Mitchell Clayton: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5963. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): It is a great pleasure to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to talk on this bill in the Committee stage. I think we are going to have a very robust discussion and probably a bit of a marathon debate really. Goodness knows how long it is going to last because there is so much to go through and go into. Just looking at this we have got 30 Supplementary Order Papers or amendments on the Table for discussion and I am sure every single one of those will need to be debated at great length. I do acknowledge the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety for tabling the document about the guidance on the high-risk industry definition.I would just like to start by asking a question that he may be able to provide some clarification on. I have actually called into his office but of course he is down here so it is very difficult to get an answer. It is in relation to R913 as far as high-risk industry definitions go and it is to do with amusements which I am assuming is large slides and Ferris wheels and the like which can be quite dangerous but what are “other recreation activities”? I would like a little bit of clarification on that. We are waiting to hear back from your office Minister and if you could just expedite that it would certainly help—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Minister has just whispered in my ear that he will answer those as part of the relevant part—in this particular case Part 3.CLAYTON MITCHELL: Thank you. I thought I would just take the opportunity to bring it up. I appreciate that. Look I also want to make mention to the families who came from all over the country to be here to listen to this debate and be in the gallery. We give our apology that it was delayed by a day and I do believe that it was not anybody’s fault. However I was in the old Legislative Council Chamber yesterday listening with a heavy heart to those stories of those fathers mothers wives and sisters who wanted to share their stories and I certainly did have tears in my eyes along with many of the other members and people who were there. This is what makes getting this piece of legislation right so important. It is 2 years overdue—in fact it is probably 5 years overdue.Before I start talking about specific parts of the bill that we are going to be putting some Supplementary Order Papers to amend—it comes down to the Fire Service I guess and what it has created as the triangle for fire. What creates fire? To create a fire you need the oxygen you need fuel for that fire and of course you need heat—energy—to create it. If you take any one of those pieces away from that fire triangle you of course will not have a fire. Health and safety is very similar to that in so far as you need in order to get good health and safety three parts to make up solid legislation to ensure the safety of workers. The first thing is worker participation. We have got to have good engagement with those workers and those workers have to have a place where they can go to and be heard and be sure that their concerns are actually being adhered to and actioned. So that is the first thing you need.You also need a good employer who understands the importance of making sure that his workplace is a safe environment for his workers to be in and who does everything that he can to ensure that he gets this—which comes under clause 3 “Purpose”; I can see there are some questions about the purpose of this—in order to ensure that his workers get to go home. The third thing we need of course is enforcement around the legislation that has been put there.If I look at the previous legislation that this country has been run under two of those pieces were really quite lacking. In the latest Budget the honourable Minister came though and allocated $8 million for enforcement officers to ensure that those measures are upheld. If we rewind now back 5 years to the Pike River disaster if we had had adequate funding and the right resources given to the mine workers around this country—if they had had the time and the resources to actually enter into those mines and take serious note of the mishaps that were going on—then the Pike River disaster may well not have happened.I also have to say that if there was a strong robust place for the workers to go to that would also actually have negated a lot of the accidents that we have in our workplace. This new legislation does a lot of that and we as New Zealand First have some discomfort that we are opposing this bill as it stands at the moment. We would like to think that we can find a balanced middle ground if you like with some of those areas where we think that the Government has gone a little bit too far a bridge too far and some areas where it has not gone far enough.So that is what I would like to start talking about now. To reduce those fatalities in the next 5 years by 25 percent—I would like to see that that rate could be reduced even further. That is the first thing. I would like to see 100 percent safe workplaces around this country. Who would not? I do not think there is a single person in this country who would not want that.But getting to safe workplaces I would like to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 110 which we have put forward. We put it through to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I was a little bit disappointed not with Labour and possibly not with the Greens because I understand their position in most things. I do not mean to be derogatory when I say to them I get you you know? I get where your position is.I was however very disappointed that despite having some positive involvement from Mr Bayly in acknowledging the concerns and seeing the sense in what we were trying to say because he is a pragmatic person. He is a person who has been involved in business—[Interruption]—and from Mr Young also in recognising and understanding my dilemma. When I talk to the vast numbers of small medium and even large businesses around the country that suffer from the lack of personal responsibility by their workers with regard to their personal protective equipment this bill could sort that out. I know the Minister himself said that there is other legislation that could actually deal with this but why put it into somebody else’s hands when we have got the opportunity here and now to fix it up by sleight of pen and to remove this? You say it will not work Minister but it will in fact work.The legislation in clause 28 says that no worker can be levied or charged for any of their personal protective equipment. We absolutely agree with that. That is common sense. If you have got to do a job you have got to have the equipment. However there should be onerous circumstances around making sure that those workers look after and protect that personal protective equipment—that they do not give it away do not sell it off and do not forget it and leave it at home. We believe that it is not unfair or unreasonable to expect a worker to be levied or charged for unfair wear or tear or loss of their personal protective equipment because at the end of the day who pays for that? Most of those costs get transferred on to the consumer so the consumer is ultimately paying. But is that about efficiencies of business? I suggest not. Hence I get back to this: how could National not support this in Government and not say: “Let’s look after this.”?If you go to another piece of legislation—we are talking about human resourcing—again that is a cost to the business. You have got to go through the process of managing that person out or managing them up to a standard. If we put in a clause that would eliminate that issue right then and there that to us is a very pragmatic and sensible solution that will bring down the cost to the consumers. It will actually make businesses more profitable.The second point is about clause 29AA which is about insurance against fines being unlawful and which is also referred to in the Supplementary Order Paper from New Zealand First. You can get indemnity for just about anything. You can insure yourself against loss or wear and tear and so on and you pay for that. It is a user-pays system. So why does this legislation not allow for businesses to protect themselves in the event or circumstance of a serious accident so that they could actually get that indemnity? If you are a high-risk business obviously those premiums are going to be higher and that is a business decision that could be weighed up with the businesses themselves to decide whether they want to pay a premium on an annual basis or take the risk and try to tighten down that legislation. But the reality is that it is up to individuals to decide whether or not they have insurance and I think that this is another key practical step that would eliminate some of those problems.So to read out the clauses that we propose new subclause (2A) in clause 28 would say: “Despite subsection (1) a PCBU may impose a levy or charge on a worker (or permit a levy or charge to be imposed on a worker) if any personal protective equipment is persistently lost or damaged by the employee.” I do not think any employee in their right mind would think that that is unfair or unreasonable. Take personal responsibility for the things that are going to keep you safe. Then quite simply we look to completely delete clause 29AA which again does not allow any employer to insure themselves or indemnify themselves for their financial loss or cost of a potential litigation in future times. I will be speaking on most of these points today. It is going to be a marathon. My throat is probably going to get a little bit hoarse so I will have to grab some lozenges. Thank you very much.