Browning Steffan: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6119. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I am speaking to the proposed amendments to the Health and Safety Reform Bill and in particular to elements on Supplementary Order Paper 108. I just want to run us through a line in there that I hope when this legislation is implemented the Government actually takes note of and acts on. I ask the Minister in the chair whether the Government will actually get in and look at the issues of pesticides and worker safety around pesticides.I will start with clause 215(2) in Part 5 which says: “The medical officer of health must as soon as practicable after receiving the notification—… (b) provide the regulator with the following information: (i) the name of the person who suffers or suffered from the notifiable disease or injury caused by the hazardous substance;”—just think pesticides. I am referring to this because in 2009 Massey University showed that there was a big increase in leukaemia among horticulture workers. Women in particular had I think a 3.4 times incidence compared with the general public due to their work exposure. That was in 2009 just after this Government got in but I see nothing happening about that.Just sort of rolling on through in clause 217 there is the issue around the funding levy. It did concern me when I heard the debate on the different risk level between worm farming and other agriculture about what the motivation was around some agriculture and I think in this instance of dairying and beef not being included in the risk level that I would have thought was appropriate. There is a high high use of pesticides including herbicides such as glyphosate which the World Health Organization has just said is a probable carcinogen. When are we going to get those lines of inquiry to see what is happening and to see why we are getting such a high incidence of cancers in our communities and when will we then look at the workers?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member must—STEFFAN BROWNING: Sorry—I said “you” did I?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no the member—just sit please. I am on my feet. The member will sit please. We are not talking about what other inquiries there may be in terms of hazardous substances and glyphosate or whatever. You can mention it but just stick to the content of the bill.STEFFAN BROWNING: Thank you Mr Chair. Yes so I am looking at the funding levies and hoping that we will see some changes to ensure that the appropriate level of levy is there relative to the risk that is in that workplace and the workplace as I say needs to be considering those pesticides and herbicides that we are finding out more and more about.In clause 218C it says: “(1) A person must not use plant or substance at a workplace if—… (b) the plant or substance or its design is not authorised in accordance with regulations.” We need to be ensuring and the Minister will have a major role in ensuring that the regulations are appropriate to that risk. That includes obviously safety gear and the rest.Under the regulations in clause 221(1)(e)(i) we have “regulating the storage tracking and handling of plant substances or structures:”—so it is the handling of those substances and the tracking of them. The reasonI bring that up is that I am thinking that through this bill it might be that the Government does track the level of use and the volumes of use of some of these substances that will be a risk to the workers and the communities near the operation.Popping over into clause 221(1)(e)(iii) it says “regulating the examination testing analysis” and so on. Testing in this country seems to be lacking as well and I am hoping again that we will actually see some improvements through this bill when it is passed.Under clause 222 “Regulations relating to hazardous substances” in particular—and I will go straight down to paragraph (a)(v) which says “for substances with toxic properties—”. Then it says in paragraph (g) “prescribing systems for tracking hazardous substances including requirements that—… (ii) the quantity of the substances be recorded:”. We have no record of the amount of pesticide being used in our workplaces in our fields in our farms and in our forests and yet we have a large amount of disease and illness that more and more is being connected with that.So my point is that when this bill no doubt goes through—albeit our opposition to so many aspects of it—there is a great opportunity for the Minister to be ensuring that it is used in its fullness to protect our workers and communities from the pesticides in there. As I say the science is there. We know the risk is there and unfortunately a lot of what we have been calling PCBUs or persons conducting a business or undertaking are allowing staff to be putting out chemicals that they would not put out themselves—it suits them not to do it themselves. And of course we need to be educating those staff and workers and making sure that the regulations are here to support that to make sure that the right gear is being used.But ultimately we need to be doing the tracking that Part 5 allows for which is the measuring of volumes that are being used. We need to be really respecting our workers the people in agriculture and horticulture and forestry and ensuring that they are not actually being exposed to these chemicals which we know are affecting them. I want to see through this legislation that those chemicals are being measured that illness is being reported by the medical officers as this legislation can allow for and that we are starting to analyse what is going on in those workplaces. Thank you.