devastating humiliation because he came to the Parliament earlier this year in January and introduced this bill in a way that was designed entirely to enhance the opportunity for trade unions to influence their power and muscle in our workplaces around the countryside and to grow union membership.The provisions that provide most of those opportunities for trade unions are included in Part 1 of the bill. So this backdown that has occurred is something of an overpromising by the Minister in terms of his commitments made to his trade union friends and allies but not able to be delivered upon because of the influence of organisations such as the Employers and Manufacturers Association Business New Zealand the various chambers of commerce from around the countryside and indeed the efforts of my hard-working colleagues in the National Party who have been travelling around the countryside educating enlightening and informing business people particularly of the issues that this bill contains.This bill has as its primary purpose—and it says in the very first sentence that the new laws make it clear that unions are the winners. It says and I quote these are a suite of changes to promote and strengthen collective bargaining and union rights in the workplace." Really this is nothing short of an opportunity for the parliamentary Labour Party to repay its debt to the trade union movement—the first possible opportunity and the fact that it's taken us almost a year to get to that point is telling in itself.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order!Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: So in Part 1 we've got a number of provisions that will be dissected by my colleagues as we go through this debate. There are issues that pertain to provisions where union delegates will be paid to do union work on the employer's dime in an unspecified unquantified—Andrew Bayly: What?Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Union delegates will be given the opportunity to do union work—undefined unquantified—on the employer's dime and time. There are new rules to be pushed through the Parliament in terms of providing access to workplaces for trade union officials and delegates. Many of them will be able to access workplaces—even if the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper is passed—without notice without permission and without consent and that provides all kinds of issues for employers for employees and for the safety and well-being of people at work all around the countryside.Then there are questions relating to union information being supplied to workers to employees that must be provided to those people by the employer and it looks like the onerous restrictions that will be placed on the employer will not be as simple as the union actually just mailing out information to prospective members. The unions want to have the power and authority to have employers doing recruitment for them in an unpaid way and in a way that ensures that union membership can be maximised and grown.This is undoubtedly a piece of legislation that is designed to effectively increase trade unions' market share in our workplaces. Eighty-three percent of New Zealanders are not currently members of trade unions. This is a bill that is designed entirely to turn that around. The real question is: why?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Just before I call the next speaker can I just refer all members to Speakers' rulings 49/1 to probably 49/7 which deal with imputing improper motives to Government actions. I would just bring that to people's attention."