Woods Megan: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6058. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am very pleased to take a call. I am particularly pleased to take a call after the contribution that we have just heardfromAlastair Scott the member opposite who seemed to be saying in his contribution that the bill is fine except for the clause that was watered down at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. “Except for the bad bits this is a good piece of legislation.” seemed to be the logic that the member was going through. He tried to lead us through a number of clauses in Part 3—every clause that we could talk about except for clause 65(3) which is the one in which this Government has caved and watered down this legislation so as to make it meaningless.I do want to talk about clause 65(3) and I also want to talk about clause 86A(3) because these are the parts of the bill in which the Government has decided that workers do not have a right to have a say in their own safety in certain businesses. This simply is not good enough. If we consider the contribution that we just heard from the member Alastair Scott it absolutely ignored the pathway that got us to this position which is that we had a tragedy in this country where workers died at work. I think every member in this Committee agrees that that is not something that we as legislators should tolerate.That tragedy sparked a royal commission and what were the findings of that royal commission? It found that workers should have a greater say in their workplace health and safety. This was the recommendation that was picked up in the legislation that was initially brought to the House. This was the recommendation that meant that we voted for this bill at its first reading. It is the inclusion of clause 65(3) and the fact that certain businesses are exempt has meant that we cannot support this because it does not follow the royal commission’s findings. It does not give workers an appropriate say in their workplacehealth and safety.Government members opposite know this. The regulatory impact statement tells them what best practice around this is. It tells them that in New Zealand when compared with other jurisdictions there is less support for health and safety representatives and explicit protections for workers who raise health and safety issues. This is the advice that these members should be taking on board. The whole point of this is that the member Alastair Scott can point to all the other provisions that he thinks are effective and hunky-dory in Part 3 of this bill but without having appointed health and safety representatives and health and safety committees how is it that these provisions are going to be policed?I have got a question for the Minister in the chair Michael Woodhouse. What we heard from the contributing Government members who were speaking on this bill was that they seemed to be telling us it is OK because the compliance will happen through other measures. So I would like the Minister to listen and answer the question when I ask him whether he is planning to increase the number of WorkSafe inspectors who will be policing this legislation in exempted industries and in businesses with under 20 employees.Is this something that the Minister has budgeted for in this year’s allocations? Is that something that he is going to be looking for in future Budgets? That is what Government members seem to be telling us—that in lieu of appointing health and safety inspectors who would be appointed if it were not for clause 65(3) there are other mechanisms to do it. Is he going to have WorkSafe inspectors camped out outside farms ready to ensure that compliance is happening? Because this is what the Government members who are taking calls seem to be implying. So I am very interested to know exactly where that is budgeted for within the Minister’s votes.I am really interested to know whether there will be increased WorkSafe inspectors for some of these high-risk industries—for example pine cone collecting which will be deemed a high-risk industry. Pine cone collecting is deemed a high risk? Compare that with tree pruning or thinning in a forest which is not high risk according to the Minister’s classifications. My colleague Grant Robertson talked about curtain installation being high risk—he said it is high risk when he does it and I have to say that I have no—