Hague Kevin: Health and Safety Reform Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Health and Safety Reform Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16718. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koe e te Whare. I want to begin by echoing Denise Roche’s words that the Green Party will be supporting this bill the Health and Safety Reform Bill and by expressing I guess my personal thanks to the Hon Simon Bridges and his predecessor the Hon Kate Wilkinson for actually progressing this legislative reform.I attended most of the hearings of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. I was one of the submitters in fact to that royal commission. There was a particularly dramatic moment when Dr Kathleen Callaghan took the stand to give her evidence about human factors. Dr Callaghan is an expert in what goes wrong in disasters. She has specialised previously in air crash disaster investigations for example. She began with a list of factors: inexperienced workers under-trained workers fatigued workers pressure to increase production inadequate breaks low unionisation missing equipment faulty equipment poorly maintained equipment and poor oversight by the regulator. There were other matters in her list and she said that all of those factors were present in the Pike River mine—all of them.I come from the health sector and in the health sector we talk about risk environments—environmental factors that lead to health or illness. All of those factors that I have mentioned are not individual factors; they are environmental factors which lead to error and to disaster. What that highlights is that there was no individual worker inside that mine who could have dealt with any of those things. It required a systems approach. Yet as others have said in 1992 the Health and Safety in Employment Act was brought into legislation placing an onus on employers to take “all practicable steps”. That was based on an ideology that was wrong. It was based on ignoring something that most of economic theory and most of the actions of the Government are based on which is that the firm will seek to maximise profit and that it will do that by minimising its costs. That is what it is supposed to do. So the weasel words of “all practicable steps” and the weak oversight from the Department of Labour gave employers an out. It gave them the opportunity to take a short cut if they wished to in order to minimise their costs and maximise their profit. Deregulation hands-off Government and weasel-worded legislation caused the Pike River mine disaster. They killed those 29 men. That disaster was not an isolated accident or incident. It was just a low-frequency but entirely predictable consequence of that 1992 Act.In forestry we see an inexperienced and under-trained workforce. We see an industry forced into more marginal and steeper land. We see production pressure—pressure to increase production—because right now the price is a bit higher. We see long supply chains long contractual chains with weak oversight and controls and until very recently we saw almost no oversight. No wonder that when decent inspection began again an unprecedented number of serious problems were found.So we welcome this legislation. We believe that it should be stronger. We note as Denise Roche said that it still contains that practicability test that I have spoken of many times in this House. We believe that the Government could resume the National Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee to actually have some systematic review of what is going on in occupational safety and health. But we welcome the legislation we look forward to the submissions and we look forward to the opportunity to work with the Government to make this a stronger bill. Thank you.