Moroney Sue: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5961. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): Finally—finally—after all the delays and all the backwards and forwards we are getting the opportunity to debate the Health and Safety Reform Bill in this Committee. I do want to take just a few minutes at the beginning of this call to respond to some of the issues that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety himself raised when he introduced the debate on Part 1 of this bill. We had delays at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The bill languished in our select committee for around about 5 or 6 weeks and went nowhere and did nothing. Today we find this Supplementary Order Paper 108 put forward by the Minister with a range of amendments and changes that the select committee could have been considering while it sat idle for 5 or 6 weeks while the National Party sorted out its internal politics. It tried to sort out its divisions and its splits over this bill. People might remember that there was some stuff going on with Judith Collins and some stuff going on with Maurice Williamson and probably with some of the other MPs from the rural areas.Now we find out that the delay that the Minister spoke about that occurred over the last 24 hours turns out to be a delay so that the Government could find a tricky way of getting farms and agriculture out of having decent representation over worker health and safety in their workplaces. That is what it has turned out to be about—not anything honourable Minister. It was not something that improves this legislation or improves worker representation over health and safety. Actually National was spending that 24 hours convincing its support parties that they should support a watering-down that specifically allows agriculture not to be included in the ability for workers to require and have an elected health and safety rep at work.One-third of the deaths in this country over the last 5 years in workplaces has come from agriculture—agriculture—and that is the area that that Government has spent the last 24 hours trying to find a tricky way of actually excluding from having the best worker health and safety representation model that can possibly be put in place. That Minister is a disgrace and it is a shame. It is a shame because at the first reading of this bill the Labour Party did support this bill. The bill was based on research and evidence it was based on the recommendations from the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and we were pleased to see it go to the select committee. But what happened thereafter was a travesty as we watched the National Party members start to crumble. We watched their knees tremble when some of their supporters came in—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!SUE MORONEY: —and gave submissions. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Can I just ask what the “Order!” was for?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Oh absolutely. The member will sit down. The member was clearly implying a lack of courage on the part of Government members by suggesting their knees trembled. I think the member knew she was doing it and she will cease.SUE MORONEY: Thank you and I apologise Mr Chair. It was a genuine question. I did not quite take it as that meaning. We watched what happened with the National Party members when their resolve crumbled over what they had gone into on the first reading of this bill when they saw a small number of employers come in and try to sort of rort the process and get this bill watered down. They have succeeded in doing that from the National Government’s perspective.This debate will be taken very seriously by the Labour Party. As the acting spokesperson on labour I want to make it absolutely clear that this is a complex and complicated piece of legislation. We do intend to debate the detail because that is the purpose of the Committee stage debate and because there are a number of amendments that we wish to pursue we do intend to be able to fully debate the implications. Nothing can be more serious in our view than the consequences of not getting this bill right and we do not believe that this bill is right.In front of me I have a taonga actually that was given to me last evening here in Parliament from the many families who have suffered workplace deaths in their families. They have lost loved ones in forestry in farming in Pike River and in a range of different workplaces and they wished this taonga to be present in the debating chamber when this debate took place. It may not always be in front of me—there is a lot of paperwork that goes on with this piece of legislation—but it will always be nearby.I particularly want to acknowledge the family of Lincoln Kidd who had this box made up. It reads: “In loving memory of New Zealanders killed at work.” Lincoln Kidd was killed in his workplace in December 2013. He was killed in the forestry sector. The court case for the prosecution against his employer starts on Monday and that is going to be a gruelling journey for his family as they face 3 weeks of court time listening to what I imagine will be an employer trying to absolve themselves of things that they should be held accountable for. That will be very difficult indeed.We do have an amendment coming forward in Part 1 of the bill and I do intend to take some time to speak about that. Before I talk about that I want to come back to the purpose clause which is in Part 1 and draw the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety’s attention to clause 3(1)(b) because I think this is the crux of what the Government has not yet got right. It says: “The main purpose of this Act is to provide for a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces by—… (b) providing for fair and effective workplace representation consultation co-operation and resolution of issues in relation to work health and safety;”.What we all know is that the best form of worker representation is when they elect from amongst themselves a health and safety rep if that is their wish. That is what we are asking for. We are asking for the Government to honour that because when this legislation first went to the select committee it entailed that for every single worker and now we are being reduced to arguing about who does not deserve to have access to worker representation on health and safety. That is what we are reduced to arguing about now and that should never have been the case. The Government enjoyed the support of this entire Parliament when this piece of legislation went to the select committee and it is a great shame that coming out of the select committee it no longer enjoys that support because it should have it. It has sacrificed workers in small workplaces and quite specifically those who work in our most dangerous—our most dangerous—sector of agriculture.I would like the Minister to explain how he can justify—how he can justify—that the biggest killer of workers in New Zealand is not going to be covered by the requirement for an employer to allow people to elect one of their own to represent them on health and safety. I do not think he is going to be able to convince New Zealanders that that is right and that that is going to improve our health and safety statistics because the largest driver of bad health and safety statistics is in fact agriculture and that is the area that the Government has moved to exclude from that representation.My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway the spokesperson on this area for the Labour Party on behalf of whom I am acting has put forward a very good Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 100 which actually promotes a change to the definition of “officer”. We want to make sure that in Part 1 there is an extension to the people who hold the primary responsibility for health and safety. They may not be the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU)—and that is going to be a phrase that we are going to hear over and over again in this debate—but they none the less are an officer who should have particular duties. Iain Lees-Galloway’s amendment is brought forward in order to do that.There are many many amendments that we are going to be debating through the course of the passage of this legislation. I really hope that the Government will put politics aside when it comes to addressing workplace health and safety and see its way to actually supporting some of the amendments that are made by the Labour Party. I can tell the Minister now that the Labour Party will be supporting some of the amendments that he has put forward in his Supplementary Order Papers. We will be supporting them because we will put politics aside for the sake of getting health and safety right in the workplace. We will put politics aside for that make no mistake.I want to see that coming from the other side as well. We have some very serious amendments that will make a difference. It will mean that we do have health and safety legislation that actually stands up to international scrutiny on what is correct.