Clark David: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6059. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I want to speak to an aspect of clause 65(3) as it relates to clarity around the number of workers and how a business can call itself exempt from the health and safety requirements in the legislation. In particular I want to talk about the nature of business competition and the way in which a tilted playing field where some employers might be exempt from some requirements means that they are given an unfair advantage in the competitive stake at the expense of lives and of other employers who are fair employers and who want to look after their employees. The majority of employers are fair in my experience but in every industry there are people who are more ruthless than others who care less about human life and who are more likely to bend the rules in order to get financial returns. It is those people whom we are worried about the most here in my view.In clause 65(3) of the bill there is a lack of clarity around how those 20 workers will be counted. For example a farm that might have five full-time employees may in peak parts of the season be employing more than a dozen contractors it may have other workers on site who are there doing maintenance and if it is a seasonal harvesting activity it may have maintenance workers on site. It may get well over the 20 employees. Is that included in this piece of legislation? It certainly is not clear within the legislation as these changes have come in in the last wee while.There is another question that I am hoping the Minister might address which was raised earlier by my colleague Chris Hipkins when the current Minister in the chair Michael Woodhouse was not in the chair. I suspect that the current Minister in the chair may well be able to answer this question where his colleague Paul Goldsmith who was filling in for him could not. That question is about what stops those ruthless large employers who want to get around the legislation from setting up lots of smaller businesses that are no longer required to comply. So if an employer routinely has 40 people on site what is there to stop him or her from setting up two businesses that have 15 people on site and employing the rest as contractors? Do they then no longer fall under the legislation in the way that other businesses might?I look forward to the Minister’s response. I can hear him talking but because I am talking at the same time I cannot quite hear his answer. When I stop talking I shall look forward to hearing his answer and understanding that. I think it is a genuine question that was raised earlier by a colleague and it has not been answered by a Minister in the chair who has the authority and the oversight of the bill as this Minister does.Ultimately if we end up with an environment that rewards employers who want to cut corners and who want to try to define their businesses differently in order to be exempt from the legislation and if we end up in an environment where there are financial advantages to those employers who are genuinely ruthless and uncaring it puts those employers who want to be caring and fair at a disadvantage. It is more likely to put their businesses at risk and to see their businesses go under and their employees will then come on to the labour market to be exposed to those more ruthless employers because they have fewer choices. If the fair employers can no longer run their businesses successfully it means the unfair employers in the workplace are able to hire more staff and take up more of those industries where those accidents and risks that have been talked about are happening.So I am hoping that the Minister in the chair may address that question about what would stop employers deliberately setting up different workplaces so as to avoid the implication in the legislation that they must employ health and safety representatives if they have more than 20 employees how the Minister hopes that that may be addressed if it is not in the legislation and if it is not explicit in the legislation how he hopes that may be policed. I think it is important that these questions are addressed. We know that if health and safety reps and committees do not meet then the actions for example in subpart 5—