Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe Madam Chair and thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this debate of the Appropriation (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. Now this part of the debate is focusing on the economic development and infrastructure sector and I would like to take the opportunity here to acknowledge Jonathan Young for his chairing of this committee. I'm what's called a floater on Thursdays and that means that you get to see different select committees and you get to see different ways of how they are chaired and it's fair to say that Jonathan Young in the way that he chairs that committee definitely has deserved his nickname Jonathan Gold Star" Young—a pleasure to sit in on his committees.Now on a not-so-good note one of the previous speakers the Hon Paul Goldsmith posed some questions with regards to economic development. He asked us "What is needed for higher productivity?" and "Under National we created all these jobs." Now on this side of the House we are a little bit more aspirational.This part of the debate focuses on economic development and infrastructure which includes the workplace relations and safety sector and I'd like to talk about the safety reviews that I have been part of in the Education and Workforce Committee in particular the safety of workers and if time permits the safety of the roads. In the 2017 and 2018 annual review of WorkSafe the select committee learnt that there has been progress with regard to the health and safety system in New Zealand especially when looking back at the dark days since the Pike River tragedy but New Zealand is still one of the worst performers. In fact it's in the bottom quartile of performance in the OECD when it comes to health and safety and that is rather shameful.So while we have made progress areas that continue to cause concern are in particularly forestry and agriculture. Rates of death and injury are still high in these industries and in the review we heard that in the agriculture sector there are at any time 600 workers off with an accident injury.We also heard that good work is being done through harm reduction programmes and through tripartite forums where again unions play a crucial role. In fact it was the board chair of WorkSafe who was very clear that international evidence shows us that unionised workplaces are safer. The reason for that is that when you have a unionised workplace there is support and representation to raise issues without jeopardising the particular person's security of employment. And it's no coincidence that in the particular health and safety priority areas such as agriculture and forestry there is the biggest challenge when it comes to worker representation and participation. So in these last sectors that I mentioned we still see people dying and being seriously injured in the workplace.We heard at the particular annual review of mixed ownership and leadership of the sectors poor health and safety performance and as a result also mixed accountability around the need to change. In the annual review we were provided with evidence highlighting the importance of giving workers a voice that bypasses the unequal worker-employer power relation thereby removing workers fear of retaliation if they speak up and are potentially in jeopardy of losing their job. Now poor working conditions injure and kill people and that's why it is so very important we do everything possible to ensure that those who are simply going about their business going to work to earn a living return home safely to their families. So a really important and valuable review we did with WorkSafe.To touch very briefly on transport in the 2017-2018 annual review of the Ministry of Transport—and we heard it from the Hon Phil Twyford as well—one of the major priorities here for the ministry has been road safety with a commitment to putting safety at the centre of land transport decision-making. This Government has invested $1.4 billion over three years to upgrade some of our most dangerous roads. Too many people are killed or being seriously injured on our roads. We need to continue to invest in safer roads in particular in the regions and move away from big gold-plated projects in the cities.Now the Prime Minister yesterday after Cabinet made the comment "Have we done everything that we wanted?" Now of course we haven't but it's clear we've made significant improvements and we are committed to addressing long-term challenges this country faces."