Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koe to the member Harete Hipango for bringing your first member's bill. It's always a great privilege to have a member's bill before the House. We're not supporting your bill tonight but I commend you for the work that you've done on it and the work in the Education and Workforce Committee. I just wanted to talk a little bit about what the bill actually does—it actually amends section 17 of the Health and Safety at Work Act—just so that the people sitting at home listening tonight and thinking What the hell are they talking about?" might actually get an understanding of exactly what the change is that's being proposed.The meaning of a PCBU—I think people may have heard that used a few times tonight: it stands for "a person conducting a business or undertaking". It was introduced in the 2015 Act. Currently there's a section which includes a definition of a volunteer association. The Health and Safety at Work Act as it stands excludes volunteer organisations that are solely run by volunteers. So that's the Act as it stands. Now this bill before us tonight amends that section and extends that exclusion—so away from just volunteer organisations that are run by volunteers—to associations that employ staff for fewer than 100 hours a week. I haven't heard an explanation—and I didn't sit on the select committee for the whole time that this bill was discussed; I came in at the end—as to why 100 hours a week; where that came from. Was it plucked out of the air? Was it based on some sort of analysis? I'd be interested for any further speakers to actually expand on that because it is a curious number. So the bill as it stands tonight before us would exempt volunteer associations that employ staff for fewer than 100 hours a week from their person conducting a business or undertaking obligations that stand under the Health and Safety at Work Act. So what are those obligations? Those obligations include not levying workers for protective equipment or requiring them to provide their own. So that means that if you're doing something that is not safe that you need protective equipment for your employer or the association that you volunteer or work for actually is required to provide you with that. That means that they'd be exempt from that so people would have to provide their own protective equipment. The obligations include a duty to engage with workers on health and safety—well goodness that's kind of a bit basic—and a duty to ensure as far as reasonably practicable that workplaces are without health and safety risks. So could somebody tell me across the House tonight what is onerous about that and why should there be an exemption for volunteer organisations that employ staff for fewer than 100 hours per week from those obligations? I've got a couple of questions for the National Party tonight. Does this reflect the policy of the National Party? I think the Minister earlier when he spoke raised the question: is this the direction that they're going in and is this going to move into other areas such as small business? So the former Minister in this area is actually sitting in the House and it would be great to hear whether or not it is National Party policy and what he thinks about it because it's not onerous. In fact when the eight submissions that were in support of this bill—which were nearly all from smaller sports and recreation clubs and smaller special-interest groups that were actually involved in things like animal welfare etc.—came to express their concern about the compliance burden arising from their obligations as PCBUs which is again persons conducting a business or undertaking they were asked to talk about actual compliance matters that they were struggling with or that directly impacted on their activities. Now my understanding is—and please correct me if I'm wrong; I didn't hear those submissions personally—that they struggled to say what those onerous compliance burdens actually were and that the issue was more a perception issue.The Minister mentioned this again tonight—that it was a perception issue and that it did raise some issues around what the perceptions were but they couldn't say what their compliance issues actually were. I've just read out to the House tonight what the obligations are: protective equipment engaging with workers having a safe workplace. Isn't that what we should all have in New Zealand? Isn't that what we should all aspire to? There should be no exceptions.So I struggle to understand what it is that is actually trying to be achieved here through this legislation unless—and this is where I've got real concerns—as a couple of the submitters have suggested there is a second tier of health and safety that is being sought here which essentially creates a second tier of workers or people who are working in volunteer organisations where the standards that are expected where they work are different to other workplaces. Now is that what we want in this country? As Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said tonight "At this time in our history as a country surely we do not want to be going in that direction." Not after Pike River which should have taught all of us a fundamental lesson that we should never ever compromise on health and safety in our workplaces ever again and that we should never ever want to dilute it in any way ever again.The Cancer Society of New Zealand talks about the devaluing of voluntary work and voluntary associations that this bill signals and their fear is that it signals—and I am desperately concerned that it signals this; and this is what I want to know from the National Party—a policy shift towards a two-tier system for health and safety. I can't believe—well I hope that I can't believe—that the former Minister Michael Woodhouse would ever support that. Therefore I am perplexed as to why this bill was actually brought before the House in the first place.This is the second bill tonight that I've spoken on which really talks about culture. It goes to a culture change issue and the importance of a culture that is around health and safety where it becomes endemic in our country where moving away from highest possible health and safety standards is just not tolerated. This bill moves towards a situation where it becomes tolerated for a certain sector of our workforce. We cannot tolerate that as a country. That's why we oppose this bill."