Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a great honour actually to stand and speak on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill as a member of this Government and a proud union member. [Interruption] Listen to the boos on the other side particularly from the last speaker Dan Bidois who must have led a very sheltered life to not really understand the value and the purpose of belonging to a union and to not understand what a multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) is. It might be of some interest to him to know that the nurses are covered by a MECA. In effect the teachers are covered by a MECA. So perhaps when he gets up if he gets up to speak again he might have done a little bit more homework before he actually gets up to speak.I want to address my comments to Part 1 particularly to Supplementary Order Paper 153 put forward by the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway with respect to new clause 3B and clause 5 which is amending section 20 around union access. But I would like to make a comment that this is ultimately a bill that is about undoing wrongs. It's about undoing the wrongs of the previous Government to those who earn a wage in workplaces where employers have disproportionate power over their working conditions. It's a fairness bill. That's basically what this is. It's a fairness bill. There are lots of other things that can be implemented through legislation and will be as this term goes on but this is a bill which is about righting some wrongs and it demonstrates the importance of the working relationship the good close working relationship of this coalition Government with our coalition partner—Todd Muller: What's the wrongs?Hon CLARE CURRAN: —and our confidence and supply partner. OK so it restores the rights of working people to meal and rest breaks—a fairly fundamentally important wrong which is being righted. It restricts the 90-day trial periods to—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well those are in Part 2 so I'd like the member to focus on Part 1.Hon CLARE CURRAN: So in Part 1 with regard to the ability for unions to access workplaces I want to give an example because I've been waiting for the examples to come from the other side as to what it is that is so wrong about union representatives having access to the people that they represent in their workplaces. I want to give an example in my own city of a rest home called the Woodhaugh Rest Home and Hospital in Dunedin where there were accusations and claims being made of poor treatment of the staff—it got down to things like rationing the teabags—where the workers' hours were being cut. They called in their union representative to act on their behalf. When the union organiser turned up to represent the union members who were and are covered by collective agreement she was told to wait. She was told to wait by the duty manager and half an hour later she was given an instruction that she had to leave. As she was walking out a car pulled up and she was issued with a trespass notice and basically told that she wasn't allowed back into that workplace for around 18 months.Now those people in that workplace who are on low wages were having their hours cut and it had got so bad that even the teabags were being rationed—not just for them but for the patients the people living in the rest home—and they weren't allowed to have union representation. Now that is a classic example of where the disproportionate relationship between employees and employers is being abused and where this bill will right that wrong.