Nash Stuart: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6109. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): To start with I would like to talk about clause 217. This is about a funding levy. The thing that concerns me slightly is that what clause 217 basically does is set out the terms and conditions under which the Crown can actually charge an employer for WorkSafe undertaking its duties. So it is a form of user-pays I suppose. At the moment as we all know employers do pay an ACC levy and that is fair enough—Hon Member: And a tax.STUART NASH: And a tax. It is a form of tax; there is no doubt about that. But what we are finding at the moment as the Minister for ACC—who is actually in the Chamber at the moment—has said is that the ACC pot is incredibly full at the moment. So she has proudly made the announcement that she is dropping a whole lot of ACC levies—Sue Moroney: It’s too late.STUART NASH: —it is far too late—for a number of employers. But what we have here under clause 217 is the opportunity for the Minister to actually raise those levies once again. But the thing is that this is going to be collected by ACC and there are a number of terms and conditions under which this can be brought in.Let me talk about clause 217(7)(a). What this is about is certain Crown costs. What can happen is that the Minister can determine that a levy is charged it says here for “certain Crown costs” and may determine “WorkSafe carrying out its functions under any enactment:”. What I would like to know is whether in fact this is going to be mandatory and whether this is going to be put in place because the way that it is worded in this legislation is that it is. What it says is: “WorkSafe carrying out its functions under any enactment:” and the way that I read that—you know we all want a great WorkSafe. We all want an engaged WorkSafe and we absolutely require a number of inspectors to be out there making sure that businesses companies and employers are meeting their statutory obligations—that is a given. But the way this reads is that the employers are going to be charged for this.It also says that “the Crown administering”—this is another condition under which the levy can be imposed; we are talking about paragraph (c)—“the relevant health and safety legislation:” and also for “collecting the funding levy”. So you can charge people a funding levy for collecting the funding levy and in fact what can happen is that ACC can then charge WorkSafe for the fact that it has collected the levy itself.So what I see here under clause 217 is a much greater level of compliance cost that is going to be loaded on to the employer. What I would really like to know from the Minister in the chair is whether this is something that would be nice to have—let us see what happens with the cost let us see whether it blows out or let us see whether the legislation is actually meeting its statutory requirement and if it is that is fine and away we go—or whether there is going to be any more money in an appropriation to actually bolster the number of WorkSafe staff to allow WorkSafe to carry out its statutory obligations or whether in fact this is actually going to be implemented the day after or the month after this bill is enacted into legislation.I would also like to know because I cannot see it here—and that does not mean it is not here; maybe I am missing something—the level of the levy that is proposed to be charged. Is it going to be a similar sort of levy as the WorkSafe levy? For high-risk industries for example are we going to see employers actually paying double what they pay at the moment? I would suggest that for some employers if you go and double the WorkSafe levy that they pay as part of the ACC requirements at the moment that could actually be quite onerous. We all understand the reasons for health and safety in the workplace and that is a given—we do not want to see men and women injured. However if you are going to increase it by a significant amount then I think that the people of New Zealand the employers and the employees probably need to know the level at which this is going to be increased if in fact it is going to be increased. So there are a whole lot of unknowns around this that would require a level of clarification.Another clause I would like to talk about is clause 211 “Health and Safety at Work Strategy”. What clause 211(1) says is that “The Minister must publish a strategy called the Health and Safety at Work Strategy that sets out the Government’s overall direction in improving the health and safety of workers.” But the thing that surprises me a little bit here—I am not too sure why the change was made—is that in clause 211(3) it did say that “The Minister must make reasonable efforts to publish the first strategy within 12 months …” but that was amended to “24 months”.What we are talking about here is obviously a very important piece of legislation but I am wondering why the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee saw fit or someone saw fit to double it from 12 months to 24 months because even though it does state in the legislation here that this strategy must be undertaken in consultation with WorkSafe—actually it says in clause 211(6) “(a) with regulatory agencies; and (b) with other persons who have an interest in work health and safety in New Zealand …”—so it is obviously going to be a highly consultative process which it should be. I would have thought that this process would probably be under way at the moment—you would hope it would be—because you would hope that a Government would have an overarching strategy for this to start with but I am not too sure as to why it is going to take 24 months. I wonder if that is the case whether this legislation sort of operates in a little bit of a vacuum—not too much because it is quite a prescriptive piece of legislation. But I am not too sure why it was moved from 12 months to 24 months.The other thing also is that when I see these words in clause 211(3): “The Minister must make reasonable efforts to publish the first strategy …” or the term “reasonable efforts” I wonder whether that is just a little bit of an out to mean that the Minister does not actually have to do it within 24 months; he or she can push it out to 30 months or 36 months or to whatever they want. What I would really have liked to see there is: “The Minister must publish the first strategy within 24 months.” and not with the little bit of wiggle room that exists because I would have thought that 24 months is enough time to consult with those who have a really important part to say in this and to get it around the country and develop a strategy—most important.The other thing also is that it says here in clause 211(7)—and again I am dealing with semantics but you know this is what the Committee stage is about—that the Minister must present the strategy to the House as soon as is practicable. And those are the terms in the bill: “after the strategy amendment or replacement”—because the Minister can amend and replace at any time—“has been published or made under this section.” Again the words “as soon as practicable” give a little bit of wiggle room for the Minister to decide whether it is going to be a week a month or 2 months. Again what I would have liked to see because it is quite a prescriptive piece of legislation is something that said “within 5 working days” “within 5 sitting days” or “within a month after receiving it” just so there is a level of certainty there so that we know that when the Minister has completed the strategy and when he or she has done all the consultation there is a definite time frame within which this strategy is then presented to Parliament for us to look at for us to go to the workers and employers with and for us to let them know what the Government is actually talking about.Those are the only two clauses at this stage that I have questions about. I just think especially around the funding levy and clause 217 that there are a number of unknowns there that I think if we were to have a couple of answers for it might just clarify the position for employers and for employees. Thank you very much.