Little Andrew: WorkSafe New Zealand Bill Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill Mines Rescue Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: WorkSafe New Zealand Bill Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill Mines Rescue Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 14 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14733. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a pleasure to speak on what is now a collection of three bills—the WorkSafe New Zealand Bill the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and the Mines Rescue Bill—on this very important topic. Labour has supported this legislation notwithstanding some reservations we have had about it and actually continue to have and I will come to those shortly. But as the Minister of Labour has pointed out this Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill makes some significant changes and I am confident that it will make a significant difference at least in the extractive industries that it largely refers to. The introduction of beefed-up powers for the site health and safety representatives and the introduction of the new beast if you like the “industry health and safety representative” are innovative steps. They are new steps—some would say long-awaited steps—but nevertheless that is now happening under the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill and they are both welcome changes.As I said this legislation falls short in some areas and I will comment on those shortly but it does provide a foundation on which to build. Labour will await the introduction of the broader reform of the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill which is the bill that is currently the subject of an exposure draft that has gone out to sector groups and others. Depending on what is in that bill we will build on some of the parts of the present legislation this Pike River implementation package of legislation.Before I go further I want to make a plea. This legislation corrects some longstanding flaws and failures in our health and safety legal framework. It no longer matters which Government over the last 20 years did or did not do the right thing. Parliament is now fixing it. We are plugging the gaps and we are paving the way for a safer New Zealand and safer workplaces in New Zealand. But it would be an insult todeny that we have been brought to this point by the worst and possibly the most avoidable industrial tragedy in nearly 100 years—the most lives lost in an industrial tragedy I should say since the 1914 Huntly mine disaster when 43 men perished. The truth is that getting this legislation even this far has seen many New Zealand workers pay the ultimate price. Twenty-nine of them still lie entombed deep within the Paparoa Range. By passing this legislation this Parliament acknowledges the price those 29 men and their families paid and by putting aside our usual fractious and antagonistic behaviour and accepting that nothing less than meaningful change is necessary and by acting accordingly.But that is not enough. In truth this Parliament and successive executives that have been part of it were part of the failure of the system that led to the tragedy we now know as Pike River. The Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy found failure by the company and by the Government as regulator. A court has since found the company at fault but then that court had only the company before it. The regulator prosecuted the company but did not prosecute itself. In July this year Judge Farish of the District Court in Greymouth imposed on Pike River Coal the highest aggregate fine and reparation order imposed on any employer under the Health and Safety in Employment Act—$760000 in fines and $3410000 in reparation. The judge said that the fines are to condemn the practices of the company and “to indicate that this company should never have been in operation”.Mr Bridges we let that company operate. Mr Key make good the losses the families have suffered. Mr Key accept on behalf of your Government and all Governments before it that the Crown failed those workers and failed their families. Make a contribution. Do something. Put a line under this for the families. Take the final act to restore the confidence of the families the faith of the people and the dignity of this House. Let the Pike 29 rest in peace.Let me turn to three points in this legislation where improvement is still possible. They are the three points that we have debated in this House during the passage of this legislation when it was originally one bill—it is now three bills—as it worked its way through. The first point is the governing board of WorkSafe New Zealand. The future of health and safety in this country must be built on a genuine respectful relationship both at a corporate level and at an enterprise level between workers their employers and the Government—a genuinely tripartite structure and model. That must start at the top and the top when it comes to a regime affecting health and safety is WorkSafe New Zealand the new body established to champion the cause and regulate workplace health and safety and make life safer and better for workers in New Zealand. But that should reflect a genuinely tripartite model too and it does not at the moment. I ask the Minister when he gets to a point at some point to review the legislation to bear that point in mind.The second point is the scope of the role of the industry health and safety representatives under new section 19ZP in the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act in this package of bills. As it stands now that role is confined to only underground coalmining but it should apply to tunnelling and quarrying as well. We are only 2 or 3 weeks out from the aftermath in the District Court in Auckland of a tunnelling disaster that led to a fatality and serious injury to people involved. It was not a mine and it was not a tunnel that was there for extractive purposes—it was there to lay cables and it was in an urban area—but there was a build-up of gas which exploded and killed and maimed. There is no less reason for there to be the best possible health and safety regime covering that type of work than there is for underground coalmining. Indeed other forms of mining such as open-cast coalmining are nevertheless coalmining activity. It is hazardous and dangerous and there is as much a case for theindustry health and safety representative in that situation as there is for underground coalmining notwithstanding the extra-special hazards involved in underground coalmining and I ask the Minister to bear that in mind for future consideration.The third point is—and it seems a somewhat small point and hopefully is a situation that we will never have to experience again—the role of the incident controller in a significant and large-scale incident such as the one that happened at Pike River. The way it is defined at the moment the incident controller who is appointed by WorkSafe New Zealand but is required to consult with the range of other agencies that invariably get involved—the Police the Fire Service the Mines Rescue trust—is required to consult with every other agency but there is no signal given in the legislation about the need for timely and effective decision-making which was one of the let-downs in the early days the first week or 10 days of the Pike River incident. They might seem small issues but they are important issues.Let me conclude by congratulating the Minister on shepherding this legislation through. These are big steps taken in the leadership and management of health and safety in every workplace in New Zealand. We look forward to the next phase that the Minister is putting through as well. This will be good for New Zealand. It will be good for miners in the mining industry in New Zealand and ultimately it will be a signal for us all to be more careful for those who work in our workplaces and generate the wealth that keeps this country the great place that it is.