Baillie ChrisCHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Madam Speaker thank you. I rise to speak to the Employment Relations (Restraint of Trade) Amendment Bill. ACT will not be supporting this bill which probably doesn't surprise too many over the other side. The bill has four main parts. It provides that restraints of trade have no effect wherever an employee earns less than three times the minimum wage—that was mentioned earlier; it limits the use of restraints of trade to those situations where the employer has a proprietary interest to protect through the use of these provisions; it requires employers to pay employees who are subject to a restraint of trade provision an amount equal to half of the employee's weekly earnings for each week that the restraint of trade remains in effect; and it limits the duration of restraints of trade to no more than six months. That's basically what the bill says.But restraints of trade just like was mentioned earlier in the last bill are there for a reason. Restraints of trade are there for a reason. Starting up and owning a business is really hard work. Building good will and clients is really important. They invest money—business owners invest money. They take the risks often not paying themselves but making sure that their staff get what's owed to them. Loyalty and the safeguarding of those things that make a successful business are not really unreasonable expectations. The bill doesn't address scenarios where lower-paid employees have access to confidential information and an employer will be unable to protect their interests.What happens now when a business needs a worker and a worker needs a job is they have a meeting they work out what's fair agree to the terms of employment and sign a contract. Then they shake hands and they start work. Once they start the employee gets paid. They get holidays they get rest breaks they get sick leave they get KiwiSaver and they get numerous other rewards. The employee just needs to do what they voluntarily agreed to do. It's a fair mature system and it works. We let the two parties negotiate in good faith. We certainly don't need any more legislation. This Government's mistrust of business owners is really sad and it's through the bills over the last couple of years. It's just really sad and the disrespect for employees is really patronising.The feedback already that I've received from legal employment experts—and dare I say it even more expert than what we've got sitting opposite us—is that the bill is not necessary. Some of the comments I've received are: The law change is a blunt instrument and unduly restrictive." Here's another one: "The law has the intent of protecting lower-income workers who are subjected to unfair restraint of trading laws. However the sort of examples the law was aimed at protecting against were probably unenforceable in law anyway." And the last one from an employment expert: "It isn't clear what mischief the bill is attempting to address and resolve that is not able to be adequately dealt with by the courts. We consider that if passed as introduced the bill would create more issues than it is attempting to resolve." They're experts.This bill is a waste of time. It's not needed and shows a real lack of knowledge yet again as to what makes businesses tick. It'll pass this first reading submitters will overwhelmingly oppose it and the Government will ignore them. That's just par for the course with this Government. ACT supports business and common sense and roll on 14 October. We oppose this bill."