Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Chair. We're at that part of the debate where we are now discussing the title the commencement and the principal Act. I wanted to thank the Minister Iain Lees-Galloway for pre-empting my question on this because I did attempt to raise it in an earlier segment of the debate inappropriately and I apologise for that. But still given that this is a bill that is designed entirely to strengthen the role of trade unions in the industrial relations environment and to increase union membership and power and influence surely there would have been pressure from the trade unions on the Minister to get this bill done and dusted as quickly as possible. So not wanting to call into doubt the veracity of the Minister's proposition as to why the date for commencement has been moved from a date sometime in March to 6 May quite specifically I am still a little concerned about the reason for that and I would be appreciative of a further analysis of quite why that delay was. On this side of the Chamber we suspect that that's probably a question that relates to the relationship that exists between New Zealand First and the other coalition parties and that they have probably gone about asserting their influence in terms of slowing this down.But if the Minister is correct—and I take him at his word that the reason for the delay to the specific date of 6 May is exactly as he has suggested to coincide with a Monday—then that's a good thing. It does give businesses a greater opportunity to prepare for the administration and paperwork and changes to employment agreements and conditions that will be required. I know from my own commercial days of being in business running businesses and employing people that it is a time-consuming and sometimes quite complicated process for employees and HR people and indeed managers and operators of businesses. These are not simple transactions that are short documents; they are quite lengthy. Some people find them quite intimidating the actual documents themselves. In fact I can well recall long-term employees who simply when presented with new employment agreements literally did not open the envelope that they came in because they just don't want to get their heads around it. For many people this will be a challenge.But I do want to suggest that if Monday 6 May is a more appropriate business day then maybe consideration should be given by the Minister to delaying just a little further because for many businesses these days the end of the financial year occurs on 30 June. That means that 1 July is the first trading day of the new financial year for an increasingly large number of New Zealand businesses. As it happens in 2019 1 July does fall on a Monday and for many businesses that would be far more efficient and far more effective than a date in the middle of May or early May that seems convenient only because it is a Monday. If you're really concerned about that Minister then I would suggest that a more appropriate date if time is not of the essence—and it would seem in this case that it's not—then 1 July would be a very good alternative and something worthy of consideration.I had no idea that the date of 6 May was as inauspicious as it actually turns out to be and I want to thank my colleague Nicola Willis for her diligent research into that date. For no other reason than that it would be a very good thing to do to change the date.I want to conclude this little portion of the debate just in terms of the title of the bill. This Act is to be the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2018. Surely given that this is all about growing trade union strength and power and influence it should really be called the Trade Union Retention Bill". Or maybe it should be called the "Trade Union Membership Enhancement Bill" because what we do know is that trade union membership over the last 30 or so years has declined rapidly because people literally are not interested in joining trade unions. There's no value proposition for many of them who don't want to spend the $500 $600 $700 $800 or more a year that it costs to belong to a union.So this is really a bill that's designed to grow union membership and to encourage that money flow back to the trade unions. So "Trade Union Retention Bill" or "Trade Union Membership Enhancement Bill" would be in my view far more appropriate."