Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be able to take a call on this unusual situation where we're reading two bills at the same time as associated bills under the new Standing Orders. My colleague Glen Bennett spoke mainly to the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and I will be speaking mainly to the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill which is of course the other half of this particular reading—a really interesting system in Standing Orders that allows us to talk to two bills at the same time when there are sufficient similarities in them.I think it's worth just noting the reason for these bills: updating legislation a process that is gone through led by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to try and identify issues in existing law and remedy them through these types of omnibus bills. And as we've heard from previous speakers these bills do touch on a number of different pieces of legislation and are quite detailed in the changes that they make. Although they are mainly minor details it is our duty as a House to make sure we scrutinise all pieces of legislation that come through this House and that's our intention.We will be supporting these bills through to select committee but we do look forward to—in the bill that I'll be speaking to—through the Education and Workforce Committee going through with officials and looking at the reasoning why they have suggested to the Minister that these changes are necessary. I've had a brief look at the departmental disclosure statement and on first reading there seems that there's quite a bit of analysis that is still to be done in terms of the effect of the bill. Just looking at page 5 there—no formal analysis was undertaken in a number of these different bills. So we're supportive of the process. We do note that in the previous Parliament these were intended to be bipartisan bills supported through the House. Not on every occasion was that the case under the last Parliament. So I'll just note that for the record. Of course that does mean that if there are significant issues we will be raising them and seeking to make sure that they are properly looked at.There are a few particular areas in the immigration and workforce amendment bill that I wanted to highlight. One that is of particular concern to me is—it's not a major change—it does allow the Minister to look at and decide—and I'm just looking at new section 169C(3) here in clause 7. It allows the Minister to be satisfied that all persons and organisations that the Minister thinks is appropriate have been consulted" in regard to the subject matter. Now this is on electricity safety instruments. I understand most of those will be delegated to MBIE. I don't imagine the Minister Brooke van Velden will be doing a lot of that analysis herself and it is appropriate that she delegates that type of decision. However we have had recent situations where the Minister has departed from the general bipartisan approach of talking to business associations unions the wider community—having open consultation. So if this is the way in which the Minister will proceed then we would have concerns with that level of discretion being contained only within the Minister. So I just note that there is a little flag for discussion at select committee and also for the Minister to note that it is important that all New Zealanders no matter their political affiliation their political beliefs their ideology have a voice within the New Zealand parliamentary system. So it's very much our desire that the conversations that have gone on between Governments in the past led by the National Party Governments led by the Labour Party continue into the future and that no New Zealander is left behind in terms of the important things that might affect them. So I just note that that is an important aspect of this bill that we'll be looking at.I don't have a lot of time in this first reading obviously with these five-minute calls to go through all of the different areas. But I note that one of the key areas for one of the Ministers responsible or mainly the Minister responsible for the bill that I'm speaking to is the changes in relation to preterm birth payments and parental leave. Generally having read through them they appear to be good changes and reinforce what I understand was already believed to be the case: that if you have a preterm labour you would get those payments and then you would additionally be entitled to the regular amount of parental leave. So that to me seems like a very positive change that will be welcomed—to see that there is that clarity within legislation.So there is a lot of good stuff in here but I look forward to scrutinising it more at select committee and making sure that it's a bill that we can all support moving forward."