Copeland Gordon: Energy Safety Review Bill — Second Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Energy Safety Review Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6606] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 The Energy Safety Review Bill received its first reading in this House on 21 June 2005 prior to the last election. It was of course referred to the Commerce Committee which then in its usual way went out to the New Zealand public and particularly to the trades and professions involved in the original bill and asked for submissions. After the election I found myself the deputy chair of the Commerce Committee and I was therefore introduced to the bill for the first time. 
Being a member of that select committee has been something of an unforgettable experience because when we first started looking at the original bill I had no idea of what a huge wave of submissions we would receive and how negative many of those submitters would be in terms of the way the bill had been drafted. That is oversimplifying things a little bit because we actually had two groups of submitters: we had submissions from electricians and their professional associations and we also had submissions from plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. 
It was those in the second group who came with their teeth gnashing in rage—and I will deal a lot more with them when we talk about the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill later today. Suffice it to say people came to the select committee from all parts of New Zealand at great personal expense to express their fury that there had been no consultation with them about the contents of Parts 5 to 8 of the original bill dealing with plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. I will not go into that part of the original bill now because there will be an opportunity when the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill comes to the House hopefully later today to talk about what has happened from thereon in terms of plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. 
At this stage it is right just to talk about this bill—which was originally Parts 1 to 4 of the Energy Safety Review Bill—as it now stands in relation to safety management systems the regulation of electricians and also the regulation of gas supply systems. 
I think one of the things that also impressed me about the select committee process was actually having electrical workers from various parts of that sector come to talk to us. Some of them brought along slides and photographs and it made us realise again just how dangerous it is to work in the electrical system: how dangerous it is to put in place our transmission wires and our transmission grids and how dangerous it is to repair the electricity wires that come into our homes in the middle of the kind of weather we have had all too frequently in Wellington this year with major gales storms and so forth. 
It is quite sobering for us to realise as we sit at home and flick a switch—which day by day brings power to our lights heating to our homes and power to our computers and to all the other things we take for granted like our television sets—that there are people who devote their professional lives and trade lives to ensuring that we get that kind of service. It is actually very very dangerous work. It is dangerous for men—I do not think too many women go up those great pylons but there might be a few—to repair the damage done to our transmission grid and to the wiring system that goes with it and at the other end of the system for the sparkies who come along to our homes to fix the problems that we have. We all know what a danger electricity is to the human body. I guess most of us have had shocks at various times so we have experienced hands on the danger involved with this profession. So it is right and proper for Parliament to put in place very rigorous safety management systems. 
A similar thing applies to the gas supply system. Again that is something I take for granted. I have a little device that I click on my gas heater at home and on my gas hob for making a cup of tea in the morning. The gas comes on and it is all fine. But we all know also that when gas goes wrong there can be very very serious consequences. I speak as one whose uncle actually died in New York after a gas leakage. He was one of a number of people who were killed in that particular instance and he was buried in New York. 
But here in New Zealand too even since we have been looking at this bill I have had people write to me who have had horrendous personal health problems and tragedies following gas accidents. In one particular case a woman who lives in Waikanae has been battling a whole array of illnesses all arising from one faulty gas-powered hot-water cylinder. Again it just makes us realise that a great deal of danger is associated with both electricity and gas. 
This bill has the intent of making those systems as safe as we can humanly make them. I think the bill as it has now come back to the House is a very very good bill. It legislates for a number of things to happen but it also allows for regulation-making powers through an Order in Council—through the Governor-General—so as to get down to some of the nitty-gritty issues around specific circumstances involving electricity or gas that could not adequately be dealt with within the legislative framework. So this bill is if you like the base of a pyramid of safety around these issues but it is not the whole story and there will be more to come as we go forward. 
As others have mentioned the bill also deals with the way in which electricians become qualified the way they become registered and the way their ongoing competency is licensed. That is all designed to ensure that when these men and women go on to the front line—be it in the middle of a raging storm to fix our power network our power system and our power wires or be it just coming into our homes on a day-by-day basis to ensure that our wiring systems are in order and safe—we will be safe because they are competent fully trained and proficient at the important work they do. 
I am pleased at the changes the Commerce Committee has made. I commend this bill to the House. It has the support of United Future. 
Bill read a second time.