Faafoi Kris: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6044. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is a privilege to speak to Part 3 of the Health and Safety Reform Bill. If you look through Part 3 you can see the remnants of what this bill could and should have been because in amongst a little bit of the bad stuff is actually some good stuff. I do want to point towards clause 92—when the Chairperson resumes the Chair—which is around the provisional improvement notices. They are notices that a health and safety rep can take to the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) or the boss if that health and safety rep notices a practice or something that is going on in the workplace that should not be going on. Issues are noticed to make sure that some improvements should be made.Last night in my speeches to other parts of the bill I spoke of a gentleman called Mark Samoa from Porirua who passed away in early January after he was in a workplace accident here in Wellington on the wharves of CentrePort. His situation was that he was putting labels on bales of pulp. He was in between the bales. Somebody else did not know he was there and in a forklift moved some of those bales and crushed Mark Samoa to death. If there was a health and safety rep in that situation now at CentrePort you would hope that because of clause 92 a provisional improvement notice would be the kind of thing that would be instigated to make sure that the practices there at CentrePort could be improved. I hope they have improved already since the time that Mr Samoa passed away. That is one of the issues that we think there is good for within Part 3 but it is unfortunately all held back because of clause 65(3) of the bill which takes away the ability for all workplaces to have such a health and safety rep to instigate clause 92 and put one of these provisional improvement notices in there.The previous Chairperson the Hon Chester Borrows—I saw from my office while I was watching on television—made a ruling about a visual aid that should not be shown. I acknowledge that some members of this Parliament took offence to that and I respect that and I understand that a ruling has been made. Although we cannot show in that symbolic way the voice of the families of those who have passed away I still think it is very important that we do make sure that the voices of the families of those people who have died at workplaces—Hon Hekia Parata: That’s right—that’s what you’re here for not gimmicks.KRIS FAAFOI: If that member could give me a chance I will do that. One of those people is Rhonda Samoa the sister of Mark Samoa who passed away. I think it is really important that we do get those voices in and I was touched that Rhonda and some of her family came to Parliament on Tuesday night to voice their anger at what is being done here in Part 3. If the Chairperson will allow me I would like to read a post that Rhonda made on my Facebook page on Tuesday night. She said that she came to Parliament and listened to “the discussion on the reform bill and heard families of loved ones lost from work place accidents Pike River and a mother who lost her son to a Forestry incident.” She said: “It is sad I share their sentiments.” She said: “Their stories were heartbreaking.” She thanked those in this Parliament who were fighting to protect the rights of workers. She said: “Fight for the workers rights. Safety in the workplace.”She asked the question: “What more basic right could be denied us?”. She said: “This Bill is a farce. The Govt pandering to small business employers for the vote … As the health and safety rep at my work it’s part of my job to ensure we all adhere to safe best practice.” She said: “Somebody’s got to ‘have your back’. We lost 51 New Zealanders to workplace accidents in 2013 and after Pike River you’d think this Government would learn.” So I am not going to take any lectures from that side of the Chamber about this side of the Chamber making this issue political because that is a Government that held this process up in its own caucus room and in its own negotiations because it made this issue political.When it made the promise to make workplaces safer for all New Zealanders after Pike River most New Zealanders believed the Government. They said: “This is a good thing.” Even we said “This is a good thing.” but in Part 3 the Government makes a lie of that promise. The Government makes a lie of that promise because it has pandered to some businesses that do not think it is right to make sure that all workers in their workplaces are safe because it is within I think clause 65(3) that we are seeing the carve-out for workplaces where there are fewer than 20 employees. Our question has been why. The member who was speaking before me and the Minister in the chair last night in his opening remarks on Part 3 said “We want to encourage a culture of personal responsibility in the workplace so that each worker knows that it is their responsibility and a collective responsibility to make sure that they are safe in their workplace.” Well I am sorry Mr Chair and Government members; that culture already exists. Rhonda Samoa said it on my Facebook page last night: “You don’t have to create the culture because the culture already exists.”What those people in those workplaces want is legislation that actually makes that culture law so that when they go to their bosses they are backed up by legislation and if they have got concerns in the workplace this Government this Parliament will back them up. But no this piece of legislation does not do it for a large number of businesses that have fewer than 20 employees. So my question to members on the other side of the Chamber is why. Why did you change your minds from the outset where everything was going to be comprehensive to what you now call balanced? In the opening remarks on Part 1 the Minister said: “This is a balanced piece of legislation.” What exactly are you balancing? You are balancing the safety of people in their workplace. I hope I never have to get the phone call where one of my loved ones has had an injury or died at work.Here in this Parliament I think we have a duty to make sure we do everything possible to make sure they are safe and this piece of legislation when it set out on this journey did. But now because of clause 65 it does not—not for every single New Zealander because the carve-out there is for those businesses with 20 or fewer employees. So my question is why. Why did it get held up in your caucus? Who on that side of the House said that we should keep it as it was? Who on that side of the House said: “Let’s change it.”? We knew that it got held up. Which smaller parties put a fly in the ointment from what this bill originally started out as to what it looks like now?This is not the best this Parliament can do for every worker in New Zealand. It is not. Rhonda Samoa knows that. All those families who came who lost loved ones in the Pike River disaster know that. They came to this Parliament to say that this is not good enough and I think they know. They know damn well better than me. Unless someone in this place has lost someone at work I think those families damn well know better than all of us. So why has this changed from what it was originally to what it is now? I respect that some members on that side of the Chamber are taking some calls. Get up and tell us why. Get up and tell us why this has changed because if you do not no one who came to this Parliament who represent those people who have passed away is getting a decent answer from you as to how future families will not be put in that same position.We need to be doing much better than this. We do not need any more Rhonda Samoas. She said after the court case that it took a death and a court case for her brother’s employer to get a good kick up the arse. So why are we sitting here giving her a lame-arsed solution to a problem that we need to solve to make sure our people are kept safe in the workplace? For Rhonda Samoa and all those families who have actually lost family members in the workplace I want to hear from that side of the Chamber as to why you watered this bill down.