Moroney Sue: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6144. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): The title of this bill is the Health and Safety Reform Act 2015—that is what it will become if it is passed. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway talked about how misleading that title actually is because what we wanted was true reform and now unfortunately we do not have it.What we know about workplace health and safety—and I think it is probably something that we can all agree on in this Chamber—is that when short cuts are taken in the workplace over health and safety that costs lives. Well here we are with this Government taking short cuts over health and safety in this bill—it will cost lives. It will cost lives and all of those members opposite need to think about that because they have now been cast as the villains in this piece.They have been cast as the villains in this piece who have moved to specifically ensure that those people in small workplaces which are workplaces with fewer than 20 employees and those people in high-risk industries like farming are going to be excluded from having the very best representation—the very best representation. This is not just because I think it is the very best representation or because the Labour Party thinks that or the Green Party or New Zealand First think that; it is because the international evidence shows us that when workers get their own voice and when they have a health and safety representative elected by them and trained to do the job properly then that is going to be the most effective foil to poor health and safety in the workplace. That is going to be the very best preventative measure.Many of the submitters who came before the select committee said just that. Not only the unions but many of the businesses came in support of this bill in general and were pleased that Parliament was united in supporting a comprehensive approach to health and safety reform. That is what the title of the bill was at the outset and that is what we genuinely believed that all of us wanted to achieve.I have got to say having been on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that that consensus held for a very very long time. For almost a year and a half that consensus remained. And then—well actually I will tell you the minute that I saw that consensus start to wobble: it was when Judith Collins came and subbed in on the select committee one day. She was kind of there by accident but boy did she make a change to what was going on in that select committee. Her one accidental visit to that select committee while subbing in for another member I believe changed everything. I believe that changed everything because suddenly she was there questioning the officials questioning whether the Minister actually had his act together over this bill and causing mayhem—causing mayhem—in the select committee room. The other MPs from the National Party in that select committee room sat there dumbfounded. They were not quite sure exactly how to respond.I have got to say that Jonathan Young the chairperson of that select committee did an awfully good job of retaining some measure of decorum in a chaotic situation for the National members. But here was one of their colleagues questioning the wisdom of whether the Government should even go down this path at all with health and safety.That was the minute I heard and saw the consensus start to slip—that was the minute that it happened. Christopher Bishop laughs but he is the only one over there who is actually finding it humorous at all. The rest of them are deadpan.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The title and commencement.SUE MORONEY: Sorry the title and commencement. Right so the title and commencement—why I raise these issues is because it does all come back to the title which is about health and safety reform. We genuinely did believe that we were embarking on that journey together as a Parliament and for almost all of the time that has been the case. It has been in only very recent times that that has changed. Why has that changed? Well it has changed because of politics. Politics have been put in front of the principle of having the best health and safety practices.Chris Bishop: Come on.SUE MORONEY: Everyone knows that. Well Christopher Bishop seems to be the only person who does not know it but everyone else—