Wood Michael; Dean JacquiHEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK (HEALTH AND SAFETY REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMITTEES) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I move That the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill which I hope reaches its legislative conclusion this evening is another small step towards making New Zealand workplaces safer and reducing the unacceptable burden of harm that falls on many New Zealand workers. I think that every member of this House would wish to see that New Zealand workplaces were places that are safe and that keep New Zealand workers healthy. Yet for anyone who is engaged with this issue we know that we have a great deal more work to do if we want to reach that ambition.To take just one measure that is the measure of fatalities across New Zealand workplaces twice as many people in New Zealand workplaces die on average per capita as in Australia and four times as many as in the United Kingdom. That increased burden of harm replicates across different levels of harm whether it is serious accidents in the workplace or some of the horrific long-term illnesses that afflict many people often many years after they have finished at workplaces. There are many things that we have to do across our workplace health and safety system if we want to continue making improvements in the space but there is absolutely no doubt—based on all of the evidence in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world—that one of the most important things that we can do is to improve worker participation including through the ability of workers to have health and safety representatives to put forward their concerns in the workplace.That is why this was a Labour Party manifesto commitment and one that we are proud to complete tonight as this bill makes its way through the House. I do want to at this juncture thank all members who have participated in this bill's passage. Those members on the Education and Workforce Committee and members in the House have contributed to the debate from all sides. The select committee in particular those members of the public and organisations who submitted on the bill and of course the Government officials from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment who helped to prepare and support this bill through the House.I've been relatively clear in my speeches on this bill that this isn't the biggest move that we've ever made on workplace health and safety. It's a modest additional measure that we believe will make a positive impact. And actually one of the things I want to say at the outset is something that I hope is positive and collegial which is that this bill builds off the work of the Health and Safety at Work Act that was in fact passed by the previous Government. Now the Health and Safety at Work Act was a response to the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy which itself was obviously set up to deal with the tragedy of the 29 men who lost their lives at Pike River. The royal commission absolutely affirmed the importance of worker participation and health and safety representatives within the system. The law was based on the model legislation from Australia and when it was introduced to this House gave the ability for all workers—at whatever size of workplace it is—to be able to request a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee. It was only during the passage of the bill through the House that the previous Government made a change to exempt those workplaces with fewer than 20 employees from those workers having that right to be able to request a representative or a health and safety committee.Andrew Bayly: How many worked in the mine Minister?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The member asked how many were working in a mine as if a mine is the only kind of workplace that the Health and Safety at Work Act covers. This really goes to the very point about the fact that our Government does not believe that there is a well-founded justification for the exemption that was brought in. That's because we know that the burden of harm applies across workplaces both large and small. It is possible for people to develop occupational illness. It is possible for people to be injured. It is possible for people to be exposed to risks whether they are in a workplace of 18 people or 22 people. In our view therefore there is no justification for saying to one workplace of 22 people that those workers have a right to request a health and safety representative to bring forward their views and make them safer but not to the workplace next door of 18 people. It is about the risks that workers face and it is about the moral burden; the moral case here that it is workers who face the burden of that harm. It is workers who are carrying out the work in workplaces who are the ones who face the risk of becoming unwell of being injured or of being killed.They are also the ones who have the knowledge—this is the point about worker participation and health and safety representative participation. Those workers are the ones who have the knowledge of what is happening within their workplaces who understand the nature of the risks and often have the ideas and the direct front-line experience to be able to participate and put forward the positive solutions that can make that workplace safer and in fact generally more productive for everyone when they are given the opportunity to do that.So the small proportionate change that the bill does make—it's two things. Firstly just to remove that exemption so that those workers can request a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee. The words I use there are important in terms of understanding what the bill does or doesn't do because at times in the debate it has been presented that it is a compulsion for every workplace to have a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee and that is simply not the case. It gives workers the ability to make that request.It is my expectation—based on the experience of Australia and based on what we see happen in New Zealand—that all small workplaces will not request the health and safety representative. In fact I even doubt that most will. But I think that in those cases where those workers believe it would make a difference and would make them safer that they should have the right and the ability to do that and then to work constructively with their employer through those mechanisms to build a safer workplace.The second thing that the bill does as an associated change is to remove the current provisions within the legislation for the designation of high-risk industries. In the committee stage of the debate the Hon Michael Woodhouse—who of course was associated with the passage of the first bill; was the sponsoring Minister in fact—reminded the House of some of the absurdities that were created by that situation when he reopened the debate we had at the time of the Health and Safety at Work Act passage of the risks of worm farms which were classified as a high-risk industry over and above certain other agricultural industries where it was known that there were these high levels of harm that occurred.Effectively what the member was inadvertently pointing out there is that by saying that only small workplaces where there is a high-risk industry that has been identified by officials or the Government you automatically draw an arbitrary line that isn't actually always borne out in practice. The previous Government found itself in that position where it had to explain during the passage of the bill why the workers at a small business that had worm farms would be able to have a health and safety representative but workers in other kinds of businesses where there were real and extant risks would not have that same right.We don't think that the case is there to draw that artificial distinction. So by removing the exemption of small workplaces where workers cannot currently request a health and safety representative or a committee we do away with the need to have the additional bureaucracy and the additional arbitrary limitation of only high-risk industries being able to request a health and safety representative.We have heard as well during the course of the debate from the Opposition some concern about the level of cost that might apply where a health and safety representative or a committee is established. It is true that in some of those cases there will be some additional cost which comes into effect as a result of that. Generally speaking providing those sort of representative functions will take a little bit of time and might take a little bit of money.What we never hear from the other side of the House is a recognition that there is a cost on the other side as well; there is a cost in terms of human harm. There is actually an enormous economic burden that occurs across New Zealand workplaces because of the levels of harm and illness that occur in our workplaces that by many many multiples—many many multiples—outdo the level of investment that is required to give workers in the workplace the ability to have their say and participate in healthier workplaces through representative structures like health and safety representatives or committees.So I come back to where I started: by noting that this is a modest change to the Health and Safety at Work Act but it is an important one that follows through on a Labour Party manifesto commitment. It is one that is founded in the principle that workers who face the burden of harm in their workplaces—regardless of the size of that business—should have the ability to request and be represented in their workplace and have their health and safety concerns heard and be able to work constructively for workplaces that are fair and safe and decent for everyone within them. That is the vision that we have and that is why I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.