Logie Jan: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6060. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I have previously had a call and I appreciate having another one to make points that I have not heard contributed in this debate.To start framing my comments in this part of the debate I would like to just reference the fact that this is a watering down. This clause in this part of the bill waters down existing legislation. It is not just that it is not delivering on the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy’s recommendations and the following inquiry’s recommendations for what we need to do as a country to ensure that people can come home intact and alive. It is in part actually a watering down even of our existing legislation which is overseeing the death and maiming of so many workers and that is completely unacceptable to us in the Green Party. What we have seen happen was an introduction of legislation that we could support and then it seems after some last-minute lobbying by some employers we have seen a watering down of the legislation. I note that there is an ice sculpture in front of Parliament today representing this legislation and the watering down and the melting of that sense of protection for families and workers.Under today’s law any business regardless of size is required to have an employee participation system agreed with its workers or if their union asks or if the business has more than 30 workers—regardless if it is asked. What this does is it puts a limit around 20 or more employees. We had a debate in this Chamber last night when I said that 97 percent of businesses in New Zealand have fewer than 20 workers. That was from a report released by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment last year. So 97 percent of businesses in this country have fewer than 20 workers and this legislation is setting that as the threshold. That is unacceptable.I do want to address some of the statements that were made by a previous member from the National Party side Alastair Scott who was suggesting that this really is just legislation catching up with the standard practice. Well if that is the case how can the compliance costs be too great? If this is the standard practice for most employers then how can the compliance costs be so great when actually employers if requested at the moment are required to have these systems in place? It is a completely weak argument because it is watering down what we have at the moment. It seems to be actually putting in legislation to meet the needs of the lowest common denominator—the employers whom we do not want to be supporting. We know there are good employers out there. We want our legislation to back them up and to be that threshold that they can go above and be exceptional employers from but we want the base to be their practice not the practice of the lowest common denominator employers who are not currently listening to their workers.We have heard some really idealistic views tonight about how for employees there is the opportunity for them to participate and tell their employers what they want. I heard from the forestry industry which said that that exists in that industry at the moment and said that it is happy with worker participation as it is in that industry at the moment. That is patently not acceptable when we have the level of deaths in the forestry industry that we do at the moment.Alastair Scott: Much improved in the last 24 months.JAN LOGIE: Much improved in the last 24 months!Denise Roche: Because of the campaign by the CTU and those families.JAN LOGIE: Because of the campaign and we did not have worker participation in those death reports on the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions wall.I also want to point out that there is a concern—and I would like to recommend Supplementary Order Papers 105 and 100 specifically which are to address the fact that in this legislation workers can elect a health and safety rep but they cannot direct what areas of work those health and safety workers will cover. So you might elect somebody and then they will be sent to cover a completely—