Allan KiritapuHEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK (HEALTH AND SAFETY REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMITTEES) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: I present to the House a legislative statement on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill. SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website. Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move That the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. This Government is committed to tackling New Zealand's poor record of workplace injuries to ensure that everyone comes home from work healthy and safe. Today I can confirm that this Government intends to deliver on our 2020 election promise to improve the health and safety of all workers by strengthening the role of worker participation and representation. International evidence shows that worker participation is a vital part of the system which prevents work-related harm. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 requires businesses to engage with workers and to have effective worker participation practices. The Act provides for health and safety representatives and committees as formal mechanisms for worker participation and representation if these are what workers prefer. Health and safety representatives play important roles in the workplace acting as the conduit between the front line and management to help drive changes in the workplace that benefit everyone. Health and safety committees also play an important role in bringing together workers and management to work on health and safety issues policies and procedures. They ensure that workers have a say in how they are best protected against risks in the workplace. However the Act currently limits worker access to health and safety representatives and to health and safety committees reducing flexibility and worker choice. This Government believes that all workers have the right to access health and safety representatives and committees if that is their preferred means of participation and representation and who is better placed to identify health and safety risks than the ones most affected by them? I'd like to acknowledge the tragedy that brought about some major reforms in the health and safety at work system: the 29 Pike River miners who lost their lives on that day back in 2010. This tragedy led to the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety and a blueprint for health and safety developed by the Government. These responses formed the foundation of the Health and Safety Reform Bill back in 2014. When introduced the bill provided for strong worker participation in health and safety issues. Consistent with the Australian model work health and safety law on which the bill was based the bill provided that all businesses must hold a health and safety representative election if requested by a worker. It also provided that all businesses must establish a health and safety committee if requested to by a health and safety representative or by five or more workers. At the select committee in 2014-15 some submitters raised concerns that these provisions would be too costly for small businesses. It appears that many believed that health and safety representatives and committees would be mandatory which they were not. In response in 2015 the National Government brought in limits to these worker participation provisions meaning that a business could decline a health and safety representative election request from its workers if the business had fewer than 20 workers and was not within a prescribed high-risk sector. These small and lower-risk businesses also did not need to decide on a request to establish a health and safety committee whereas larger businesses and those in a designated high-risk sector had to grant these requests. Any business could decline a request for a health and safety committee if satisfied that existing practices sufficiently met requirements. These limits accentuated the unequal power dynamic between workers and businesses. This bill seeks to remove these limits and to restore the provisions to what they were in the Health and Safety Reform Bill as introduced to this House. The bill applies the same rules to all businesses and guarantees the same rights to all workers to be able to decide what kind of worker participation mechanism best meets their needs. This bill requires that all businesses must initiate a health and safety representative election if requested by a worker in the business. It does this by removing the limits on workers' access to health and safety representatives in small lower-risk businesses but it does not make health and safety representatives mandatory. Businesses only need to initiate an election if a worker requests it. If businesses have good health and safety systems already in place and strong engagement practices workers might not seek to elect health and safety representatives. The Australian experience of small businesses rarely having health and safety representatives suggests that these workers often do not see health and safety representatives as the most effective mechanism to address health and safety matters in their workplace. However it is still important that this choice sits with the workers. The bill also removes the limits from health and safety committees as to do otherwise would bias against this form of worker representation compared to health and safety representatives. This means that all businesses must establish a committee if requested by a health and safety representative of five or more workers. Again this bill does not make health and safety committees mandatory. Businesses only need to establish a committee if requested by a health and safety representative or by five or more workers. This bill also removes the ability of a business to refuse a request to establish a health and safety committee if the business believes the existing practices sufficiently meet the requirement for worker participation. As well as limiting worker choice the existing provisions are not well targeted to ensure that workers in high-risk industries can access health and safety representatives and committees. The limits rely in part on designating what is a high-risk industry but it is difficult to effectively decide what is a high-risk industry due to limits on the available data especially about health risks to workers. This means that the designated high-risk industries do not necessarily capture all the sectors that may be at high risk. The bill removes the need for these designations and revokes the regulation-making power which enables regulations to be made that designate high-risk industries. It also revokes the parts of the worker engagement participation and representation regulations which relate to high-risk industries. This bill also makes it clear for businesses that they need to establish health and safety committees as soon as practicable after receiving a request addressing a current gap in the Act. This is consistent with the approach to time lines elsewhere in the Act and it reflects the Act's focus on flexibility according to the circumstances. Approximately 2.3 million employees are currently impacted by the ability of any business to decline a request to form a health and safety committee if the business is satisfied that existing practices sufficiently meet requirements. Additionally approximately half a million employees in small lower-risk businesses currently have their choices limited by the business's ability to decline their request for a health and safety representative election. This bill increases the choices for all of these workers. How many of these workers take up the opportunity to elect health and safety representatives or to establish committees will depend on worker preferences. These may be influenced by their relationships with the business owner—who they work alongside in the business—and their awareness of health and safety representatives and committees and the extent to which they feel their needs are met through informal worker participation means. This bill helps to address as I've previously stated the underlying unequal power dynamic between the workers and businesses. In summary this bill makes important changes to improve worker representation on health and safety issues by requiring that all businesses must initiate a health and safety representative election if requested by a worker; second requiring that all businesses must establish a health and safety committee if requested by a health and safety representative or five or more workers; third by providing that a health and safety committee must be established as soon as practicable after a business receives a request; and—finally—four removing provisions related to defining high-risk sectors. Thank you Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House. SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.