Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.One of the matters that we haven't discussed much tonight has actually been the Minister's Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). There are 11 that are set out in his SOP paper that the House is now considering as a committee. The first one relates to the delay of the introduction of the bill and that it would move the day that the legislation would become effective from March to 6 May. I'm keen to know what the reason for—Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It will certainly be an interesting debate when we debate the commencement clause. But it's not part of Part 2.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah that's correct.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Fair enough. We'll look forward to continuing that a little later on.So in that case then what I will do is I'll leave those matters for the meantime. But one that does relate to Part 2 is the question of the changes to the 90-day provisions. One area that I want to concentrate on relates to the definition of 20 employees or less. Now under the bill it will be that businesses that employ fewer than 20 people will be still able to use the 90-day trial periods. There were submissions made at the select committee around the definition of when and how that 20 number was to be made up. So for instance are there issues that relate to full-time employees part-time employees contractors casuals or whatever? I'm keen to hear the Minister's explanation as to how that 20 is made up. In my electorate of the Coromandel there are a great number of businesses particularly in the hospitality sector that are seasonal. So at this time of the year as Christmas and summer approaches most of those businesses are now gearing up to a peak employment period to match the customer demand as people from all over the country come to spend their summer vacation in the beautiful Coromandel. So if one was to think about a cafe for instance at the top of the Coromandel peninsular—say at Colville very good cafe I can heartily recommend it—during the winter months the number of employees is very low. But over the summer obviously the number of employees increases dramatically.The question that arose at the select committee was well when will the timing for the calculation of the 20 employees kick in? Is it in the middle of winter or is it the middle of summer? Is it the peak or the low of whatever seasonality that the business has? What the officials came back with and what we decided on at select committee was to include a provision new section 67A(2) that says …fewer than 20 employees at the beginning of the day on which the employment agreement is entered into". Now the challenge with that is that there is clearly then an opportunity for gaming that timing. So an employer who wanted to take advantage of still being able to use the 90-day trial period would if they were hovering around 18 19 20 21 or 22 employees around that sort of fringe area surely then if they wanted to extend the use of the 90-day trial period to their businesses wait a day or a week or a month to offer a new employee a new agreement until the day at which they are under 20 employees. The day that they have 18 or 19 employees will be the day.So I think that there are some challenges around again the definition of that and the potential for gaming for want of a better term by those employers who might be employing 20 or 21 people. Maybe they have a bit of a sinking-lid policy. They get down to 18 or 19 and then they want to be able to take advantage of the 90-day trial period. If that's the case then this is a potential area for—abuse is probably the wrong word but certainly gaming if they wanted to try it. I'm keen to know what the Minister's views are on that situation."