Fenton Darien: Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11375. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour):I rise to support the referral of the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I am pleased also to hear that there will be a reasonable process and time to consider what is a very very important bill but is also highly technical when it comes to the mining regulations.I want to start by noting again with sadness the needless deaths of the 29 men in that awful tragedy at Pike River mine. I know the families will be following this legislation with great interest but also it will bring up many of the issues for them again. I know their lives have been broken by this tragedy. I hope that they have a real opportunity to meet with the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and put forward their views. In fact the select committee was discussing that this morning. I think there is a willingness by the committee to actually go to them and allow that to happen.The bill establishes WorkSafe New Zealand which is a stand-alone Crown agency for workplace health and safety. As I said Labour supports it although we have some reservations that we will want to explore at the select committee. Secondly the bill implements the recommendations around an effective regulatory framework for mining. It makes quite big changes to worker participation in health and safety. We want to see these changes implemented without delay. As I said the changes to mining are particularly technical and as the Minister of Labour observed the Safe mines: safe workers consultation is still incomplete and still carrying on so that needs to feed into it.It is really important that during the process the workers who are expert in the field who actually do the jobs and the people who represent them have real input and that those who actually work in mines quarries and tunnels are heard. That is why I am pleased we have more time. The establishment of WorkSafe New Zealand was also the recommendation of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety which produced a very comprehensive report. It was a consensus report around the need for major change in our approach to the health and safety of people at work.One of the things the taskforce was particularly clear about was the need for tripartite involvement. It was very clear about that and in fact the Minister told the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee just 2 weeks ago that the WorkSafe board would include union representation. But we also know of course that the Minister is not that keen. I have seen the Cabinet papers and there were a few ifs buts and maybes.When we look at the legislation we see in clause 7 “Worksafe New Zealand’s board” that the Minister must appoint at least five but no more than nine people as members of the board. It talks about the knowledge and experience required including having experience in the public sector central government processes and the health and safety environment and then there is this peculiar phrase “perspectives of workplace participants”. What the heck does that mean? Is that supposed to be a half-hearted attempt to include workers and their unions? Could the Minister not bring himself to use the “u” word in this legislation? If he really means it when he talks about tripartism he should be able to use that word and it should be very clear in this legislation.Clause 7 then goes on to talk about business generally. The governance arrangements are left in the hands of the Minister. I am sorry but on our side of the House there is not an awful lot of trust in that Minister and in leaving it in his hands. The perspectives of workplace participants could be the perspectives of employers. So the select committee has to look at that and demonstrate that it has heard the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety and its main recommendation about the importance of tripartism. That means unions workers employers and the Government working together not excluding them—not saying: “Oh they’ve got some perspectives of workplace participants.” That is a big let-down and I think there will be a lot of discussion about that in the select committee.The functions provided for the WorkSafe New Zealand agency in the bill are a shadow of those recommended by the task force. The agency has no power to approve codes of practice. There is no role for it in making or amending regulations. It has no clear lead role in workplace health and safety. It cannot make recommendations about the nature of funding. It has no role in fostering tripartism or working with unions. Those are significant gaps in the role of this new agency that will need to be addressed to make this real and to make it work.What I think we are seeing in this bill is a hanging-on by that Steven Joyce monolith “MoBIE”—Moby Dick—that was created and was not up to the job and by those senior managers who were around when the Pike River mine disaster occurred who have not been held to account for the decisions that led to that tragedy who are desperately trying to cling on to power in that shrinking department.For goodness’ sake let us get this agency off on the right foot and accept our history. Let us understand our history and accept that the exclusion of workers and workers’ organisations in the health and safety changes to legislation in 1992 was a monumental stuff-up which ultimately led to the tragedies at Pike River and to those that continue every week in New Zealand workplaces. Every week people die.I was reading Subpart 3 of the bill which is about the transition to WorkSafe New Zealand. It deals with the transfer of existing employees under “MoBIE”—the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment—to WorkSafe New Zealand. It is veryinteresting because as I have already pointed out to the Minister today the number of health and safety inspectors will be around half the number we had 2 years ago and will be at the lowest level we have had since the late 1940s. That is how far backwards that change programme has taken us.It has been called “lifting our game” and whether the Minister likes it or not the process has been such a botch-up that the inspectors—many of whom have 20 or more years of experience and who have been through restructuring after restructuring—are calling it “shifting the blame”. I think that is appropriate because nobody at management level has been held to account for the mess that led to the Pike River mine disaster. Redundancy notices have been issued to some and inspectors are going down the road. Trainees will be taken on to fill the gap. They will be unwarranted trainees and I am told that they are going to be expected to do some of the duties of inspectors. That is really really concerning.In my last 2 minutes—there is so much in this bill and we will get a chance to look at it—I just want to go back to the point that I make again and again to this Minister about work rights and the link between work rights and health and safety which he does not get. Obviously he does not accept that the task force has identified that the health and safety problems we have in New Zealand arose from the deregulation of the labour market in the 1980s and 1990s. That was the beginning of this. At the same time as we are considering this bill in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee we are also considering a bill that will cut wages that could force workers to work longer hours and that will cut meal breaks and rest breaks—a fundamental health and safety entitlement of workers.We are going to have a big debate about this bill but what I would like to see as we progress through this—and we all acknowledge how important this is—is that we get to a point where we reach some understanding in this House that health and safety and work rights go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Until this Minister understands that his weakening of employment security and other employment rights will contribute to health and safety problems our death toll and injury toll in New Zealand are going to continue to escalate. Thank you.