Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you. This time it is my turn. Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am rising to take this call on this member's bill the Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill. I too believe as has been said previously that this bill is well intentioned and I would have liked to support the bill drawn in the name of the member Harete Hipango but I won't be able to do so. Like I said on a previous occasion—I spoke on a bill from Denise Lee in fact—I too believe Harete is a good sort and I would have liked to have supported the bill but unfortunately the bill drawn in her name is not so I won't be supporting it.The bill of course proposes to amend a section of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015—section 17(2) in fact—and it does so by a change of five sentences. Now the member Alfred Ngaro previously said it's a very small amendment and I agree—five sentences or four and a half in fact doesn't seem like much of a change. But this small change could have very wide-ranging consequences and I will come back to that.Just to give a little bit more context to it the bill proposes that the volunteer association which employs a person for not greater than 100 hours is excluded from the current legal definition of a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU). The PCBU is a very broad concept used all through the health and safety at work legislation and it describes all sorts of working arrangements and we refer to those as businesses. So most New Zealand businesses are in fact classed as PCBUs and therefore they are bound by the obligations they have and their primary duties of care under the Act. However volunteer associations currently are excluded from PCBUs if they are solely run by volunteers. So as long as they don't employ anyone as long as they don't pay anyone they are excluded from those primary duties of care and responsibilities that PCBUs have.Now what does the current legislation actually say that those responsibilities are—and it has been mentioned by the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway previously as well. Section 36(2) actually states that A PCBU must ensure so far as is reasonably practicable that the health and safety of other persons is not put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking." So very clearly the sentence includes "so far as is reasonably practicable." These duties of care these responsibilities are not so onerous that they would put some kind of an unreasonable burden on the PCBU. These responsibilities include things like providing workers with protective equipment engaging with workers on health and safety matters and providing—as reasonably practicable—workplaces without health and safety risks.Now we haven't seen any evidence put forward that would suggest that there is any particular problem that needs to be addressed that warrants a change of legislation but despite that lack of evidence what this bill seeks to do is it seeks to extend the exemption of volunteer associations to associations which have people in paid employment. So it proposes an exemption from New Zealand's main health and safety law for workplaces. So that is very clearly a weakening of workers' rights and it's a very slippery slope to removing workers' rights from other groups. And all this comes at a time when this Government actually is doing a whole lot of work to strengthen those rights again.But then again it's no surprise in a way because weakening workers' rights is what we have seen from the National Government over the previous nine years. We've seen a constant undermining of employment legislation and it has eroded working conditions. So really it shouldn't come as a surprise that we now see a proposal to weaken health and safety protections for working people. Now it's important to consider that this is actually legislation that was put in by the previous Government so it seems rather odd that they don't seem to believe that that was the right thing to do.So all workers deserve the same protections at work and no worker should be injured at work. No workplaces should be exempted and therefore I don't support this bill. Thank you."