Wall Louisa: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6103. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): It is my pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage on Part 4 of the Health and Safety Reform Bill. I have been trying to find a clause in the bill that I could actually speak to that no one else has addressed and I actually have a serious question for the Minister in the chair the Hon Nicky Wagner. It relates to clause 169 “Sentencing criteria”. I read in subclause (2)(e): “the degree of departure from prevailing standards in the person’s sector or industry as an aggravating factor;”. The reason I have brought that up is that I have been trying to find out what these prevailing standards are so if the Minister could provide me with a definition of what prevailing standards are I would really appreciate it.The reason I would really appreciate that is that I want to acknowledge that WorkSafe put out a publication in April this year. It is titled Health and Safety Attitudes and Behaviours in the New Zealand Workforce: A Survey of Workers and Employers. It is a qualitative analysis and it really focuses on the agricultural sector—so it is an agricultural report. The reason I really want to ask about the definition of prevailing standards is some of the findings in this report. What we know is that every year almost 100 people die in workplaces across New Zealand and 94 percent of the people who die are men. They die in high-risk industries like forestry construction manufacturing fishing and the agricultural sector. The interesting analysis for me is that when I look at the characteristics of these industries the report says that they are driven by pride and they are driven by masculinity and it is in a hierarchical context people are under pressure and it is becoming increasingly diverse.But the other thing specifically in the agricultural space is that those people are independent and isolated so we are talking about a group of people who in some regards have—and I will quote again from this report which says that: “Health and Safety is considered important but something that can get in the way of day-to-day farming. Unpredictability of agricultural work may foster a fatalistic attitude”. So the people who work in the agricultural sector actually have an attitude that things just happen that cannot be changed. I think that actually the whole intention and focus of this legislation is to change things and it is to make sure that 100 people a year—mostly men—are not dying in the workplace. When we are faced with these attitudes of the people who work in these industries themselves I guess I am now highlighting that the prevailing standard or attitude within a sector is actually this one of a fatalistic idea of the work space. And actually the whole reason we want somebody in power to be a health and safety representative is so we can change these attitudes.How are we going to change the attitudes of a sector where we know that many of them are dying? That is what I want to know because if this piece of legislation is not going to be part of changing those attitudes attitudes that are actually killing people—they are killing husbands they are killing fathers they are killing grandfathers and they are killing brothers. No one has really talked about the gender implications of this piece of legislation. This legislation is about our men which is why we saw the women come here crying and holding their husband’s photos. Families have been wrecked and I just do not understand what is happening given where this legislation came from.That is my question to the Minister in the chair: what is going to happen then if the prevailing standard or attitude in these sectors means that it is OK for people to die? How is WorkSafe actually going to change that outcome? Are we going to tolerate it and say: “Hey it’s OK. We’re OK with 100 people dying every year because you know the people who work in the sector have got this fatalistic attitude that some of them are just going to die.” Is that acceptable? What this legislation actually says is: “Yes it is. It is acceptable. We as a country accept that 100 people”—