Davis Kelvin: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5992. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): As someone who has not had a lot to do with the development of the Health and Safety Reform Bill I have got a few questions I would like clarified. The first one is about the PCBU. I just wonder whether that is what we used to call in the old days the b-o-s-s. Is it? If it is I can relate this to my previous work in the Ministry of Education.When I was working in an office in Kaitāia we had a flat structure there so we did not actually have any PCBUs or b-o-s-s-e-s in the office there. The other members who worked there—their boss was actually based in Whangarei so I assume that their PCBU or person conducting a business or undertaking would be someone based in Whangarei. I was actually managed out of Wellington so I would assume that that was where my PCBU was but I just wonder how in a situation like that the PCBU actually gets to manage the health and safety of employees who are at a distance. Then when I would come down to Wellington I was at the bottom rung of the ladder and my direct-report PCBU was actually the next rung and there were about five more rungs in the ladder.I just want to know whether all of those people are PCBUs and if they are who are they PCBUs of? How does the structure actually work in an organisation like a ministry? Between me the bottom rung of the ladder and Peter Hughes the top rung of the ladder—are they all PCBUs? And what is the responsibility of each person?I am sorry but I have to harp back to Part 1. In the purpose clause clause 3(1)(a) says that the purpose is “protecting workers and other persons against harm to their health safety and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks arising from work or from prescribed high-risk plant;”. Nowhere else in the bill have I seen welfare mentioned. If we go to clause 30 “Primary duty of care” it says: “(1) A PCBU must ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the health and safety of—(a) workers …” and clause 30(2) says: “A PCBU must ensure so far as is reasonably practicable that the health and safety of other persons …”. The legislation goes on like that. It talks about the health and the safety but nowhere else does it mention the welfare. In my mind the health is about the lack of illness safety is about the physical safety—making sure no one is injured—and welfare to me talks of people’s mental state in their place of work. If it is not mentioned anywhere else I would like to know why someone’s welfare or their mental welfare is not considered in the rest of the bill.We can use an example such as the forestry worker who is working the chainsaw. We can understand about his safety there using dangerous instruments but his welfare—I have heard stories of the pressure being put on the people who are wielding chainsaws in forestry. They actually have to up their cut rate so that they are sawing down more trees and that pressure is coming from the contractor. The contractor I assume is their PCBU and the contractor’s pressure is coming from people higher up such as the forest owners who want a greater return. So the forest owner is actually putting pressure on the contractor. The contractor is putting pressure on the worker. But the forest owner is divorced or removed from any responsibility for the well-being of the guy on the chainsaw and yet that person is the one who is most at risk. How does that work and how is responsibility put where it should be on to the people who are putting pressure on so as to get a dividend? I would like that answered.To use quite a topical example the guard in a Serco-run prison who is one person looking after 50 inmates—what about his emotional welfare? Obviously when you are one person overlooking a number of people who are gang associates and they want you to do something that you know is illegal and they put pressure on you to intimidate you to do things—