Logie Jan; Rurawhe AdrianJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm really pleased to rise to take a call on behalf of the Green Party for the Holidays (Increasing Sick Leave) Amendment Bill. I have been following this through the House and I've got to admit that I feel slightly conflicted today. On one hand extending sick leave to 10 days as a minimum is just so long overdue and we've been hearing the evidence of the harm of limited sick leave in terms of people turning up to work sick or actually forgoing the income because they take unpaid sick leave and struggling to pay their rent and the stress that that's put on families and communities. We've also heard of people not having enough sick leave to be able to care for their children when they're sick and they leave their jobs as a result of that which is harming our workplaces as well as our families and our communities. This is so overdue and when I hear from the Opposition about the cost to employers around this one I just don't hear them understanding that actually there's a cost to employers of people coming to work sick or having to leave their job because they cannot manage their sickness and their employment because they don't have enough paid leave. I don't hear the modern employment approach coming from that side of the House around having understanding and trust in a workplace and how you create a positive workplace. That is none of what they're saying. All we're hearing is union bashing and a complete distrust—Hon Member: That's right.JAN LOGIE: —of people and I'm hearing their confirmation of that. The evidence is there are a lot of people who have 10 days' sick leave who have five days' sick leave or who have unlimited sick leave who do not take their full entitlement. That I understand is the norm rather than the aberration which tells us that actually the norm is people do not exploit these provisions. They are exploited where there is a low-trust environment and we actively need to work to change that and that is one of my points of disappointment with this piece of legislation. I do not believe and the Greens do not believe it goes far enough. We wanted to see the provision in the Employment Relations Act return to how it was before National built in this deep mistrust of employees of enabling employers to require proof even after one day off work without reasonable grounds. We want if somebody is going to require you to have a sick leave a medical certificate—that's the word—that actually they have reasonable grounds for believing that that person wasn't actually sick before we burden our health system and demonstrate that we don't trust our staff. We do not believe it's constructive for that to be the norm.We also wanted to clarify that we heard in submissions around a sense—and I know case law doesn't necessarily support this. But people were telling us around accessing sick leave for mental health reasons that actually people feel that there's a barrier to that—that it's not evident that it is covered by sick leave. I think that also then speaks to the fact that we don't have a purpose or a clear strategy around why we have sick leave but actually sick leave is an essential part of our health and safety system. We should be recognising that when people come to work impaired due to sickness it creates a risk in the workplace and that when people are getting sick more often then it can also be a sign of overwork burnout and stress that should be being monitored in our workplace and employers should be accountable within the health and safety system for that. Now none of that thinking unfortunately has been done and I really think it is a challenge for us as a country if we are wanting to improve productivity and if we are wanting to support people to be safe in their workplaces that we should be doing that thinking broader than just the extension of the days. We were also disappointed at the delay in the introduction so that some workers while we're celebrating these 10 days and talking about the importance of it really passionately in the House—at least on this side—won't be able to access that until around July 2022 and that I know for a lot of the people I've spoken to feels a really long way off. We have to acknowledge that people will be leaving their jobs they will be turning up sick and they will be feeling deeply conflicted and worried about the care of their kids for another year or more because of that balance that we heard about tonight. The Greens think actually that our kids and our families and the wellbeing of everyone in the workplace comes first and we would have liked to have seen the 10 days come in right from the beginning. We also weren't supporting the provision in the bill—and sought to amend it—that will reduce the number of unused days that can be carried over. At the moment you can carry over 15 days and this bill reduces that to 10 days. It keeps the maximum total the same but it reduces what people can carry over in real terms and we didn't see the need for that trade-off. If somebody hasn't been using their leave it's pretty clear that they're not going to be ripping anybody off. Sometimes though when somebody has accrued that much it means they've been there for a while and if they experience a really serious illness having that up their sleeve for them or their family can make all of the difference in keeping somebody in unemployment and regaining their health unhindered by the additional stress of financial worries which can have a real impact on people's healing from sickness. I did just then finally want to talk to the point before my final point to just address my real concern at the narrative coming from the National Party about this legislation leading to employers discriminating against women because they will see women with and they're comparing to I think—what was the phrase? If they're being asked to underwrite the health of their employees' sick children then when considering two job applicants one with children and one without the employer will choose those without children. That is to my mind a deeply deeply irresponsible narrative that is justifying and validating illegal discrimination. In this country you are not able to discriminate against people on their sex or their status and to be saying that that is what is going to happen is de facto endorsing it and that is I think an appalling failure in leadership. It also doesn't make sense to me when so many of our big companies have unlimited leave and actually have a lot of women employed. They've looked at those applicants and they've still chosen the best person for the job and that has not been out of fear that that person will take unlimited leave and will exploit sick leave provisions or that children will be a burden on their workplace because they've looked at the skills of the person and what they can contribute. I really really just think the National Party needs to catch up to the fact that we're no longer in the 1950s. So in a final point again to go back to the positive of this I want to just recognise again those people who right now have used up their sick leave through sickness cold flu not going to work because they have not wanted to spread that to their workmates. Our experience over the last year is we've seen the risk of people turning up to places sick and that is a selfish act. But when somebody is doing that because they cannot afford not to then that comes back on us as a society to make the changes necessary to enable them to stay home when they are sick to keep all of us safe. The Greens on that note are very pleased if slightly disappointed to support this bill.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.