Bayly Andrew; Williams PotoANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking to the Employment Relations (Allowing Higher Earners to Contract Out of Personal Grievance Provisions) Amendment Bill. This is of course a very interesting bill and I've listened closely to the arguments that have been put forward tonight. I've got to say listening to the Government's side—and particularly from Labour and New Zealand First—looking through the arguments I believe there's a tendency to approach this bill purely from an ideological perspective; namely they believe that the only type of employment contract that should be persuasive throughout New Zealand should be collective agreements. The second thing is that every employee should have the same type and conditions of employment. Thirdly there's a presumption that the State should impose these arrangements through the nature of employment laws that are in operation in New Zealand.Personally I'm not particularly persuaded by those arguments. Rather I believe that we should be approaching this topic more from a principled position. I want to just raise five issues. The first one is: should some employees and employers be in a position to freely enter into arrangements? I note the point—and I just want to highlight the point—that it's freely negotiated. There is no compulsion. I believe that it should. I believe this is almost a human rights issue and one that is appropriate for New Zealand. The second one is: do we have faith in our employment laws? As they currently stand I do believe that we should have faith in our employment laws. They operate efficiently and effectively and have up to now.The third issue I want to raise is: does the bill still adequately protect the rights of employees against illegitimate dismissal? I think there's a little bit of confusion and particularly that last speaker Jan Logie was particularly confused. The issue under the bill is that you can contract out only of unjustifiable dismissal. That's the nature of the flexibility around this bill. What this bill does not allow you to contract out of is a whole raft of other issues that may relate to a personal grievance: namely disadvantage decriminalisation sexual harassment racial harassment duress and health and safety as well as a couple of other provisions. So in those cases the employee is still at liberty to take an action against the employer if those situations occur.Fourthly does this bill create an element of power imbalance? I've heard some of the speakers—and particularly the former leader of the Labour Party—talk at length on this. I don't believe that that is the case for the following reasons: first of all the nature of the employee that is involved in this discussion and obviously it's defined by an amount earning more than $150000 which as many people will know represents only about 1 percent of all employees in the country.Secondly by implication and by association I think it's fair to assume those people in that lucky position to be earning more than $150000 are often highly skilled people have the ability to negotiate adequately on their behalf and will willingly do so if they are given the opportunity.Thirdly the provisions around the bill require first of all if someone wishes to do this that the employee first receive written advice—must get official advice—from a lawyer and that that lawyer has to certify in writing that they have provided advice to the employee around the nature of the liabilities that they may be entering into and the implications thereof. I think those elements are very very important in terms of looking at the principles of this bill. I think the last thing is the protections that have been built into the bill around protecting further rights of employees. I think all that goes to make this a commendable bill and worth further discussion.The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I call Marja Lubeck—five minutes.