It is my absolute pleasure and honour to speak at this first reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill. To start with, I want to emphasise two key points. The first is that this is a significant change that will bring decent working conditions and fair pay to workers in industries throughout New Zealand. It would be and will be the most significant change to our industrial relations framework since the Employment Relations Act in 2000, and it further reverses the devastating changes for working people brought about by the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. But the second point is that minimum standards or the basic level entitlements that the fair pay agreements will bring are not new to New Zealand. Most of the standards that we take for granted and accept as part of a civil and democratic society are already minimum standards, like sick pay, like the minimum wage, like the right to take a personal grievance. So fair pay agreements, while they may be revolutionary for those that they will cover, will not result in fundamental changes for the people that they don't. These changes are about workers and fair and decent conditions for working people. It shouldn't be threatening. It's just fairness. The clue is in the title of the bill. 