SpeechHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you Madam Chair. Can I firstly thank the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee and the committee itself for what was I thought a constructive and wide-ranging Estimates hearing that we had at the select committee and all three members who have asked questions and made points in this debate so far and if I can address a number of those.Mr Goldsmith and Ms Logie both made a number of inquiries which effectively go to the strategic direction of WorkSafe and how the organisation can best position itself in order to reduce harm across New Zealand's workplaces. A number of the questions they asked are very pertinent and I'm happy to speak to them.In respect of the system-level targets that were in place up to 2020 those were system-level targets that were set by central government and not by WorkSafe itself in the wake of Pike River. They are about providing some guidance and direction for the whole workplace safety system in terms of where we want it to get to. As Mr Goldsmith said good progress was made on some and with some it was a little bit more middling. So encouragingly enough we did as a system manage to achieve the 25 percent reduction in workplace fatalities after a number of years. We achieved a significant reduction in terms of serious injuries below the baseline from 2014. But the figure for injuries that require time off increased from the baseline. So some good progress in areas and not so much in others. Generally speaking the trends have been relatively flat over recent years with the exception of the last measure.WorkSafe as an organisation is positioned—and I support this very strongly—as an evidence-led regulator. So their strategic focus is on understanding what the things are that they can actually do that will drive better outcomes across the system that will reduce harm from accidents that will reduce harm from other sorts of workplace exposure and that will reduce significant inequalities in the system—for example Māori experiencing workplace fatalities at a rate of 55 percent higher than non-Māori. So that's what they're focused on; they look at the evidence as to how they can get there.So addressing a couple of the points that Jan Logie made there about the focus on upstream duties—that's exactly what that is about. The international evidence is absolutely overwhelming that going up the supply chain talking to those people who have real influence over how work is designed and set up—those will be more effective and actually also more cost-effective interventions than coming in way down the supply chain and giving the workers some education about how to operate in what is fundamentally a dangerous environment.So if I give one specific example which might help that we're working on in the coming year: the ongoing difficulties and high rates of harm that we've seen in the forestry sector. WorkSafe has a significant programme of work that in particular is unfolding in the Tai Rāwhiti region which is about going right upstream and instead of just talking at the worksite level actually going not even to the contractors but to the forestry owners—the people that ultimately set the scene set the incentives and set the work practices for what unfolds weeks or months or years later on a steep-slope site where workers are under production pressure and the contractor is cracking the whip. So that's the focus on going upstream and that's an example of the kind of work that they do in that space.It's the same with Talley's complex investigation noting Talley's history of very very poor outcomes and quite frankly intransigence about health and safety over the years. The complex investigation that kicked off last year was about going right to the board level and saying What is it that you're doing to set the right culture and the right systems right throughout the organisation?" Instead of just investigating an incident after it's happened and slapping an enforcement notice on them it's going right to the source and the top of the cliff. Those are the sorts of interventions that the evidence says will make the biggest difference and this does come to some of the challenges and questions which are thrown up through the SageBush review that Mr Goldsmith asked reasonable questions around. The SageBush review was requested by me and it was about dealing with these challenges and trade-offs that we have within the system. So all of these things that I've talked about are measures that unfold over a long period of time and that we are confident will result in better outcomes across the system but those sorts of upstream interventions don't necessarily result in a sharp uptick in statistics the following quarter or the following six months. So the choices that WorkSafe has to make within its organisation sometimes are about the short-term versus those long-term interventions and sometimes they're about enforcement activity and the degree to which we want to do that versus other kinds of harms that 10 years ago we didn't really think about. So if I give an example of 10 years ago there was not a huge focus in the organisation or the system more generally on psychosocial harms such as bullying and harassment. Well that's a huge focus now for New Zealanders and for WorkSafe and we would absolutely expect that. But WorkSafe has to make choices about the funding and resources it has across a wider range of work.So SageBush is really about answering those core questions that were touched on in the debate: how is resource best applied to get the best possible outcomes based on the evidence that we have? SageBush spoke about a range of very effective practices from WorkSafe but also suggested improvements in how we can make those links between resourcing decision making and the outcomes that we want. That's what I wanted to get out of the review and that will guide decisions that Government can now make about WorkSafe's future path including questions and considerations around WorkSafe's funding path to do the things that it needs to do. So hopefully that answers some of the questions around WorkSafe. I will just pick up on Mr Goldsmith's point about enormous regulations. I'm not quite sure which examples he is pointing to there in the health and safety space. He didn't provide anything specific although it's worth noting that regulatory impact statements generally show that good quality workplace safety regulation generally has about a 2:1 return. Workplace harm and accidents cost our country money. Even if that was the only thing you cared about beyond the human damage it's a good investment to have a good workplace health and safety regulatory system to keep people safe and to improve productivity over time.In respect of hazardous substances in the Smith review which Mr Goldsmith inquired about that was a review that was requested by WorkSafe as a part of their process of continuous improvement in their oversight of regulatory regimes. It made 19 recommendations and WorkSafe is currently implementing those regulations to ensure that there is good oversight of the certifiers' regime in that particular space and we carry on our work with regulatory reform including hazardous substances and areas like planting structures.On fair pay agreements I'm delighted that Mr Goldsmith is a convert to high-level tripartite dialogue to improve productivity across sectors of the New Zealand economy. That's something the Government is very very enthusiastic about and we carry forward through the Future of Work Tripartite Forum. As I've said previously we have very good examples internationally of highly productive economies who have a high level of engagement between businesses and unions at the sector level to identify problems and drive productivity forward. I fully expect that will be an outcome. It's a shame that Mr Goldsmith and others didn't put a submission to the select committee process requesting that to be a mandatory-to-agree topic. We could have considered that at that time if it was. But I do expect that productivity issues will be on the table. We had strong representations for example from E tū union in that select committee process around elevating skills and training to be a mandatory-to-agree topic and that's something that we will consider that I think will help to drive productivity. It's fair to say that we just fundamentally disagree with the assertion of Mr Goldsmith and the National Party that fundamentally having good workplace pay and conditions for workers including in small businesses is somehow anathema to a productive economy. That's just a difference between this side of the House and that side of the House."