Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill. I note the speech by the Minister around this legislation and what it fundamentally does. About 10 years ago or coming up to 10 years ago a National Government brought in the health and safety legislation to try to improve the workplaces of New Zealand the safety rates following the Pike River disaster. And everybody in this Parliament—and I'm sure New Zealanders—agree with the basic premise that we should do what we can to ensure that people return home from work safe to their families to their loved ones so that they can continue to enjoy life as a New Zealand citizen and do well. And so there's been enormous resources put in by Governments but also by businesses up and down the country to try and improve our safety record. There was a significant improvement in the first few years. That level of improvement has tailed off in recent years notwithstanding continued large further investment. And that is a real challenge that we face as a country and one that we want to see improved.The original legislation when it came to health and safety committees and representatives within workplaces put a cap on 20 employees for larger businesses. Yes that all makes sense and it works but we spared small businesses from having to have these arrangements because we were concerned about the costs imposed on what are small businesses and the pressure that they are under. This bill removes that and says that even if you're a tiny business with only five part-time employees you may be required to have a committee and have a health and safety rep. They need to go off and do training for a day or two and that's just what has to happen. We in the National Party don't agree with this amendment. We think the original arrangement limiting it to businesses with more than 20 employees was appropriate. I heard the Minister say he had the moral case for this and the moral case was that it is the workers that bear the burden of harm. And yes that is something we should be absolutely focused on in order to keep New Zealand workers safe. But one thing he sort of neglected to mention was that it's not just workers that bear the burden of harm when it comes to trying to operate a small business successfully. We in Parliament go up and down the country meeting small-business owners many of whom as all the surveys will demonstrate have very high levels of anxiety and depression. And there is a sense of hopelessness on the part of many small-business operators in this country who feel overwhelmed and overburdened with the pressures that they face not just from a from a trading perspective—that is part and parcel of trying to run a small business; you have to compete to survive—but they are also overwhelmed by the level of costs and regulations being imposed on them that they are not able necessarily to cope with or pass on to customers and so the pressure is on them. If you go to Retail NZ if you go to the small-business agencies you will see the real burden that falls upon them as well—notwithstanding of course the law and order concerns if you're a small retailer worried about ram raids or many other law and order type issues which is a separate—well it's not unrelated when it comes to health and safety. For many of the small businesses I mentioned particularly small retail operators little dairies the number one health and safety issue they face is crime and people attacking them. So a Government that's really focused on them will be focused on actually restoring law and order in this country and doing that effectively. Our concern more generally is to ask how we ensure that we continue to improve our health and safety outcomes as a country but also be mindful of the practicalities of those small-business operators who over the last few years under this Government have faced one thing after the other in terms of additional costs. We've seen very very significant increases in the minimum wage above the rate of inflation. And everybody wants to have higher incomes. Absolutely. But if the Government's response is just to legislate for higher incomes and just assume that small businesses can afford to pay it or their customers can afford to pay it well that's fine but most practical people will recognise that it's only a more productive business that can sustainably pay higher incomes. That's what you need. If you want to have higher incomes you need a sustainably more productive and competitive business. Otherwise higher incomes in the absence of that will inevitably lead either to higher prices or to that business struggling to survive. And so they've had all those increases. They've also had a doubling of the sick leave entitlement. And again if you talk to most small-business operators the amazing thing about the sick leave entitlements is they're not pro rata-ed in the sense that if you have a person who works one day a week they were entitled to five days' sick leave; now they are entitled to 10 days' sick leave. And so if you're working one day a week then all of a sudden 20 percent of your days could be sick leave days. And you'll hear many small-business operators saying that the workforce does tend to fall into two camps: those who very rarely take sick leave and those who take the full entitlement. If you double the entitlement then that has an impact. Then you've had an extra public holiday. Then you've had the imposition of fair pay agreements that are coming down the line which will lead to a whole lot more additional costs. And then there's this one here this bill where a small operator with a handful of employees may have the obligation of sending one of them off for two days of health and safety. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment estimated it might cost $1355 to provide the two days of training that's required. Of course they have to be put up somewhere else and there's travel associated with it. And then there's the small problem of: well who actually does the job while they are away for two days? So you need an extra person coming in. So it all might add up to $2000 or $3000 that a small business has to find. Now Minister Wood sitting here in Wellington says Well that's no big deal nothing to worry about; everything will be fine." But if you're on the edge a small trader who's under pressure it all adds up. And as the Minister said yes the end of the world is not going to arrive because of this bill. This is not a major piece of legislation that's going to be the end of the world for small businesses. It's just another—another—thing that they need to concerned about; just another thing that that comes on top of all the other things that have come down the line. And so our overall perspective is that this is another burden that they don't need at this time. And the idea is that a small business with a small group of people who sit down around the table at morning tea together over their sausage rolls and their cup of tea can sort out these issues informally and be very focused on a health and safety culture because the obligations of an employer in terms of providing a safe employment operation don't change if you're a small business or a big business; the obligations still lie on the owners of those businesses. And so that is how we think it should be carried out. We on this side of the House stand very much for a culture of improving our health and safety in this country. We believe the existing legislation with regard to health and safety representatives and health and safety committees is appropriate—that is to say that larger businesses with more than 20 employees should have them and those smaller businesses should be able to deal with these things as they have over the last few years. And with that I'll leave my comments."