McAnulty KieranKIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much. It is indeed a great pleasure to speak and provide this party's—the Labour Party's—perspective on the Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill. I'd like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the member Harete Hipango for putting forward this bill and her good fortune in getting it pulled out of the ballot. I take her word that this is well intended. However it is a poorly drafted bill that actually misses the point.The framing of the opening address was to make this bill about volunteer organisations—to acknowledge the fact that volunteer organisations across the country are struggling to recruit volunteers. This is fair. I'm a volunteer myself as I am sure many on the Opposition benches and the Government benches are. Throughout my life I have worked in many volunteer organisations and they have all struggled to recruit people that are willing to give up their time and to volunteer their services to their community and the organisation. But the solution to that issue is not what is being proposed today.It is simply not acceptable that we create a distinction where some workers can be exempt from the protections of health and safety in the workplace while others continue to enjoy them. It should not matter who your employer may be; you should have the same protections and provisions that the rest of us enjoy whilst you are in employment. It does not matter if you work for a small community organisation or indeed a large corporation; there should be no meddling from Government—or Parliament I should say—into the protections that we enjoy in terms of health and safety. That is the fundamental point here in this Labour Party's opposition to this bill: that no worker should go to work with less provisions and less protections than the rest of us enjoy.What is being proposed here in the Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill essentially removes those employed by volunteer associations up to 100 hours a week—so essentially 2½ full-time equivalents—away from worker status. So I had a look at the bill. I've got it here. What this bill would do is create a very strange loophole in the Health and Safety at Work Act where volunteer associations and those that work for them are exempted from pretty basic provisions. If you'll allow me Madam Deputy Speaker to read I want to just point this out to the House. They'd be exempted from the primary duty of care to ensure that as far as reasonably practicable they ensure the health and safety of their workers and others—that's section 36. They'd be exempted from a ban on levying workers for health and safety charging them to provide protective equipment or requiring workers to provide their own—section 27. They would be exempt from a duty to engage with workers on health and safety—section 58. It's important to note that what is reasonably practicable" for an organisation to do includes a consideration of all relevant matters and that this will include the resources available to an organisation. We simply cannot allow those workers that work for these organisations to be exempt from such pretty basic provisions.There would also be an exemption on a ban requiring workers to avoid work where they do not have the required qualifications or authorisation to do that work. That is of grave concern. Because these employees would not be considered workers under the Act they're also exempt from for example duties to take reasonable care for their own health and safety or that of others or to follow reasonable instructions relating to health and safety—section 45—and also exempted from their ability to refuse to carry out unsafe work. Let's just consider that for a moment. A worker regardless of whether they are employed by a large organisation or a community volunteer group should have the ability to refuse to carry out unsafe work. But the implication of this bill as it is written and as it is proposed would remove that right from workers for volunteer organisations. It's absolutely unacceptable in New Zealand in 2018 that some workers in this country can be forced to carry out unsafe work.There is no way that the Labour Party with our proud history of ensuring workers' rights can support such a bill that would take away such a right. In the original Act the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 a volunteer association is defined in section 17(2) as "a group of volunteers (whether incorporated or unincorporated) working together for 1 or more community purposes where none of the volunteers whether alone or jointly with any other volunteers employs any person to carry out the work [of that] volunteer association."If we want to ensure that people have the time and the capacity and the ability to volunteer this is not the way to go about it. The question of volunteer associations having person-conducting-a-business-or-undertaking (PCBU) duties was actually fully discussed at the select committee at the time of the health and safety at work legislation in 2015. The exclusion of volunteer associations that do not employ any workers repeated the position under the former Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.Now there were submissions on the health and safety legislation with similar proposals to the current member's bill in terms of increasing the employee threshold for volunteer associations. These were not accepted. We've been here before: in a bill that the previous Government brought through which went through select committee this exact issue was brought up considered and discussed by that member's very own party. Where we've also been before is when we start to meddle with the exclusions around access to basic health and safety provisions. I ask members of this House—perhaps those members on my own side might remember the last time that the National Party meddled with health and safety we ended up with the worm farm debacle.I wonder if members in this House remember when the National Party proposed that worm farming was more dangerous than farming—than the agriculture industry. This is an absolute nonsense. There is a principle at stake here.Hon Andrew Little: The worms bite.KIERAN McANULTY: The worms do bite Mr Little. You're right. I didn't consider that. I guess perhaps a bucket may have been tipped on somebody's head.But the fact is once again there is a principle at stake here. No one regardless of what the job is or whom they work for should go to their work having less protections for health and safety than anyone else. We expect a basic level of protection and this bill takes it away. It proposes to take it away for those organisations that would hire a worker up to 2½ full-time equivalence.I've been advised that WorkSafe is not aware of any particular issues with volunteer or community associations having unreasonable obligation placed on them or compliance issues with regard to their health and safety acquirements.Life would be easier if there were no regulations. Life would be easier if there were no rules but just because you don't like them doesn't mean you should remove them because we're talking about the health and safety of people that work for a living. It is totally unacceptable that we could even consider supporting it even though I acknowledge it has good intentions. The implications perhaps unintended of this bill are not acceptable.The fact is that the Labour Party will not be supporting this bill and will be taking every opportunity to speak strongly opposing it. Once again we cannot undermine the simple rights and privileges that workers have fought over generations to preserve in this country. The Labour Party once again will be standing up for those workers."