Hague Kevin: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 27 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6288. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Over the past 5 years I have stood often in this House to speak about the tragedy of Pike River and the reasons for it. I have laid the blame fair and square on the error of deregulation from the 1990s—the withdrawal of the State from ensuring worker health and safety the dismantling of the underground coalmining regulations and the abolition of the check inspectors. The Green Party has worked tirelessly to expose this systemic failure the reasons for it and we have worked to find solutions. We take some significant credit for the High Hazards Unit for the royal commission of inquiry for the independent taskforce for the re-regulation of underground coalmining and for the return of check inspectors. It is scandalous that it took all this time and the deaths of 29 men in the Pike River mine for these changes to occur. All of the Governments since the 1990s I am sure now must feel some sense of discomfort even shame that it has taken that long. None of those changes would have come naturally to this Government. It is against its political nature. It has made those changes only because it judged that it was politically not viable not to do so.But the years have passed and now we find that the legislation that is intended to overhaul the health and safety legislation which underpins all of those things comes back to the House for its final reading in diluted form. I do not know whether that dilution has occurred because the National Party’s donors and sponsors objected to the legislation in its original form. I do not know whether the reason was instead that there was a resurgence of the neo-liberal members of the National Party caucus. But what I do know is that the issue that we should be focused on in this House is not the worm farming and the minigolf—a farcical situation created by the National Party trying to carve out an exemption for its mates. Instead what we should be focused on is the fact that the legislation that is being passed today in this third reading—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry I am going to interrupt the member. It is a longstanding series of Speakers’ rulings that have indicated that members cannot allege that bills have been changed to please parties’ donors. The member has done that and I ask him to withdraw that comment.KEVIN HAGUE: I withdraw it. What I am saying to the House today is that the issue that we should be focused on as a House is the fact that the legislation that will be passed today does not honour the right of all workers to a safe workplace. That is the issue that we should be focused on.My colleague Denise Roche has already mentioned that small workplaces in some situations are more risky than large ones. Members of this House will know that in smaller workplaces the personal relationships between bosses and workers often create a situation where it is not viable for workers to raise their concerns. In those small workplaces the principle that the Government members have spoken about today and throughout this debate of worker engagement and participation is meaningless if their right to representation on health and safety is not honoured as it is not in this legislation.In 2011 I listed in this House members of the Government who had been members of the House back in the 1990s when the changes to health and safety legislation that I described were passed. I can tell you that the Government members in 2011 did not appreciate me doing it. Members of the Government benches in the 1990s spoke about balance as indeed Government members in this debate today and throughout have been saying. That is the balance between the rights of employers and the rights of workers.West Coast regional councillor Peter Ewen has written a book about Pike River which he subtitled Death by Parliament. I have a sick feeling that at some time in the future an Opposition member will be standing where I am today reading out the names of the members on the Government benches who are passing this legislation today. Thank you.