Bridges Simon: Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBridges Simon: Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11373. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour):I moveThat the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 30 October 2013.This bill is part of the Government’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy by the end of 2013. The bill paves the way for a new set of mining regulations that will improve health and safety in the mining industry and bring New Zealand’s regulation ofmining health and safety in line with international best practice. We owe this to the workers who lost their lives at Pike River and to their families and to all current and future workers in the mining industry.The bill before us today is an omnibus bill. It addresses those recommendations of the royal commission that require new or amended primary legislation. It will establish a new stand-alone Crown agent WorkSafe New Zealand to focus on workplace health and safety it will amend the Health and Safety in Employment Act and it will replace the Mines Rescue Trust Act.The first part of this bill as I have said establishes WorkSafe New Zealand. The creation of a stand-alone Crown agent with a dedicated focus on health and safety was a key recommendation of both the royal commission and the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety. It signals the step change required in the regulation of health and safety in the workplace.WorkSafe New Zealand will play a significant role in achieving this Government’s target of reducing workplace fatalities and serious injury rates by 25 percent by 2020. This goal should be representative of the type of approach that this new regulator should take. Improving health and safety is not about simply giving people checklists and telling them what to do; it is about letting them know what they need to achieve so that they can then set about achieving that.Part 2 of the bill amends the Health and Safety in Employment Act to provide the necessary statutory support for the new mining regulations. This includes establishing new classes of duty-holder under the Act specifically “mine worker” and “mine operator”. It also includes a definition of the mining operations that will be covered by the new regulatory regime for mining. This will include all surface and underground mines and some quarries and tunnels.Part 2 also provides for enhanced worker participation arrangements in the mining industry. The provisions strengthen worker participation in health and safety in the mining industry and in particular the functions and powers of health and safety representatives. At the same time it ensures there are appropriate checks and balances to prevent undue interference in the day-to-day running of mining operations.All mining operations will be required to have a documented worker participation system and this system will cover all mine workers at a site including contractors and subcontractors and their employees. The functions and powers of site health and safety representatives will be explicitly set out in the legislation. These include the ability for suitably trained representatives to perform inspections and stop operations if there is an imminent risk of serious harm occurring. The bill also establishes a new position of an industry-wide health and safety representative to provide in the royal commission’s words an extra set of eyes and ears and a further line of defence.These positions can be appointed and funded either by a union or by another group of mine workers. The functions and powers of both site and industry health and safety representatives will be balanced by provisions that ensure the health and safety representatives carry out their functions only for health and safety purposes and do not unnecessarily impede production.Part 3 of the bill ensures that the legislation that supports the Mines Rescue service is fit for purpose today. The Mines Rescue service plays a crucial role in emergency response. The royal commission recommended that the Mines Rescue Trust Act better reflect the functions that the service actually carries out and that there be a review of the adequacy and fairness of the levy that funds the service. Part 3 also reflects the Government’s decision to broaden the response to the royal commission to other forms of mining as well as underground coalmining. It does so by expanding the coverage ofthe Mines Rescue service. The governance of the Mines Rescue Trust is also amended to reflect this change in coverage.The Mines Rescue service has unique expertise in training and equipping brigades to respond to emergencies assisting mine operators in emergency preparedness and deploying brigades and providing advice to mine operators during emergencies. All of these capabilities will be reflected in the new functions of the Mines Rescue service provided for in the bill.The bill also enables the levy that funds the service to be set in regulations. Officials are currently developing proposals to ensure that the levy adequately covers the core functions of the service while remaining fair and proportionate for the mine operators that will be required to pay it.The introduction and consideration of this bill is happening in parallel with public consultation on the wider package of proposals for the new regulatory regime for mining. Although the consultation mainly concerns the proposed mining regulations it also covers the worker participation and mines rescue elements of this bill. This parallel process is necessary to meet the commitment to implement the response to the royal commission’s recommendations by the end of this year.Submitters have been advised that their submissions on these issues will be taken into account when officials advise the Government and the select committee on any changes that may be needed to the bill. The public discussion paper also informs likely submitters of this bill and invites them to get involved in the public submission process on it.This Government has made a commitment to the families of the victims of the Pike River mine to ensure that we follow through on every recommendation of the royal commission. If there can be any good from the tragic loss of lives then let it be movement from platitudes to action and a creation of frameworks that will shape better behaviour and outcomes in the workplace. This bill is an important step in this process and will improve workplace health and safety in the mining sector and beyond in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.