Parmar Parmjeet: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParmar Parmjeet: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6013. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity. This is my first call on this bill so I want to acknowledge all members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I especially want to acknowledge the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety for his work on this bill and the select committee chairperson Jonathan Young. I also want to thank all submitters for their input and the effort they have put into helping us shape this bill.In Part 3 the amendments recommended by the majority of the select committee were thoroughly discussed in the select committee. Those recommendations were made after taking into consideration all aspects of various submissions that we received. Once this legislation goes through it is going to be applicable to all workplaces so we need to think wider. Workplace safety can be achieved by implementing safe work practices and not by adding compliance costs on businesses. Keeping safe at work is in everyone’s interest.The argument from the Opposition that worker participation is not enough is underestimating worker participation in safe work practices and health and safety. Workplace health and safety is important. No one is denying that. We have a serious rate of injuries including fatal injuries at workplaces here in New Zealand. No one is denying that either. That is why this Government is working hard and is investing significantly to reduce workplace injuries. This bill is part of that work. This bill is to update to clarify and to simplify the law to focus on high-risk areas. It is about getting the balance right. This does not mean that low-risk businesses are not required to have any health and safety regime. Low-risk businesses are required to have worker participation. They will have their routine health and safety built into their system and they are required to have safe work practices. They are not exempt from following health and safety legislation.For workplace health and safety worker engagement and participation is important and it is important to differentiate between high-risk and low-risk businesses. The amendments to worker engagement and participation are about making the bill practical for different business types. Clause 65 which is amended by inserting a new subclause (3) to make things clear for high-risk versus low-risk small businesses is the right thing to do. High-risk sectors and industries are specified by the Minister and the list of high-risk industries was based on set criteria and data looking at the rate of injury in those industries the rate of fatality in those industries and businesses with the potential for a catastrophic event to occur. It is right to do that. It is important that we differentiate between businesses that we differentiate low-risk businesses versus high-risk businesses before we go out and create more compliance costs for businesses.Any person conducting a business or undertaking with fewer than 20 workers—if that business is a low-risk - profile business—can refuse to establish a health and safety committee on the basis that they have a satisfactory system where they have worker participation practices at the workplace. It is important to have worker participation because sometimes employers do not have hands-on experience of what is happening on the floor. Workers have more experience and they can contribute more to health and safety practices. It also gives the opportunity to workers to understand how health and safety is important at the workplace how it is important to look after themselves and also important to look after their colleagues.This side of the House believes that we need to look after our businesses in the right way. We want to make sure that our businesses survive and that we are not putting any unnecessary burden on our businesses. Our target is to reduce the number of injuries so we need to target the kind of businesses where injuries are happening. There is no point in increasing compliance for businesses where there are no injuries or a low number of injuries happening. We want to encourage competition in the economy and we are saying that worker participation is going to be there. They have to follow health and safety but it is all about having health and safety reps and health and safety committees. That is the difference for small businesses—