WorkSafe New Zealand Bill Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill Mines Rescue Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWorkSafe New Zealand Bill Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill Mines Rescue Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 14 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14732. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]WorkSafe New Zealand BillHealth and Safety in Employment Amendment BillMines Rescue BillThird ReadingsHon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour): I moveThat the WorkSafe New Zealand Bill the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and the Mines Rescue Bill be now read a third time. It gives me great satisfaction to support these bills at the third readings. Following the release of the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy in 2012 this Government committed to implementing the royal commission’s 16 recommendations by the end of 2013. By establishing WorkSafe New Zealand strengthening worker participation arrangements in the mining industry ensuring that the Mines Rescue service is adequately funded and supported by legislation and paving the way for a new set of mining health and safety regulations these bills fulfil key elements of that commitment.Both the royal commission and the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety recommended that a new regulator be established in the form of a Crown agent. A stand-alone agency sufficiently resourced and with an executive board with a wide range of skills and experience will have the necessary focus to help reduce New Zealand’s high rate of fatalities and serious injuries in the workplace. But just creating a new agency is not enough on its own. The establishment of WorkSafe New Zealand is just one aspect of the most significant reforms to the workplace health and safety system in a generation.As I announced recently this Government intends to introduce a replacement for the Health and Safety in Employment Act which is now over 20 years old. The new legislation will be supported by a full spectrum of regulations approved codes of practice and other guidance material in support of the primary legislation. This was one of the areas that drew particular criticism from the royal commission in relation to mining. The commission identified that there was a lack of supporting material sitting beneath the Health and Safety in Employment Act. So although duty holders knew what they had to comply with they had no guidance as to how to comply. In the high-hazard industry of coalmining this fact among others led to the tragedy at Pike River.The Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill will pave the way for a new set of mining health and safety regulations as recommended by the royal commission. These regulations among other things will set out the processes that must be followed and the minimum standards that must be met to safely manage the hazards that can cause catastrophic failure of the kind seen at Pike River. Mine operators will be required to develop detailed hazard management plans to demonstrate how they will meet these requirements. These regulations will bring the regulation of mining health and safety in New Zealand into line with international best practice. I would like to express my appreciation to both the expert reference group that has been advising officials and the industry stakeholders who have engaged in a productive and open manner throughout the development of these regulations.The Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill also responds to another recommendation of the royal commission by significantly strengthening worker participation arrangements in the mining industry. The provisions of this bill will ensurethat all mine workers at a mining operation including contractors subcontractors and labour hire workers will be covered by these arrangements.Health and safety representatives will be supported by a range of statutory functions and powers. Those who have undertaken prescribed training will be able to carry out inspections and suspend operations if there is an imminent risk of serious harm. In the underground coalmining sector which has seen the vast majority of the fatalities in mining in the last 60 years these strengthened provisions will be further supported by the appointment of industry health and safety representatives who will provide in the royal commission’s words “an extra set of eyes and ears”.The Mines Rescue Bill responds to the recommendation of the royal commission concerning the mines rescue service. The bill clearly sets out the functions of the service and the legislation and provides that the levy to fund the service can be set through regulations. These changes will ensure that this vital service is sufficiently resourced to assist mine operators with their emergency preparedness and to respond to emergencies and other incidents when required.This bill also provides statutory support for the role of the incident controller in a major underground mining emergency. This is a key role in the inter-agency protocol that has been developed in response to another of the royal commission’s recommendations. The incident controller will lead the decision making at the mine site during an emergency. This legislation will ensure that he or she can effectively carry out this important task.It is our duty to the 29 workers who died and their families to oversee the implementation of the royal commission’s recommendations. It is also a duty we owe to all current and future workers in the mining industry in New Zealand. These bills implement several key recommendations of the royal commission and I commend them to the House.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a pleasure to speak on what is now a collection of three bills—the WorkSafe New Zealand Bill the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and the Mines Rescue Bill—on this very important topic. Labour has supported this legislation notwithstanding some reservations we have had about it and actually continue to have and I will come to those shortly. But as the Minister of Labour has pointed out this Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill makes some significant changes and I am confident that it will make a significant difference at least in the extractive industries that it largely refers to. The introduction of beefed-up powers for the site health and safety representatives and the introduction of the new beast if you like the “industry health and safety representative” are innovative steps. They are new steps—some would say long-awaited steps—but nevertheless that is now happening under the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and they are both welcome changes.As I said this legislation falls short in some areas and I will comment on those shortly but it does provide a foundation on which to build. Labour will await the introduction of the broader reform of the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill which is the bill that is currently the subject of an exposure draft that has gone out to sector groups and others. Depending on what is in that bill we will build on some of the parts of the present legislation this Pike River implementation package of legislation.Before I go further I want to make a plea. This legislation corrects some longstanding flaws and failures in our health and safety legal framework. It no longer matters which Government over the last 20 years did or did not do the right thing. Parliament is now fixing it. We are plugging the gaps and we are paving the way for a safer New Zealand and safer workplaces in New Zealand. But it would be an insult todeny that we have been brought to this point by the worst and possibly the most avoidable industrial tragedy in nearly 100 years—the most lives lost in an industrial tragedy I should say since the 1914 Huntly mine disaster when 43 men perished. The truth is that getting this legislation even this far has seen many New Zealand workers pay the ultimate price. Twenty-nine of them still lie entombed deep within the Paparoa Range. By passing this legislation this Parliament acknowledges the price those 29 men and their families paid and by putting aside our usual fractious and antagonistic behaviour and accepting that nothing less than meaningful change is necessary and by acting accordingly.But that is not enough. In truth this Parliament and successive executives that have been part of it were part of the failure of the system that led to the tragedy we now know as Pike River. The Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy found failure by the company and by the Government as regulator. A court has since found the company at fault but then that court had only the company before it. The regulator prosecuted the company but did not prosecute itself. In July this year Judge Farish of the District Court in Greymouth imposed on Pike River Coal the highest aggregate fine and reparation order imposed on any employer under the Health and Safety in Employment Act—$760000 in fines and $3410000 in reparation. The judge said that the fines are to condemn the practices of the company and “to indicate that this company should never have been in operation”.Mr Bridges we let that company operate. Mr Key make good the losses the families have suffered. Mr Key accept on behalf of your Government and all Governments before it that the Crown failed those workers and failed their families. Make a contribution. Do something. Put a line under this for the families. Take the final act to restore the confidence of the families the faith of the people and the dignity of this House. Let the Pike 29 rest in peace.Let me turn to three points in this legislation where improvement is still possible. They are the three points that we have debated in this House during the passage of this legislation when it was originally one bill—it is now three bills—as it worked its way through. The first point is the governing board of WorkSafe New Zealand. The future of health and safety in this country must be built on a genuine respectful relationship both at a corporate level and at an enterprise level between workers their employers and the Government—a genuinely tripartite structure and model. That must start at the top and the top when it comes to a regime affecting health and safety is WorkSafe New Zealand the new body established to champion the cause and regulate workplace health and safety and make life safer and better for workers in New Zealand. But that should reflect a genuinely tripartite model too and it does not at the moment. I ask the Minister when he gets to a point at some point to review the legislation to bear that point in mind.The second point is the scope of the role of the industry health and safety representatives under new section 19ZP in the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act in this package of bills. As it stands now that role is confined to only underground coalmining but it should apply to tunnelling and quarrying as well. We are only 2 or 3 weeks out from the aftermath in the District Court in Auckland of a tunnelling disaster that led to a fatality and serious injury to people involved. It was not a mine and it was not a tunnel that was there for extractive purposes—it was there to lay cables and it was in an urban area—but there was a build-up of gas which exploded and killed and maimed. There is no less reason for there to be the best possible health and safety regime covering that type of work than there is for underground coalmining. Indeed other forms of mining such as open-cast coalmining are nevertheless coalmining activity. It is hazardous and dangerous and there is as much a case for theindustry health and safety representative in that situation as there is for underground coalmining notwithstanding the extra-special hazards involved in underground coalmining and I ask the Minister to bear that in mind for future consideration.The third point is—and it seems a somewhat small point and hopefully is a situation that we will never have to experience again—the role of the incident controller in a significant and large-scale incident such as the one that happened at Pike River. The way it is defined at the moment the incident controller who is appointed by WorkSafe New Zealand but is required to consult with the range of other agencies that invariably get involved—the Police the Fire Service the Mines Rescue trust—is required to consult with every other agency but there is no signal given in the legislation about the need for timely and effective decision-making which was one of the let-downs in the early days the first week or 10 days of the Pike River incident. They might seem small issues but they are important issues.Let me conclude by congratulating the Minister on shepherding this legislation through. These are big steps taken in the leadership and management of health and safety in every workplace in New Zealand. We look forward to the next phase that the Minister is putting through as well. This will be good for New Zealand. It will be good for miners in the mining industry in New Zealand and ultimately it will be a signal for us all to be more careful for those who work in our workplaces and generate the wealth that keeps this country the great place that it is.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I just want to follow on from the two speeches we have had first up and pay tribute and our respect to those miners who were lost in that terrible tragedy. I think the Minister of Labour Simon Bridges expressed that very well and Andrew Little also expressed that very well in his speech just passed. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee did travel to the region and I would like to acknowledge Damien O’Connor who will probably be speaking soon and Chris Auchinvole. Both have a special interest in that area. I also acknowledge our Green members as well for their work in that event when we went down there.This is not a pretty occasion for any Parliament or any community to have to go through. It is something that I guess brings home the dangers that a workplace does involve. It brings home the danger that many people engage in every day in trying to make this country the productive place that it is. It also brings home the role that the Government business and the community have in protecting and looking after people who are engaging in work that may involve that kind of level of danger.As the last speaker said this legislation—the WorkSafe New Zealand Bill the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and the Mines Rescue Bill—is overdue and is probably something that many parliaments should have done a long time ago. Unfortunately that is the situation but this is the nature of this legislation and the circumstances we are now in. In saying that this is good legislation. I would just like to thank the Minister Simon Bridges who has done an excellent job in listening to the community being aware of these issues and trying to find a way to incorporate into legislation the needs of our communities in a way that is practical and will work going forward. I also thank the members of the select committee—National Labour and the Greens—who have been part of that committee and have worked conscientiously to get the best result for the community.When we look at this legislation it does make some significant changes which have been canvassed by both speakers and there have been some changes at the select committee really just to accommodate some practicalities of different industries looking at finding the balance that will be the best so that we can maintain safety in a very dangerous mining industry especially where coalmining is involved. It isunderground and there is the possibility that gas could explode and then cause loss of life as we saw at Pike River.This legislation is a balance in trying to achieve the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy in regard to that situation but at the same time being the right balance for business community and also employees as they go about their daily work in our best industries. This is legislation that all political parties have shown an endeavour to work towards getting through this House and we commend it to the House.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Every time I rise to speak on the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill and the legislation arising out of it there is so much to say. It has been a long time coming to this House. I have to acknowledge that this is good legislation but it is not perfect. We have pointed to the deficiencies that we believe are still in it but it is good legislation necessary legislation.It started back in 1992 with the change to the law that in effect placed the onus of safety on to employers and employees in the belief that they could get on and ensure a safe workplace. I remember warnings to me personally in 1995 about what might happen. In 1999 we raised these issues in the Government again to be refuted by officials who had the wisdom of experience they said and knew what was best for all health and safety but mine safety in particular. In the meantime within the country we continued to see—and still do of course in some industries—workers killed and not returning home from their workplaces.I would like to acknowledge the excellent speech from my colleague Andrew Little who summarised all the issues very very well. I apologise if perhaps I might be less focused and a bit more emotional relating to issues that have been part and parcel of the culture of our West Coast economy for a long time.The assurances once again repeated from Wellington were about concerns that had been in the community and in the workplace for a number of years. There were assurances from the Minister of Labour as recently as 2010 that employers were in a good position to understand the hazards arising in their workplaces and were best placed to take steps to control them. That was not the truth. It was not the reality. This legislation will make some changes to rebalance the input into health and safety in the workplace and it is necessary.There have been a lot of words a lot heard a lot said and we hope a lot learnt through the process of the royal commission post - Pike River. We have a summary. It is just a small document which I am holding up with some of the wisdom that came from that royal commission. There is a book to be launched in Greymouth tomorrow that contains a lot more wisdom—a summary a very good summary of what happened down there. That is good. We need to have things written down so that in the future people can look back and learn from the mistakes that have been made but in the end it is action that is important. No amount of words whether they be oral or in written form mean enough to ensure safety into the future without action.One of the issues that are still to be resolved is the one of accountability. My colleagues spoke of it. There were assurances and support was given to the families at the time of the tragedy. They needed that and it was acknowledged at the time. But moving beyond the lessons of the royal commission and into the changes in legislation as we have seen here there has not really been one person held to account other than the previous Minister perhaps who resigned because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Next year we believe there will be a court case here in Wellington not on the West Coast so that that person will be tried not by their peers but actually byanother group of people outside the region. I am not going to get into the wisdom of that.There is a reasonable expectation from families and they want some accountability. Accountability comes not just from nice apologies; it actually comes from acknowledgment of the mistakes made—and it is fairly hard to deny those—followed by action. The payment to families that has been I guess reasonably expected is not for some kind of mercenary offset for the tragic losses that those families have suffered; it is the action part of accountability that comes after acknowledgment. There has been acknowledgment of the mistakes as I have said and there has been a royal commission that points to the areas of fault but there has been no real action.I implore the Government to actually take action to make a payment to families as an acknowledgment of the failings at every level of Government responsibility: not resourcing the mines inspectorate having inadequate legislation not having put in codes of practice and not running a system that gave some reasonable expectation of safety not only at Pike River but in fact at Spring Creek Mine as well. The failures were systemic. They were the responsibility of Governments. I do not think that anyone can step back from that. But the Government of the day—that is the National Government now—has a responsibility to take action following acknowledgment to deliver accountability. Then the families can move on.The families have some comfort from the changes being made through this legislation in the House today but there is still reluctance. The Prime Minister says payment to them may set a precedent. I think that is rubbish. What kind of precedent has been laid down by a $30 million payment to a huge multinational for no guarantee of jobs? What precedent is set if you do sweet deals to get economic development in this country through Skycity? That is a precedent—I say a far more dangerous precedent than paying something as acknowledgment and accountability for systemic Government failure. That is a reasonable request. In the passage of this legislation the Government has acknowledged that change was needed. It has taken action here but it needs to acknowledge that faults were made and to take action by way of some form of payment to families.I hope to be at the launch of the book I am holdingTragedy at Pike River Mine tomorrow. I am working my way through it. It is a factual recollection of the very sad set of circumstances leading up to and through the whole Pike River disaster.But the next chapter is not written. That will be what has come from this. I hope that it is written in 10 years’ time. I hope that the Minister can rightfully claim that he has done his part to make the necessary changes in health and safety in mining but he knows full well that actually the resources to ensure that that occurs have not been put in place. The fact that we had two mine inspectors when the Pike River mine blew up and we now have three with one head inspector does give an indication that there is still much to be done in this area and that there are resources to be put in place. The establishment of WorkSafe New Zealand is a step forward the ability of workers to have input into workplace health and safety is a step forward and the upgrade of the Mines Rescue Trust Act is a step forward but they are only steps. We need action delivery of the necessary resources and commitment from the Government to be accountable for the terrible mistakes that have occurred through Governments and that led to this disaster.My final plea in the passage of this legislation is to say follow through Minister. Talk to your leader John Key. He comforted the families at the time. He needs to comfort the families now show accountability and with the Government acknowledge the terrible losses that they have suffered.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Next Tuesday will mark the third anniversary of the Pike River disaster and I wanted to begin this contribution by reading a couple of paragraphs from the summary of the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. “It is the commission’s view that even though the company was operating in a known high-hazard industry the board of directors did not ensure that health and safety was being properly managed and the executive managers did not properly assess the health and safety risks that the workers were facing. In the drive towards coal production the directors and executive managers paid insufficient attention to health and safety and exposed the company’s workers to unacceptable risks. Mining should have stopped until the risks could be properly managed. The Department of Labour did not have the focus capacity or strategies to ensure that Pike was meeting its legal responsibilities under health and safety laws. The department assumed that Pike was complying with the law even though there was ample evidence to the contrary. The department should have prohibited Pike from operating the mine until its health and safety systems were adequate.” The commission goes on in damning quote after quote saying that the law was inadequate and describing our own regulatory framework as being years behind those in operation in similar countries.The fact is that those 29 men were fundamentally and comprehensively betrayed and let down by the directors of the company who drove increased production at all costs yet dealt with health and safety as a tick-box exercise and by the Pike River Coal management for its failure to implement proper policies and procedures and its failure to implement training ignoring health and safety advice and taking short cuts at every turn. Those men were let down by the mines inspectors whose monitoring and enforcement were totally inadequate. They were let down by the senior management of the Department of Labour who under-resourced those same mines inspectors and ignored the pleas for further resourcing. It also applied a light-handed approach to regulation of the mining industry. They were let down by Bill Birch Max Bradford and all of those in this House who voted for those laws to gut health and safety regulation and to gut the mines inspectorate and all the subsequent Parliaments that as Andrew Little says have failed to reverse those until now.We come now to putting right. The royal commission and the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety have certainly done their jobs. The question as I said in my second reading contribution is whether we in this House have done our jobs. I still have a question mark over that matter. Chris Finlayson to his great credit acknowledged in this House the role that deregulation had played in creating the environment that caused this disaster. But on the same day John Key denied that same role. Simon Bridges is the new Minister of Labour. I have not yet heard the Minister speak about the matter of deregulation and what role it played. So for me the jury is out as to whether the Government acknowledges that deregulation of health and safety and deregulation of the mining industry played that crucial role in creating the environment that created the disaster.The fact is that this Government still comes from that same DNA of that 1990s Government. The Government still sees its role as facilitating business and maximising its profits and sees people as just the labour input into the microeconomic theory of the firm. I believe that that is inadequate. So despite all the assurances of implementing the royal commission’s recommendations as others have said for me these bills arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill are still inadequate. Andrew Little has spoken of several of the matters that he has repeatedly raised and I also have repeatedly raised in the House.The creation of WorkSafe is the right thing to do but the Government still steps back from a genuine commitment to tripartite regulation of health and safety. That board ofWorkSafe will still be accountable to the Minister and not to workers or to employers. That is wrong. In my view the functions of the organisation are still inadequate. They actually describe the light-handed approach to ensuring health and safety that I have mentioned already in this contribution. And the failure of the Government to comprehend that this is not just about underground coalmining seems to me to be a failure of responsibility and a failure to understand one of the basic findings of the royal commission. So yes as other speakers have said this is a really major step forward but it is also a lost opportunity and I regret that. If the Minister disagrees I say to him now: “Show me. Show me show the families of the 29 and show my community that actually you are genuine about this health and safety business.”The Green Party is voting for this legislation but we regret that it is not better legislation. Those failures that I have mentioned—to act ethically and responsibly to prevent this disaster from occurring—are now being mirrored as my colleague Damien O’Connor has said in the failure to take responsibility for putting things right. PeterWhittallis still to face charges but others who are implicated in this business have escaped accountability. The owners of Pike River Coal have not been held accountable and have not stepped up to fund the settlements that the court has awarded the families of the 29. They were happy to take the profits and happy to own that mine but not happy to actually fund the consequence of their company acting illegally. The directors who made the decisions around the short cuts likewise have gotten away scot-free from accountability for this disaster and for the loss of those 29 and despite their own personal wealth have also declined to actually fund compensation to those families.The Department of Labour which investigated Pike River Coal did not even bother to investigate its own inaction—one of its statutory responsibilities. It did not bother to investigate whether or not charges against itself were appropriate. So that department also escapes scot-free and with the Prime Minister’s announcements this week the Government which the Department of Labour represented is also declining to fund any kind of compensation for the failure of its department to perform its duties properly. It seems as though those who actually take a loss from this are the 29 families and the 29 men who still lie underground at the Pike River mine.In preparing this contribution I opened the front of the royal commission report where the photographs of the 29 men and boys are a constant reminder to me. I live in Greymouth. I knew quite a number of these men. Joseph Dunbar often played league with my nephew. I often interacted with that boy. I cannot help but feel that this House has not met its responsibilities and I express my regret to my community and those families that we have not been able to live up to the debt that we owe them.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): Could I make just a short contribution. I just want to acknowledge a few people—firstly and obviously the Minister of Labour and the work he has done on this legislation arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill. He has done a heck of a lot of work across this labour space around health and safety and workplace safety—and still a lot more to come. I just want to also acknowledge three particular members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee all members who have contributed to this legislation—they are Damien O’Connor Chris Auchinvole and of course the member who has just resumed his seat Kevin Hague for his heartfelt contribution. I just want to acknowledge all three and say that as someone who has little knowledge or experience in this area and who does not come from the area I think you have absolutely represented your constituents your experience and those views very very well. I do not necessarily agree with all the views that were shared but I certainly respect all of those members for their contributions to this legislation.The genesis of this is a tragic event and we have reflected well on that—and so we should. But I think for me the important thing in acknowledging the mistakes and the oversights looking back through a lens with 20/20 hindsight is to ensure that the balance is achieved so that the pendulum is not seen to swing too far because in every matter of health and safety there are two elements to it really. Those elements are the systems and the processes that we have in place and obviously this place has a role to play in the legislative framework that assists and establishes the right platform for that. But there is also the human element. The human element is one that cannot be underestimated in terms of the role that each individual must have in using their common sense their work experience their training and their compassion care and understanding of the environment they are working in and of the colleagues they are working with as to the role that each individual must play in terms of health and safety. Although there are some legislative levers that we can pull in terms of ensuring compliance with legislation we can never escape the fact that every individual in every workplace has a role and a responsibility to think and act and work in a safe manner and we must support them to do that.But when we go too far in terms of swinging that pendulum so that that role and that responsibility the personal responsibility for the individual are somehow taken away and replaced by some system or some lever or consequence or so forth it can sometimes result in people defaulting to the system and forgetting about themselves. I am in no way suggesting that that is the case in terms of the Pike River disaster or anything that is linked to this legislation. I make it simply as a point as a balance in legislation that we should always remember that it is a match between the systems the processes the levers that we put in place and the individual humans who contribute to working them if you like.I want to just reiterate that this legislation does create three effectively new streams or levers. It creates WorkSafe New Zealand a new regulatory regime that puts clear expectations on hazard management and everything that falls underneath that and of course the new Mines Rescue Act. As to the importance of them I think Damien O’Connor has rightly pointed out the importance of the skill sets that come with those who are involved in this particular industry of underground mining and the difficulties and challenges that it brings.Again I just want to commend those members for the contribution that they made to the passage of this legislation. Although we do not agree on everything actually what we have done is get good legislation that I hope can help give effect to making the New Zealand workplace in particular in the mining area a safer one.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I stand today on behalf of New Zealand First to support the third readings of the legislation arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill. I must quote from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. This sums up the situation regarding work very well we believe. It states: “New Zealanders expect work place safety conditions to be of a standard that controls the risk of accidents. In industries such as mining maintaining safety standards are especially important since the environment and operating conditions present a complex range of hazards. These range from occupational safety hazards that impact on individual workers through to catastrophic accidents that result in multiple injuries and fatalities as well as economic financial social and environmental damage.” I would like to add to that “the human loss of life which is catastrophic.”We welcome the decision to split this important piece of legislation into three separate bills. This is a move that actually acknowledges that the Pike River mine tragedy was not caused by a single transgression but by a multitude of factors all ofwhich require attention. It is a move that will allow for each of these very important sections to get the attention that is needed to implement changes with the level of detail that is required. In some ways it is an acknowledgment of the mistakes and the need to take some action. Like others in this House we would have liked to see more firm action but this is a start. Although none of these bills will make up for the Pike River tragedy we hope that the families and friends of those lost are able to take some comfort in seeing some action taken to prevent future occurrences and minimise danger in the future.This legislation is long overdue. It is essentially practical and it makes significant changes. It is very necessary legislation. The WorkSafe New Zealand Bill is setting up the centralised agency and as we have said this is long overdue. This agency needs to take a strong leadership role in order to protect our workers in New Zealand. We applaud the amendments made by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which ensure a sole Government agency that will have centralised responsibility. This will lead to responsible health and safety practices being undertaken. But like previous speakers we believe that the board must be a tripartite model. The board cannot afford to be party political with members changing after every election.We are pleased to hear from the Minister of Labour that WorkSafe New Zealand will have the necessary resources to carry out its functions and to ensure that these objectives are met. That is absolutely paramount. We hope too that these functions will be monitored that the objectives are met and that if this organisation is not meeting the requirements some action is taken. We cannot afford to just sit back on our hands. This is an area that does need to be followed up.The Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill is a positive step forward too towards the goal of reducing workplace injury and death by 25 percent by 2020. The Mines Rescue Bill is another very important piece of legislation. We know that underground coalmining has its unique risks but the bottom line is that all mining all tunnelling and all quarrying is hazardous if not dangerous.New Zealand’s health and safety record is very poor compared with that of other countries particularly when we read the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. What makes our appalling safety record worse is that quite often we do not learn from mistakes that have occurred in the past. We want to see changes. Every worker has the right to go home at the end of their working day uninjured and able to carry on and come back to work the next day. We cannot afford to ignore advice that would safe lives. New Zealand First hopes that this legislation will change that. The Mines Rescue Bill ensures that the Mines Rescue Trust is able and ready to respond to any future mining emergencies. We cannot have a repeat of what we saw with Pike River.In closing I would like to thank the people who worked on the royal commission’s report and the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The final legislation that is presented here today reflects the hard work and the commitment that have gone into ensuring that we have legislation that is going to make a significant difference to our mining sector. We want and need that difference. This legislation will be good for mining in New Zealand and for workplaces in general.I would like to once again pay our respects to the families and the friends who lost loved ones in the Pike River tragedy. New Zealand First supports the passing of this legislation which we believe is a much-needed step towards recognising the health and safety needs within this industry.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): It is a pleasure to follow Barbara Stewart in this debate and all the other speakers who have been involved because this is very much a matter for the whole House to agree on to consider and to work with. Thetragedy that occurred happened at the time when I was the local electoral MP and when you are met with such a public outpouring of grief it is an occasion an event that one is never going to forget. It has been a great privilege to work with the community and all the people involved including other politicians right through the whole event and I am very conscious of the level of activity that the Government has been involved with.We have a large number of memorials throughout the West Coast to the 29 miners who were lost. I honestly feel that what we are creating here is more than an enduring memorial but it will be an enduring memorial. It will have a function it will have a purpose that everybody who has been involved in this tragedy would approve of. It was painful but a privilege to sit through the daily hearings of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. It was impressive—the level of professionalism that was applied to that whole event. It was a pleasure and a privilege albeit painful to sit as a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as we went through this legislation. It was a privilege and in a perverse way a pleasure to be a part of the committee that went down to Greymouth to listen directly to the people who had been involved so that they could express their views and their feelings to the select committee and the response of the committee was a tribute to the way that Parliament does its work.I could speak at length but there is little purpose to that other than to acknowledge all that has occurred in reaching this point and to say that I have a glad heart that we have reached this point. It is very pleasing to see how seriously this legislation arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill is being taken by Parliament by the industry and by the community. Thank you.DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I want to start by acknowledging the members of Parliament who have been directly involved in this tragedy: Kevin Hague Chris Auchinvole Damien O’Connor and of course Andrew Little who was the secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) at the time and I think something like 17 of the 29 men were members of his union. Next week next Tuesday is the third anniversary of this dreadful event that dreadful day that I do not think those of us will ever forget. It was a dreadful day when we realised that the 29 men were all dead that they had all died that there was no hope and that they had lost their lives in a mine in the South Island.How far we have come in 3 years—how far we have come. I have vivid memories of the memorial service that many of us went down to. There were 10000-odd people who turned up to the memorial service at the racecourse in Greymouth. I remember very well Peter Whittall speaking at that memorial service. The fellow workers of the dead miners and the EPMU were down among the crowd unacknowledged. The union was unacknowledged as if it played no part and as if it had no role to play in that workplace. I also remember very clearly that Peter Whittall was nominated as New Zealander of the Year. He was treated like a hero—he was treated like a hero.When you think about Joseph Dunbar that 17-year-old boy on his first day at work at the Pike River mine who actually asked to go to work on Friday instead of on Monday because he was so excited about his job and when you think about the responsibilities of people like Peter Whittall it just shows you how much we have through the process of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy owned up to some of the things that went wrong and accepted that there is a legacy of terrible terrible errors. It shows you how far we have come when we have this legislation—the WorkSafe New Zealand Bill the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and the Mines Rescue BillI think an important thing to note in this legislation are the observations of not only the royal commission but also of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health andSafety that the failure that culminated at the Pike River mine which occurs in our workplaces almost every week when a worker dies has been driven by labour market and health and safety deregulation going back 20 years or more. Although we all like to say New Zealanders should have the right to go to work and come home safely we have ignored the role of regulation in making sure that happens. In the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and the collapse of the responsibility of the Department of Labour and the regulator we have been responsible for negligence.Although I celebrate this legislation—with reservations of course—I still do not believe as I have said many times that the Minister of Labour understands the connection between regulation workers’ rights and the way they are treated at work and health and safety on the job. There is a huge disconnect between the regulation we are making in this legislation and the changes to the Employment Relations Act he is pushing through. I suspect that in time—well maybe we will not have to because Labour will repeal those changes but I hope in time we will not be standing here saying that that deregulation contributed to more tragedy like this.I also know that the pain of the families is far from over. I mean how does a family ever get over losing a loved one—a 17-year-old son a husband a partner? I do not know how that happens. I hope that this legislation will be seen by them as a legacy—a positive legacy a meaningful legacy—that offers some comfort to them.There continue to be many unresolved injustices. Kevin Hague talked about the lack of accountability and the fact that no one—no Government agency individual or corporation—has been held to account for the deaths of 29 men. It is very disappointing coming up to the third anniversary to have a Government that is denying accountability as well as evidenced by its refusal to entertain the idea of paying compensation in place of the company which has refused or been unable to pay these families out.I think we need to remember that this tragedy started and ended with systemic failures by the regulator and by multiple Government departments. The licence should never have been let to open the mine in the first place. We then had the failure of the Department of Labour and the running-down of the mines inspectorate so that there were only two inspectors for the whole mines inspectorate. We had the terrible stories about how they had to scratch around for resources and even had to beg for travel so they could go and inspect mines. That is systemic failure negligence and not taking responsibility. For the Government to take no responsibility for the regulator for its own Government departments by offering these families some compensation I find really abhorrent. Let us not forget that two of the shareholders in the Pike River coal mine were also Crown agencies. I am talking about ACC and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. We all know that ACC has a huge bulging surplus at the moment. Why can the Prime Minister not pick up the phone and say “How about it? How about we help these families put to bed their pain?”It is true that some of them will have had some small amounts of compensation. Many of them did not receive ACC because the men who died did not have dependants. There were not of course any funerals so there was no ACC assistance with that. They have had to fork out for travel and for representation. It was not until some weeks—2 or 3 weeks—after the travel that the families were calling out for someone to help them. I know that not only has it cost them in bearing the loss that they bear but also it has cost them financially.As I said I hope the passing of this legislation will offer some comfort to the families. My colleagues Andrew Little and Kevin Hague have referred to the concerns we still have about this legislation and the things that have been missed or that could have been strengthened. I also hope that when we see the next health and safety bill theMinister listens and picks up those issues because we all have a responsibility to make sure that we never see a tragedy like this again in New Zealand. The Government has a responsibility to help those families through this and also to make sure that the new WorkSafe agency is properly resourced. I understand there are now four mines inspectors. I want to know whether that is adequate. The Government has a responsibility to make this work. It is fine to pass legislation but you have got to put the money in and you have got to make sure it happens. Labour is very pleased to support this legislation with as I said some reservations. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to it.Dr CAM CALDER (National): It was a harrowing and poignant experience serving on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and hearing submissions on the former Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill. As we have heard two members of our committee Kevin Hague and Chris Auchinvole personally knew men who lost their lives in the Pike River disaster. It made our consideration of this legislation very personal and we could share the very real pain of their loss through their close proximity to us when we were considering the submissions. This legislation had its genesis in tragedy. It is the earnest wish of all of us on the select committee—and I am sure of all of us in this House—that through the provisions contained within this legislation future tragedies may be averted.SUE MORONEY (Labour): I rise to speak to the third reading of the legislation arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill. The right to go to work leave your loved ones in the morning and come home safe and unharmed at night is a pretty basic right and in this instance that right was not upheld. Those 29 men left in the morning and they never returned. They may never return from where they currently are. This legislation is one chapter in the book of things that we need to learn from this disaster. Labour is supporting the third reading of this legislation because this is part of what we have learnt from this tragedy. In a previous decade it was Cave Creek. It seems that pretty much every decade in this country we need to remind ourselves about the importance of workplace rights. It seems that about every decade we need to go through the misery and the tragedy and relearn lessons that we have learnt before. I hope that this is the last decade when we will have to revisit these types of remedies.Some people might think it is the first time that some of the things contained in this legislation have ever been contemplated but actually if you look back through history some of these are things that we once had and that were stripped away in the name of deregulation in the name of having the market—the invisible hand of the market was going to fix everything. If there is one thing that I can say during this debate that I hope will resonate in this debating chamber for all the years that it needs to it is to ask that we please never have to learn the lesson again. Can we please never have to learn the lesson again through losing lives. The market and deregulation do not keep people safe at work—they do not keep people safe. Regulation is an important factor in having civilised decent workplaces where people can actually have the expectation of the basic right to earn a living and not to die from it—the basic right to earn a living and not to die from it.There are some inadequacies in this legislation. We would have much preferred that all of the recommendations from the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy be followed but they have not. I genuinely hope that I or other MPs in the future will not be back to stand up and revisit that in the future. When the Government has inquiries of any nature it would be useful that it picks up all of the recommendations and does not cherry-pick recommendations. I think that that is another disaster waiting to happen. When Governments do not actually look at thewhole picture and just cherry-pick pieces that they feel comfortable with then we are doomed to fail yet again.I also want to echo the words of my colleague Darien Fenton and urge the Government to not believe that it has fixed the problem because of the passing of this legislation this afternoon. This is but one chapter of what needs to happen. The broader context is actually having people valued their voices valued their work valued and their workplaces valued and not taking the approach—as the Government has done in other pieces of legislation—of stripping away workers’ rights. That is the context in which this series of bills needs to sit. I think that the Government does need to stop pause and think about the broader context of what constitutes a decent fair and safe workplace.The last thing that I will do in the course of this debate is acknowledge the loss that the families have endured and encourage the Government to make good for those families. They are still suffering. They will continue to suffer for a very long time. This is but one chapter. I am pleased that Parliament is today making this move but there is so much more to do in honouring those men their families and the tragedy that has taken place.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Pāremata. I too am proud to stand here and take a small role in this issue. I will start by acknowledging the MPs of the West Coast the families of the West Coast the people who put work into trying to make this legislation arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill better legislation and all the effort of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I would also like to start with a quote from my own community Waihī which could equally be from Pike River. It is an old quote: “If blood be the price of your cursed wealth good God we have bought it fair.” That quote from the 1900s is a sad reminder that health and safety in the mining industry have followed tragedy and disaster rather than existing beforehand over and over and over again. Once again at Pike River coal production Government inaction and deregulation led to the deaths of 29 people who did not need to die.The mining industry is littered with avoidable deaths as is the forestry industry and others at this point in time. I do commend the previous speakers who pointed out that the environment of deregulation is an environment that can equate to death. Deregulation in the workplace can lead to death. So we have to be very serious about what we are doing in this House right now and very serious about whether these bills meet the needs of that environment because we have gone so far away from safe working environments based on strong organised labour for whom the employer has a good relationship based on recognising that production does not come first over health and safety. Health and safety should come above production. It is very saddening to see once again that we are writing pretty good but not perfect legislation and making steps forward after the event.The two things that I want to talk about are the after-the-event nature of this legislation and also the nature of truth reconciliation and that relationship with resources which others have touched upon. In the history of mining the failure to listen to people who have tried to blow the whistle has led to disasters like this over and over and over again. As Kevin Hague so clearly said it is time to put this right. We are pleased to support these three bills and this one is well overdue but it is with great sadness that we remark on the price paid. Indeed we want to support other members’ calls for proper compensation. The reason that we support that call is that truth and reconciliation acknowledgment accountability and apology do not add up to peace of mind for those who have been harmed without resources. We see in many processes around the world that words are beautiful things and apologies can be accepted but ifthere is no resource to back those words and if there is no acknowledgment that the cost is not only human but financial and real for those people then we cannot have peace.It was very disturbing today to hear the first item on the news when I woke up which was that Cabinet had decided that no compensation would be paid to the Pike River families because of precedent. It was very disturbing when you think about the South Canterbury Finance $1.6 billion payout and other interesting payouts that have not been treated as precedent but the Pike River families will not get compensation. This is alongside the comments of Andrew Knight of New Zealand Oil and Gas that there would be no more payout to the Pike River families. The Green Party says that truth and reconciliation are necessary and good law but that there also needs to be resources to acknowledge these people.Others have commented on some of the problems with the legislation although we support the good work and its good intent. But we do feel that some of the issues that Andrew Little raised around the incident controller consulting but with no time frames and issues around the tripartite model and the need for union workers with a background in understanding these issues to be part of the picture and the need for adequate numbers of mines inspectors to be part of the picture because this is not a trust board like any other. We need trust not trust boards. We need proper representative involvement in workplace safety and there is expertise across the workforce in workplace safety.I would just like to say as a final comment—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.Catherine Delahunty: I would just like to say—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take what I believe is the final call on legislation arising from the Health and Safety in Employment (Pike River Implementation) Bill. I think there has been a dignified tone across the House today because this is important legislation in and of itself. It is in fact a bill that has been split into three bills now around workplace around Mines Rescue and around health and safety—all areas that are incredibly important.I think it is useful to look at that dignified tone because I think it does speak to the unanimity of the House in moving forward in a positive way. It is important to acknowledge that there are differences of opinion but I think underlying that is a real sense not only of the tragedy that occurred at Pike River but the importance to learn from that—which is often the consequence of tragedy—and to put in place important changes and recommendations. So I suppose in many ways it is a sense of thanks to all those involved in helping to bring these pieces of legislation together from those who worked through the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy to the Minister of Labour himself to the officials to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee but I think particularly to the families of Pike River who have taken the time to share that tragedy that pain in order to make this legislation better.I want to follow other colleagues and acknowledge Chris Auchinvole Damien O’Connor and Kevin Hague in particular. They are local to that community and have been a voice for that community. Speaking personally the welcome that the West Coast community through those three MPs gave us as a select committee was quite moving and provided a poignancy around these bills.We honour as best we can those 29 who died and we do that by passing legislation today to make New Zealand a more safe and healthy society.Bills read a third time.