Lees-Galloway Iain: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6138. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): The title of this bill is the Health and Safety Reform Bill and that is what we thought we were going to get: genuine reform of our health and safety regime in New Zealand. Certainly that is why members on this side of the House voted for this legislation at the first reading because that is what we thought we were going to get and that is what New Zealand so desperately needs: genuine health and safety reform.If you compare New Zealand’s rate of deaths and injuries at work per capita with any other comparable country our record is woeful. We did not need the Pike River tragedy to realise that we needed genuine reform of our health and safety system but it took Pike River to create the political impetus for that Government to be prepared to do anything about health and safety reform. But even in the absence of Pike River we knew that we needed reform of our health and safety systems because we kill and maim more people at work than any other comparable developed nation.So when the Government told us we were going to get a health and safety reform Act we thought that was brilliant and we thought—when we saw this bill at its first reading—that it was based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. We thought that it was based on the recommendations of the Government’s own Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety and that it was based on the Australian model law. We thought that it looked quite good and we thought that we were going to get genuine reform of health and safety.How times have changed in the nearly 1½ years since those first reading speeches. How much things have changed because that Government over there has shown its true colours and demonstrated that reform of the health and safety systems—reform that genuinely will improve health and safety so that workers have a real say about how health and safety regimes will operate in their workplaces reform that is based on evidence and the kind of reform that looks at the things that we know work and the things that have the greatest impact on health and safety in workplaces—has been thrown out the window because of politics. The National Government has bent over as far as it can to accommodate its supporters in the rural community and to accommodate people like the Talley’s Group which came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and told us about how health and safety representatives were going to be the destruction of its business as though people working in its business were for some reason going to want to destroy it from the inside.So did the Government listen to the reasonable sensible employers who came to the select committee and said: “We think this legislation looks pretty good; it could do with a few tweaks here and there.”? No. It listened to those who were opposed to the idea of genuine reform as this title suggests—genuine reform of the health and safety regime in New Zealand. It listened to those who came along and said: “This legislation is an overreaction. This legislation is a knee-jerk reaction to what happened at Pike River.” That is what some of these employers and other groups came along and told us at the select committee. They were in the minority. It is not what the majority of submitters came and told us but they were the ones that the Government listened to.So really this title has become a misnomer. This title has become completely misleading because we no longer have genuine reform of the health and safety regime in New Zealand. We no longer have the type of reform that we actually need.Andrew Bayly: We do—it’s called 247 pages’ worth.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: If Andrew Bayly disagrees with me then Andrew Bayly should get to his feet and take a call on clauses 1 and 2 of this bill and tell me why I am wrong. If Andrew Bayly is not prepared to do that and if Jonathan Young is not prepared to do that and if any of the other National MPs who were on the select committee and who were prepared to water down this legislation and were prepared to weaken it and were prepared to do things that were asked of them by their special interest groups will not do that then we have to believe on this side of the Chamber that actually they do not have an argument against us saying that this is not genuine reform any more. They actually know in their hearts that we are right and they are wrong. If they are not prepared to get up and tell us why we are wrong about this then we have to believe that we are right and they are wrong.I would like to talk a little bit about the commencement clause as well because this is a rather complicated commencement clause. The different clauses of this legislation will commence at different times. We have got everything from commencement on the day after the bill receives the Royal assent all the way through to the final cut-off point of 1 January 2018. So that is over a period of 2½ years that this legislation will slowly be rolled out. That is understandable actually. This is a large document. It is—Andrew Bayly: 247 pages—comprehensive.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is 247 pages long and Andrew Bayly reads every single one of them every night. It could have been comprehensive Andrew Bayly. It could have been comprehensive but unfortunately the National Government ripped the guts out of it so it is not comprehensive any more. It is just a lot of paperwork for not a lot of substantive change.But this commencement clause does have a number of different parts. I have looked closely at which clauses will commence immediately after the bill receives the Royal assent and they are some of the more technical aspects.Sue Moroney: Some of the more contentious parts.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Some of those aspects relate to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act as well. My colleague Sue Moroney says it is some of the more contentious parts. I am sure that will be part of her contribution on the commencement clause.Most of the bill actually will come into force on a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council. That is something that often makes members of Parliament a little bit nervous. It certainly makes the Regulations Review Committee a little bit nervous. There are members of the Regulations Review Committee in the Chamber and I would like to hear from them as well—about how commencement clauses that are brought into effect by Order in Council make them nervous—because what that does is it actually takes the legislative process out of Parliament’s hands and puts it into the Government’s hands.I do not think that we would be able to support that approach on this side of the Chamber were it not for subclause (3) of clause 2 which says that “Any provision that has not earlier been brought into force comes into force on 1 January 2018.” So the Government cannot delay the commencement of any parts of this legislation past 1 January 2018. It is kind of a quid pro quo so that Parliament knows that this legislation will be fully enacted by 1 January 2018. We will accept that it is practical for aspects of the legislation—a considerable chunk of the legislation in fact—to be brought into force by Order in Council by the Government but because we know that that all has to be done over a 2½ year period we will be able to accept that.But the fact is that it does not matter how long it takes to enact this legislation—this is not the reform we were looking for. This is not what New Zealanders were promised. This is not what the families of the victims of the Pike River tragedy were promised. What they were promised what we were promised and what the people of New Zealand were promised was real reform—reform based on evidence reform based on best practice and reform based on overseas changes that have already been made on overseas legislation that has been working well for a number of years in a similar context to the New Zealand environment. That is what we were promised. That is what we thought we were going to get but sadly because this Government has been prepared to play politics on health and safety and because this Government has been prepared to play politics with working people’s lives this bill should no longer be called the Health and Safety Reform Bill. This should be called a list of promises that were made to the victims of one of the most horrendous workplace tragedies in New Zealand and that were broken by this National Government.