Little Andrew: Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11385. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):I rise to speak on the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill and in acknowledgment of the last speaker Mr Sabin I just say that I do not think the families or the miners who continue to mine in this country today and their communities and the unions to which those miners belong expect this House to continue to come up with comforting words to continue to ease the grief and the loss. What they do expect is this House to come up with meaningful and genuine action that genuinely takes account of the now studied failures and gaps in the system that led to the Pike River tragedy.The Government and the Minister of Labour the Hon Simon Bridges and indeed Chris Finlayson before him as the Acting Minister of Labour and Kate Wilkinson before him who was the Minister of Labour in office at the time of this tragedy are entitled to the gratitude of the House for bringing this important bill to the House at this time. As we all know it follows the royal commission and its study of the dreadful disaster. The Pike River coalmine tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in more than 40 years and we now know and we need not be ashamed or feel guilty about it any more that it was the product of poor regulation poor oversight and inspection and poor governance and management.The royal commission was very clear. The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 was at that time half-baked and a half measure. We have learnt that lesson. We have been told that. Even the subsequent attempts by the Labour Government to fix it up—good attempts and the correct efforts to be made—were not enough to make it a robust and enduring but ultimately safe piece of legislation. We have made the mistake before. We made it in 1992. Let us not make the mistake again. This is not about just the Pike River 29 and we do not honour just the Pike River 29 with this bill and getting it right. There are the three miners who died on the West Coast in 1998 the one down in Ōhai in 2003 the one in 2006 and now the Pike River 29 in 2010.This bill is an opportunity to set a new standard for health and safety in all workplaces for all employers and for the benefit of all workers in New Zealand. This bill is a chance a first step to honour those dying on our farms in our fisheries on our construction sites and in our forests. I acknowledge the work of Helen Kelly of theCouncil of Trade Unions on her campaign on forestry safety. This bill is a first step and a first chance to honour people like Ken Callow of the East Coast and Adam Olsson of Taranaki. This bill is largely confined to the mining industry and that is a good industry to start with given its track record.Although we support the bill at this stage we are saying it is a good first draft and that is all it is. It beefs up the inspectorate and it creates WorkSafe. It is explicit about worker participation and it provides for industry health and safety inspectors which is the check inspector that certainly the union and its members in mining have been calling for for many years. I first made the call for check inspectors in 2004 and made it again in 2005 and 2006—and so it went on—in my capacity as union secretary.But let us not forget about the reality of workplace relationships and employment agreements. Workplace relationships and employment agreements are about a relationship of power and control. That is something else we should not feel ashamed of or guilty about admitting. That is the reality. It is the legal reality and it is the practical reality. The employer has ultimate control. The worker has a duty of obedience. That is how the workplace works. But health and safety risks hazards at work and danger at work directly affect workers. It is workers who are the ones who are killed and maimed when poor health and safety happens at work. It is not management; it is workers. Input by workers into health and safety and risk assessment and risk management must be real and genuine. Their voice the worker voice must be genuine and meaningful.The royal commission of inquiry into the Pike River tragedy went to great lengths to underscore the need for worker input. It talked about tripartitism and so did the recent Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety. They both underscored the need for worker input and they said that tripartitism must start from the top. So we should expect to see it in the governance of WorkSafe we should expect to see it in the governance of Mines Rescue and we should expect to see it in the health and safety measures in the governance measures in the workplace at the enterprise level—not with the directors although they need to be aware of it but in the way that health and safety is given oversight at the enterprise.Here is the thing: this bill if it is to be effective if it is to honour the Pike River 29 and everyone else who has died unnecessarily at work since 1992 will have to tell employers what to do. It will have to be instructive and mandatory. We must honour the call for a better stronger voice for workers in health and safety in our mines and in every workplace. Even when some employers turn up to this Parliament to quibble and cavil this House should not quail from legislating as far as is necessary to protect and preserve life and limb in the workplace. That is our duty. Anything less is negligent and that is what we on this side of the House will be going into this deliberative process with as our objective.Some aspects of this bill in its first draft do not come up to specification. For example new section 13AA in clause 25 which deals with the training and supervision of mine workers talks about employers taking “all practicable steps” to ensure that mine workers have been properly trained and are properly supervised. That is not adequate. It is not enough to take all practicable steps; it must be a requirement that miners employed to do the dangerous work of mining especially underground mining have the proper training and qualifications and are provided with the proper supervision.New section 19Q in clause 27 “General duty to involve mine workers in health and safety matters” simply requires as presently drafted “reasonable opportunities” for input. That is not enough. That will not be enough. If this bill comes back to this House with that language still in it we will not have done our job and the bill will not come up to the mark.New section 19R talks about the development of worker participation systems and it is there where we must be absolutely on our mettle to ensure that the worker voice is properly provided for and will be heard. Engagement between management and workers over health and safety must be real and it must be protected and supported by legislation. We do not need legislative skeuomorphism.Dr Cam Calder: Skeuomorphism.ANDREW LITTLE: We do not need a bill that looks like it is doing one thing but is actually doing another. I see that Dr Calder is taken with the language and that is good. He can go into the deliberative process in his caucus when the bill comes back for endorsement and ask the question of the chair of the select committee and indeed of the Minister: “Do we still have a bill that is just another piece of legislative skeuomorphism or do we have a real bill that will have real effects and will provide real protection?”.Barbara Stewart talked about one of the findings of the royal commission being the Swiss cheese model of failure and disaster. Well we need to go from the Swiss cheese model to the Swiss Army knife model. We need to go to a health and safety legislative framework that provides all necessary protections respects the role of management and provides proper protection for workers because nothing less will do. We have had the lesson—the bitter cold hard lesson. We have seen what bad legislation does. We can avoid it if we are on our mettle and perform our duty and we are here to do that.