Mark Ron: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6004. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I rise to make a contribution particularly on this Supplementary Order Paper put forward by my caucus colleague Clayton Mitchell from New Zealand First. This Supplementary Order Paper deals with clauses 28 29AA and 43. It absolutely staggers me to hear indeed that the Government is not going to support this Supplementary Order Paper.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. I did not quite hear the member. Which Supplementary Order Paper was it?RON MARK: 110.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Supplementary Order Paper 110.RON MARK: That is right. It staggers me that the Government is not going to support this Supplementary Order Paper because in recent times we have heard so much from the Government as to how it supports farmers in particular the dairy sector in particular and rural and provincial New Zealand. The amendment to clause 43—adding subclause (3)—for me coming from the Wairarapa stands out as a provision that would seek to alleviate an unintended consequence of the legal situation being generated in the Government’s legislation. Our Supplementary Order Paper under the name of Clayton Mitchell aims to alleviate the problem created in the legislation when a person who “is a self-employed individual who is both a PCBU”—or boss—“and a worker in a small-or-medium-sized enterprise in the event of an accidental death of their spouse de facto partner or civil union partner who is also a PCBU and a worker in the same small-or-medium-sized enterprise.” is adversely affected.What concerns us here is a situation where a sharemilking couple who are both owners of the business and workers in it end up in an appalling situation where one of them loses their life in an accident on the farm and the other on top of dealing with the grief of having lost a loved one on top of dealing with the situation of still continuing to run the business on their own is now facing the potential of being prosecuted and charged. This particular Supplementary Order Paper seeks to alleviate that problem. The idea that you could have one spouse being held accountable for an accident and being subject to maybe 5 years in jail or a $3 million fine absolutely astonishes us. This Supplementary Order Paper seeks to overcome that problem. This Supplementary Order Paper is a common-sense practical solution to that problem.I cannot believe that a party that won the Government benches with rhetoric about removing red tape supporting small businesses and being understanding of the needs of rural and provincial New Zealand in particular would reject that amendment. The situation I mention could apply equally to a panel-beating shop somewhere in the middle of Auckland or a petrol station where there is a husband and wife team operating and someone through no fault of their own has an accident and is injured or dies in the worst case and leaves their partner to suffer the consequences—the financial loss the stress and strain of court actions and ending up in prison in the worst case. So I am going to appeal on behalf of New Zealand First alongside my colleague Clayton Mitchell and ask the Government to reconsider its rejection of this Supplementary Order Paper. There is much more in that Supplementary Order Paper that I could speak to.There are parts of this legislation that New Zealand First supports and considers worthy of support and we understand the intent behind them. I am looking at clause 51 “Duty to preserve sites”; clause 52 “Duty to notify notifiable event”; and clause 53 “Requirement to keep records”. All of those things are dealing with sensible stuff aimed at mitigating and alleviating occupational health and safety issues down the line by collecting data so that people have a record and can analyse what happened and therefore take the necessary steps. We understand that Minister.We understand that some aspects of this bill are for things that the Government is genuinely trying to address in order to make the workplace safer for workers but we do not believe that the consequences that I outlined earlier are actually what the Government intended. We cannot believe that and we cannot understand why the Government would not accept our Supplementary Order Paper. We ask the Minister to reconsider that position and to support our Supplementary Order Paper in the interests of supporting those people—what do you call them? PCBUs? I am with the Labour member; they sound like “BOSSes” to me—who are married or in de facto or civil union relationships.