Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. One of the lessons that new Labour list MPs from the South Island need to learn is that they've got to say with some passion what they really think and if they want to make apologies for the Government then they need to say it with sincerity and passion and not just sort of pretend that they're reading a speech that's been prepared by their research unit giving them an indication that they should be somehow building an aura of a Government—SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. He's not going to reflect on me because of course if a member was reading a speech I would stop that member although I didn't do it to the member on his left because I think he was being considered.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Thank you Mr Speaker. Look I won't spend any further time on the previous speaker because she was trying to defend the indefensible and that's a job that's going to become increasingly more difficult for Labour list backbenchers. In the 1970s when trade unions dominated the industrial relations scene and in an environment that this Government wants to take us back to there were a number of words that were used regularly every day. They used to come across the newswires across the newspapers and one of them was the word demarcation" and it was usually in reference to unions fighting each other.In fact that was the reason that the Māngere Bridge took 10 years to build and the BNZ building in Wellington here took about 10 years to build. Most of it wasn't employers fighting with employees over workplace relations and issues to do with employment and remuneration and conditions; it was actually unions fighting with each other. It was whether members of the Boilermakers Union or the fitters and turners union should be the ones that did the welding on the construction of the Māngere Bridge.So too it is now that a repeat of the word "demarcation" has crept back into the New Zealand news lexicon and of course we're seeing that now not in relation to unions fighting each other but in relation to the coalition parties fighting each other. There are demarcation disputes between the political wing of the trade union movement which is the New Zealand Labour Party. They have an issue that they want to progress legislation through the House that will take us back to the 1970s and the Labour Party wants to do that and move it through but the demarcation dispute occurs because members of New Zealand First don't really want that to happen. We know this to be true because the Minister Iain Lees-Galloway in answering questions in the House seems not to be able to confirm to this House or the Education and Workforce Committee that considered his Employment Relations Amendment Bill that the bill that the select committee signed off on and reported back to the House is not going to change in some considerable way. And clearly it is because the demarcation dispute between the Labour Party New Zealand First and the trade union movement is in full fight at the moment.Now we know this to be true because we can see from news reports just last week that the unions are concerned that Winston Peters might hijack employment law reform. It goes on to say—this report from Tova O'Brien—that Labour is under fire from the most unlikely of critics: its staunchest allies the trade union movement. They're saying they're raising concerns about the rising dominance of New Zealand First. Now we all know that since the Labour-led Government came into Government it's actually been New Zealand First that's in power and this is what the trade unions are scared about. Two of the biggest unions—FIRST Union and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU)—are fearful that the Government's employment law reforms will be hijacked by Winston Peters. The Labour Party and the unions used to be bedfellows the report goes on to say and right from the beginning but FIRST Union's Robert Reid is surprisingly scathing and he says we're worried in the union that the dominance on a number of issues that is coming from New Zealand First will win out. And so the CTU and the FIRST Union are worried and it's becoming increasingly obvious that they're not going to get their way.So the Prime Minister needs to answer questions about what it means to this piece of legislation when the Rt Hon Winston Peters says it's still a work in progress. Does it mean that the unions' free access to workplaces is going to be done away with? Does it mean that paid union delegates are going to be not paid by employers? Does it mean that union information is not going to be handed out? Does it mean that Meka's multi-employer collective agreements are not going to be forced into place by this legislation? So there are big unanswered questions. The demarcation dispute is well in swing here between the trade union movement the political arm of the trade union movement the New Zealand Labour Party and New Zealand First."