Lees-Galloway Iain: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5792. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]3.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Will all New Zealand workers have the right to have a health and safety representative when they request one under the Health and Safety Reform Bill?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of theMinister for Workplace Relations and Safety: All employers must ensure that workers are involved in health and safety in their workplace and there will be no exceptions but the bill does improve the flexibility of the worker participation provisions. Not all businesses will be required to have an official health and safety representative.Iain Lees-Galloway: Will agriculture be defined as a high-risk industry for the purposes of the bill?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Minister has made it clear that he will be talking further about the high-risk sectors and who will be in the high-risk sectors before the bill is passed finally through the House.Iain Lees-Galloway: Given that of the nearly 300 people killed at work in the last 5 years 101 of those—one in three—were agricultural workers why is he even considering not defining agriculture as high risk?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Minister is giving consideration to a number of matters including the fact as I am sure the member will be aware that agriculture is one of New Zealand’s biggest industries but that it has had a tally level that is unacceptable most of it around quad bikes. The New Zealand Government and WorkSafe are working very closely with the agricultural sector which knows that this issue has to be changed in regard to quad bikes.Clayton Mitchell: Will this Government help small and medium sized businesses with their ever-increasing compliance costs by funding health and safety representative training for small and medium sized businesses?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think it is important to note that one of the core roles of an employer is providing health and safety training for its workers. I think that most employers including small businesses would recognise that. But the member will know that the Government is being very careful to make sure that the administrative burden on small businesses is not excessive as a result of this bill and is in fact where possible reduced.Iain Lees-Galloway: Is his failure to make a decision about whether or not agriculture is high risk because of the pressure he is under from Federated Farmers and members of the National Party caucus to turn a blind eye to agriculture’s appalling safety record?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No and I reject the assertions in his question.Iain Lees-Galloway: Does he think that refusing to give a straight answer is good enough for people like Linda Sewell who just wants decent First World health and safety laws after her 21-year-old son Tom was killed on his first day of orchard work when the quad bike he was riding but had not been trained to use crashed into a ditch?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Obviously we are very concerned about any workplace issues with injury and death and our condolences go to that family and many others which is why in fact the Government and this House are spending so much time on modernising and developing new workplace safety legislation and the accompanying regulations. I appreciate that the member wants to force the Minister’s hand in terms of what industries are defined as high risk but he is taking his time to work through it carefully and will report to the House in due course.