White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to take this opportunity to address some of the amendments that I've made on the Table that are actually related to each other.The first one is about the possibility that there will be a carve-out; that the trial provision will be unlawful for any employee who has left another job to take work with an employer given the injustice of the employee's loss of work and the loss and actually the cost to the taxpayer if they are unemployed as a result of termination. So I want the Minister to tell me if she would consider this because I understand from her speeches that what she's saying is motivating her is giving people a chance who may not find other employment and encouraging people who would otherwise be unemployed into the workforce. Yet these people are employed and they are taking a huge risk going into a situation where they may not actually keep that job and they may suddenly find themselves in a situation where they have to go on the unemployment benefit and we all have to pay for that.The other amendment that I've put that I think relates to this is the one that I foreshadowed in my speeches tonight which is the issue of restraints of trade. Because what I have seen in a lot of agreements is the increasing use of restraints of trade with low-wage workers. If it's combined with a trial period you are putting people in a situation where they may well go into an employment situation and be dismissed but actually be prevented from going out and getting another job. So I have suggested an amendment which is about making it unlawful for anybody to be held to a restraint of trade if they are dismissed in a trial period and that if in fact that happens that they will be free to compete.Now I have made sure that in my amendment I have addressed the issue of confidential information; that if you're given trade secrets or confidential information this is something that of course you should keep and there should be right to suit if you don't. But if it is a matter of competing with your employer then it's very important.I would just like to talk a little bit to the mischief here because this is not fantasy: this is happening all over the place. Big employers like Amazon have adopted restraints of trade for workers on as low as US$13.50 an hour. They put them in absolutely habitually and most employees don't actually look at these contracts when they're signing them because they've got no bargaining power which goes to my friend the Hon Phil Twyford's point about the inequality of bargaining power. They simply—yes?CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Sorry to interrupt the member but you are speaking to clause 5. Your amendment relates to clause 5.HELEN WHITE: I think I'm speaking to clause 4 because what I'm speaking to is an amendment which says that clause 4 after section 67A(1) insert and then I'm bracketing subclause (2) and then I'm saying a trial provision will exclude"—. So I am speaking to clause 4; I'm adding to clause 4—an extra—and I'm carving out. So thank you ma'am. Is it all right to continue?CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Absolutely continue. HELEN WHITE: Thank you ma'am. So I am talking about a very real situation and it's a trend that has been noted by big economists—and they're not left-wing economists. They're people like Joseph Stiglitz who've noted that this is happening. There has been a lot of research in America which actually goes to another point ma'am if I can just have a little bit more time because I've got another amendment on the Table which suggests that what people should do is if they're going to put a trial period in the agreement they should lodge it with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.So the reason for doing that is it turns out we have very little information about 80 percent of employment agreements. So because we have these employment agreements in individual form nobody knows what's in them. You're very unlikely Minister to know whether these impacts that you're talking about are real or whether there is exploitation. So for example this kind of issue that I'm bringing up about restraints of trade and the—[Time expired]"