Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition to the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill in this its second reading. I speak in opposition to it because this is just another burden being added on to small businesses. The bill removes the threshold where persons conducting a business or undertaking are only required to have a health and safety representative or establish a health and safety committee if they employ more than 20 employees. Some of the banter that's been going on in the House today has been fairly unpleasant around employers showing disregard for their staff members. I have never seen in my time as an employer and liaising with a range of industry employers that they are not absolutely committed to ensuring that their staff are safe and are not in situations where they are hurt or worse. But this legislation has no risk assessment so it's another one of this Government's one-size-fits-all. It doesn't matter whether a small business is low risk they will be required to elect a health and safety representative and pay for their training if just one person within their employment requests that regardless of what the risk of that small business is. When the National Government previously brought in the health and safety legislation that limit of 20 employees was set because many small businesses are low risk and the cost of putting in and training health and safety representatives was too great and there were more informal ways in which those small businesses could address health and safety issues in their business. Many small businesses have a range of ways in which they support their staff. Many of these small businesses are family-type businesses; they look after their staff as if they are family. I've been to a number of industry small businesses particularly where they've put in place a range of health and safety measures—things like tool box talks at the start of the day to go over risk assessment sensible things that are going to work to keep their staff safe. So this takes away from the employers doing those sensible things with their staff and instead requires them to set up processes that are more appropriate for larger businesses.It's disappointing that the regulatory impact statement notes that there was no particular consultation with small businesses which again speaks to this Government just going ahead and doing things without asking the small businesses: what is the impact? How could this be done better? Is there another way to do it? No. We know best. We are Government; we know best here in Wellington. This is how you will do it." So it's not surprising that they didn't undertake that consultation because I'm pretty sure they would know that the feedback would be that it is not welcome—another potential cost and more regulation and it would not be welcome.Month after month we see this Government passing new legislation and more regulations that add further to the cost of running a small business. We know that small businesses in this country are already struggling with a number of other factors. They're struggling to get back on their feet after COVID-19. They're struggling with rapid and rampant inflation. They're struggling with chronic worker shortages ram raids crime—things that are impacting on the viability of their businesses. You might—sorry not you Madam Speaker; the Government might think that just adding another thing on isn't a lot but it's the final straw that breaks the camel's back in many cases. The smallbusiness owners and the farmers feel like they are just facing a deluge of regulations and legislation and it is impacting on their confidence. We see that regularly in the surveys that are done and the polls that are done around confidence levels. It impacts on their innovation and their desire to grow their businesses. So this bill does nothing but impose additional costs on at a time that our small businesses are being absolutely hammered by enough costs already. This Government is very good at sheeting back inflation to things that are happening overseas but this Government needs to realise that every time they add on another regulation another piece of legislation with a burden on small businesses it has to go somewhere. It has to be passed on somewhere and that somewhere is on to rising costs of products and services that those small businesses are responsible for. So this Government doesn't seem to get that there is a correlation between their actions and the inflation that this country is experiencing.There might have been noble reasons stated today on the other side of the House of why this legislation has been put up but let's remember this was part—and in fact the previous speaker Lemauga Lydia Sosene said it; this was honouring the manifesto of the Labour Party in the 2020 election. This was payback for the unions. So this is something that they have promised the unions—Hon Michael Wood: A point of order. It is a longstanding Speaker's ruling that implying that a member or a party is doing something as payback for an external organisation is out of order.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you to the member and with apologies. I hadn't picked that up. The member will withdraw and apologise.PENNY SIMMONDS: I withdraw and apologise. Thank you Madam Speaker. The previous speaker noted that this was honouring their manifesto—the Labour Party's 2020 election manifesto. It was honouring a promise to the unions. So the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has calculated what this will cost small businesses—and again the other side of the House might say $1300 or $1400 is small change but in these small businesses that's actually a significant cost to them. It becomes more significant when there is turnover of staff and often these small businesses have high turnover of staff. They may well have a number of staff coming in for a short period of time and so this actually could become quite a consistent burden for that small business that they are constantly having to train their staff and have their staff away from the small business during that time. Small businesses have had to absorb so many additional costs over a short period of time from this Government and I've gone over a number of those already but the small businesses cannot keep absorbing this cost. They must pass those costs on eventually and that does impact on inflation. It does impact on the cost of living crisis. This Government really needs to start joining the dots and seeing what they are contributing to this cost of living crisis. This is not a bill with only narrow impact—105000 businesses in New Zealand fall under that 20-staff threshold. So this is a piece of legislation that is going to potentially impact widely across New Zealand on small businesses. So we can expect to see the products and services that small businesses supply going up as a result of this piece of legislation that this Government has put in place. Therefore this Government will have to take responsibility for the impact that has on inflation. This Government will have to stop saying that everything that contributes to inflation is external to New Zealand. It is not; it is the things that this Government is doing the spending that this Government is undertaking and the burdens of legislation and regulations that this Government is putting on to the productive part of our economy that are contributing to inflation.This implies that our small-business owners are not doing everything they can at the moment for the health and safety of their employees. It is an unnecessary piece of legislation. Our employers are committed to keeping safe their most valuable assets: their staff. We oppose this legislation."