Lees-Galloway Iain: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 28 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4124. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I took a close look at the Vote Labour Market documents that relate to this year’s Budget and I noted in there that there was a total of over $15 million for shared services for WorkSafe New Zealand. That is good to see. That is important. There is also a total of just under $6 million in non-departmental capital for the WorkSafe New Zealand capability change programme. Both of those funding lines are going to be very important this year for the implementation of health and safety programmes by this Government. I have no doubt that when WorkSafe went to its Minister the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and when the Minister went to the Minister of Finance and they made their Budget bids they had in the back of their minds the implementation of the Health and Safety Reform Bill which is currently—and remains much to our great surprise on this side of the House—at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee right now. That is an important piece of legislation which is going to need resourcing from this Budget to make sure it can be implemented properly.But at this stage we do not even know whether we are going to need this year’s Budget to implement the Health and Safety Reform Bill because it could be stuck at the select committee for another 12 months whilst the National members sort out exactly where they stand on this legislation. This is a really important piece of law reform and I want to remind members on the other side of the House that the catalyst for this—for them anyway—was the Pike River disaster. Just because time has moved on and the Pike River disaster seems like more of a distant memory to those members over there it does not make it any less important it does not make it any less relevant to the families of those miners and it does not make health and safety law reform any less relevant to the families of any one of the workers who are killed across our country particularly in industries like farming like forestry like fishing and of course like mining.The National Party MPs might have forgotten. They might have forgotten about the pain and the heartache of the Pike River disaster but we have not. Frankly even if that disaster had not happened then health and safety law reform was long overdue. What was introduced was a good piece of legislation based on two things primarily. One was the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and the recommendations that came from the Pike River commission and the second was the Australian model law that has been operating in Australia for over 10 years. So if members opposite think that this legislation which has been introduced and has been sitting at the select committee for well on a year now is somehow going to be impracticable and impossible to implement by businesses they need just look across the Tasman and see how it has been implemented over there. I do not want to be disparaging to our Australian cousins but frankly if they can do it then so can we.I want to know where the rebellion has come from. We know that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety to his credit actually was very comfortable with the Health and Safety Reform Bill and where it had got to at the select committee. I want to say that on this side of the House we were less comfortable. We were not pleased with the direction that it had taken at the select committee and I wish I could say more about that at this stage but the Standing Orders preclude me from doing that. But certainly the changes that had been made by the National Party MPs seemed to be very much in line with what the Minister wanted. In fact he was so enthusiastic about it that I got a phone call from him last week asking whether we could deliberate on the bill early so that he could go to a health and safety conference this morning and tell all the delegates at that conference about this wonderful new piece of legislation. That is how enthusiastic the Minister was about it and the enthusiasm seemed to be there right up until Tuesday afternoon right after the National caucus when the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety was rolled by the splits and divisions in his own caucus.I want to know where those splits and divisions come from. I think there are three suspects. The first I cannot name Mr Deputy Speaker but he is a good man who has played a good role in this Parliament. He has unfortunately been sidelined by the Prime Minister and lately he has been making some bizarre comments particularly in saying that WorkSafe officials are “dickheads”. He has been making some other comments as well and I suspect that that member might be one source of the rebellion the revolt from within the National Party caucus.There may well be another. That is one; here is No. 2: Maurice Williamson. He does not participate all that much at the select committee let us be honest but maybe whilst he has been sitting there quietly what we have not realised on the other side of the table is that he has been texting the ACT Party telling it all about this appalling piece of legislation and what an anathema it is to the hard right and the libertarian right of the ACT Party which Maurice so keenly wants to join now that he has also been sidelined by the Prime Minister. I think he is suspect No. 2 for the revolt and rebellion from within the National caucus over the health and safety law reform.But let us be honest. Suspect No. 3 is the most likely: ah yes the Hon—ahem—Judith Collins. With one eye on the leadership no two eyes on the leadership and her desire to pay back her enemies double—we know how Judith operates—we think that Judith Collins is the leader of the revolt. She is the most revolting member of the National caucus leading the fight against the Minister Michael Woodhouse and against the members of the National caucus who are on the select committee who have worked so hard and tirelessly on behalf of their Minister to craft a piece of legislation that he thinks he might be able to get past the National caucus. That is where we think the revolt is coming from. It is from Judith Collins the leader of the hard right faction in the National caucus which is pushing back against John Key’s efforts to shift the National Party into the centre. Of course in this Budget debate we have heard a lot from National Party members about how this Budget shifts them into the centre and occupies some space that they think is traditionally the space of the Labour Party. Well I think Judith Collins hates it. I think there are other members of the National caucus who hate it.The hard right faction of National is pushing back and this health and safety reform legislation is the Korean War of the Cold War going on inside the National Party caucus. It has been bubbling away for a long time now and now we are just starting to see the little skirmishes happening. This might be the Korean War. We will probably have a Viet Nam War a little bit further down the track. The splits and divisions within the National caucus are certainly starting to come to the fore and this is the first fight—the fight over health and safety. This is good legislation that this Budget appears to support. This Budget appears to have the funding to implement the health and safety law reform. The question is: have the National Party members got the guts to stand up against their core constituency who have spread rumours and innuendo about what this legislation does and say: “We stand for health and safety. We stand for workers going to work being safe and coming home at the end of the day to their families.”?That is what the National Party should stand for but that is the very thing that its members are divided over. What an appalling thing for them not to be able to agree on—the idea that people that should have their health and safety upheld and that they should be able to go to work do a good honest day’s work get a good honest day’s pay and go home again at the end of the day to their families and not be injured and not be killed at work. That safety is what this legislation is about. I am appalled that the National Party cannot line up and support a piece of legislation that is designed to do that. It has already been thoroughly watered down by the select committee. It can only get worse from here on in. If it has not gone far enough then any further that National plans to go is going to end up with legislation that will be absolutely pointless and we will have a health and safety regime that is weaker than what we have right now.I want to see the National Party members line up behind this and if they cannot do that then I want them to be honest. Where are the factions? Where are the splits and divisions? Who are the leaders? Who are the ones who are anti-worker? Who are the ones who want workers not to be safe at work? Who are they? Is it Judith? Is it Maurice? Who is it? Speak up tell us now because we want to know who wants to weaken our health and safety laws in New Zealand.