Young Jonathan: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2939. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in this debate. It is good to see that one of the decisions the Government made in the last financial year was to establish WorkSafe and also to bring some real attention to this whole area of health and safety reform. We know that the royal commission into the Pike River tragedy came up with a number of recommendations which the Government has instituted by a number of different means—some of them through legislation particularly around the Crown minerals permitting bill and that sort of work. One of the decisions that the Government made was to set up an independent task force that would go through the industries in our country look at our record and look for where improvements can be made.One of the goals that the Government has decided is that we want to see a 25 percent reduction in fatalities and serious injuries in the workplace. It is very important here in this country—in what we say is a very developed and advanced economy—that men and women who go to work get home safe and sound at night and are able to earn a good wage or income as they do that. So the independent task force went through our country. There was a very intensive number of visits and submissions and it was open to hear the views of New Zealanders. It came up with a set of recommendations that became the basis of the Health and Safety Reform Bill which is currently before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It is due to report back to the House later next month. Out of those decisions this bill will include some of the most significant changes in this whole area of health and safety that we will have seen in the last two decades. That bodes well for New Zealand and for the workplace being a safe place where people can as I said before not only go to work but also come home safe at night.Some of the concerns out there in the community and potentially in workplaces are about what it is going to take and whether we are going to be able to do this. No doubt as this bill comes back to the House and gets debated in this House we will see the outcome of some of those decisions and discussions and it will hopefully alleviate the concerns. All of this is because we want not only to have a safe workplace but also to have a productive workplace. We know that the cost to the economy of workplace injuries and death is huge. It is in the billions of dollars. If we can make the workplace safe—not only for individuals but also for families—it bodes well for our economy as well. We know that the New Zealand economy is doing better than most economies around the world. That is good to see. It is good to see that that is generating confidence for capital investment to come into our economy and 80000 jobs were added to the economy just last year. That has got to bring real confidence to our country particularly to those who are going through the education system whether they are at secondary or tertiary level or at university preparing themselves for the workforce.It is incredibly important as you will know that New Zealand remains competitive and effective in the workplace in order for us to compete internationally. Out there in the international arena there are always demands upon I guess the quality of goods and the cost of goods. Although we want to have quality goods that earn a premium we are always competing against other nations around the world. We live so far far away from the markets that we sell to that we have to add in huge freight costs and therefore we must be more efficient. Part of the efficiency is of course making sure that our workplaces are safe and that people can contribute work hard be productive and also have the confidence that they are going to get home safely. So we are pleased that this Health and Safety Reform Bill has come through a process of Government decisions not just last year but over the years before as well and is going to come back to the House this current financial year and be in place in due course.There have been 80000 jobs created in the past year. That is the accumulation of decisions made not just in the last financial year but over a number of years. The Business Growth Agenda is a piece of work under the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment that has—