Mitchell Clayton: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5990. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): It is a great privilege to again be standing in the Chamber to come back and talk about Part 2 which is “Health and safety duties”. We do actually have Supplementary Order Paper 110 along with the Supplementary Order Papers from the Greens and the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety himself. Before I go into that I would just like to reflect with the Minister that I hope the praise we have been giving the honourable member does not go to his head and that he still keeps this interaction going because it is very very important. I would also like to reflect for a moment just rewinding the clock to get some clarity about clause 10 which of course is to do with those high-risk plants. If we could get some clarity because that will come up a little bit later on in clause 227 further down in the bill—if the Minister could give us some clarity on that I would be very appreciative.I do not want to keep going backwards but for the purposes of the people back home or sitting in the gallery who do not have this magnificent piece of legislation in front of them to go through and peruse as we all have I think it is very important to just talk for a quick second about the words “reasonably practicable” because they do come up quite a lot. This bill does introduce the words “reasonably practicable” and it says that businesses must do what they can reasonably do to keep workers and those others affected by work safe and healthy. So that is going to come up quite a lot.I would also like to just take a moment to look at clause 52 in Part 2 which is “Duty to notify notifiable event”. I think that is a very commendable clause in this bill in Part 2. It is very very simple and it is very very plain English but there is a duty to notify any harm being caused to your workers and then the second part of that is clause 53 “Requirement to keep records”. Once you can measure a problem you can then manage the problem and I think this is a fantastic tool to enable health and safety for the future and just track where it is going and how it is going.I take this moment also to look at some of the industries around the country that are on a decline with the number of serious events illnesses and deaths within their businesses. I think New Zealand Railways has had a remarkable change of direction with about 30 percent fewer injuries in its space. That is a culture shift that has happened from the top down and the bottom up simultaneously to achieve that great result and we would like to see that continue. Also the logging industry has had a remarkable downturn in deaths and again it comes down to that bottom-up as well a top-down approach.Primary duty of care is really what this part is all about and so what we have got here is clause 30 and it says here: “(1) A PCBU must ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the health and safety of—(a) workers”. I would just also like to say that the current legislation that we have got there I think sums it up very very nicely and it does not show up anywhere in this new bill. Sections 15 17 and 19 of the current legislation are about the duties of employers employees and the self-employed people. It says that every employer employee or a self-employed person shall take all practicable steps to ensure that no action or inaction of any person whether it be an employer an employee or a self-employed person while at work harms themselves or any other person. I think that is just absolutely fantastic. It would have been good to see that in this new bill because I think it encapsulates everything in so far as a duty of care goes which is what we are trying to resolve here.I know the clock is ticking and my time is very very short with these 5-minute sessions that we get. We do have an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 110 that would amend clause 43. What we are proposing is after clause 43(2) we would like to see added: “(3) A person does not commit an offence against subsection (1) if the person is a self-employed individual who is both a PCBU and a worker in a small- or medium-sized enterprise in the event of an accidental death of their spouse de facto partner or civil union partner who is also a PCBU and a worker in the same small- or medium-sized enterprise.” That sounds very convoluted but quite simply we are very concerned again about the unintended consequences of this bill. That amendment that New Zealand First is trying to have put in is a pragmatic solution to what we see as a potential issue that has been overlooked.This is specifically around where—let me just use it for an example but it will not preclude other businesses in a similar situation—you have got a farmer and his wife living together. They are directors on the farm and they are owners of the farm. They are clearly persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) and workers at the same time. In the situation where the famer goes out and has a fatal accident—and we are talking about accidents here; we are not talking about anything nefarious and horrible—under this bill the wife who is also a PCBU and who is responsible for her partner or husband’s death could be up for some very very heavy penalties fines and potentially some imprisonment. What we are trying to preclude is—the loss of a loved one is bad enough to not warrant the fact that they may lose their business or their farm as well as that.Thinking about it it was a very very difficult piece of legislative amendment to propose. We have taken this to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and it did not get the support that it deserved but I know that back out there in the real world where people are concerned about their loved ones and their safety but also about the fact that if there is an accidental death that they could actually lose everything as well as their loved one—I think to put that to the Committee that that needs to be very heavily considered. Support for that Supplementary Order Paper would certainly be well appreciated by all those rural farmers and small business operators who want to be able to leave a legacy behind for their loved ones if they are in fact involved in a fatality in a workplace.There are certainly parts of Part 2 with regard to duties that we do support. To reflect on that we do support the engagement process the reporting process and the record-keeping. We think that is absolutely fantastic. We do have some concerns about parts that will potentially have some very long-term and damning effects on those loved one left behind in a fatality or an accident. Thank you.