Moroney Sue: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
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SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to rise and speak to clauses 1 to 3 of the Holidays Amendment Bill. The part that I really want to focus on is clause 3 “Principal Act amended”. The bill says that the Holidays Act 2003 is being amended. I pose the question of whether the Health and Safety in Employment Act should also be amended as a result of what is proposed in this bill. 
The Health and Safety in Employment Act which was brought in under Labour requires the employer to take all practicable steps to keep employees safe at work. I wonder whether the legislation we are debating in the Chamber tonight complies with that requirement. We know and all the research and evidence tells us that there is a really strong link between the hours of work that people engage in their ability to have a rest their ability to take holidays and their fatigue at work and therefore there is a link with their susceptibility to making a mistake having an accident hurting themselves or even worse—perhaps a fatality in the workplace. We know the evidence is very strong about that. 
The bill that we are debating gives an incentive particularly to low-paid workers to cash up their right to have a week’s annual leave to recuperate and to do all the things that good health and safety practices tell us are really important in the workplace. It gives them an incentive to give up their week of annual leave and therefore put themselves at greater risk of having a workplace accident. 
We know that in New Zealand because we focus a lot on primary production many of our workplaces are in very dangerous industries and we have a high level of workplace accidents and increasingly under this Government a larger number of workplace fatalities. I ask whether as well as amending the Holidays Act 2003 the Government—[ 
Interruption 
] Tau Henare does not seem to take very seriously workers’ rights to be kept healthy and safe at work but I am asking whether the requirement under the Health and Safety in Employment Act still holds true if we amend this Act. 
There is a requirement for the employer to take all practicable steps to keep employees safe at work. A worker might come along and say they would like to cash up their fourth week of annual leave—for which they can thank the Labour Government. Does that mean that the requirement under the Health and Safety in Employment Act requires the employer to say that actually because of the nature of the workplace and because fatigue is a really big problem in that workplace they cannot be allowed to do that because the employer would not be upholding their legal responsibility under the Health and Safety in Employment Act to take all practicable steps to keep the worker safe? It is a question that has not been asked in this debate so far and I would really appreciate it if the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith rose and responded to the question of whether the Health and Safety in Employment Act as well as the Holidays Act ought to be amended to make this provision lawful. 
The commencement date of 1 April 2011 of course is pretty interesting. I think some witty official must surely have come up with that date. The Government has chosen April Fool’s Day as the commencement date for this legislation and I think it is sadly very appropriate. But I hope that I am wrong.