Sio William: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6041. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): It is regrettable that people have found the box offensive. For me in my eyes it is symbolic of the life and death issues that this bill relates to.Because Part 3 is the substantive part it is also the part that has direct impact on workers and their lives. I want firstly to make a couple of general comments then I want to respond to and challenge some comments that were made by two Ministers relating to this bill in Part 3 and then I want to go through and show particularly to the Hon Peter Dunne why I think he is wrong when he says that this bill has not been diluted.The first comment I want to make generally is in the words of Debbie McMillan whose husband was killed whilst working in the forestry industry. She said speaking to this Government: “If you pass this bill I ask you come and explain—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! If those two members want to have a long-distance discussion they can go to each end of one of the lobbies.Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Mr Chairman I am going to repeat myself and I hope you do not take it off my time.Debbie McMillan whose husband was killed whilst working in the forestry industry said in speaking to the Government: “If you pass this bill I ask you come and explain to my daughter why her dad’s death meant absolutely nothing.” When she heard the Government say it was important to keep the right balance in the legislation she also said to the Government: “Are you saying that a certain number of deaths is acceptable as long as you have that balance?”.The other general statement I will make is in the words of Bernie Monk the father whose son Michael died in the Pike River tragedy. He said that the health and safety provisions in the bill should not be watered down for small businesses. He said: “One rule and one rule for everyone.” Those are the general comments that preface my comments now.I want to challenge the comments made by Minister Dunne when he said that this bill is much stronger now and has not been watered down. I will show through my analysis of clauses 61 62 63 64 and 65 why I think the Minister is wrong. The first point I want to say as to why he is wrong is really using the words of Michael Woodhouse the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety who last night when he introduced this part said that because there was general consensus for Part 1 and Part 2 and that Part 3 is the substantive part that there would be dispute on on balance the legislation is still good legislation.But I want to give you an example of why this part actually makes the entire legislation bad legislation. Imagine if the Minister was sitting at the table and eating a bowl of cereal or soup or whatever in the morning and a fly happens to come along and plonks himself or herself into that bowl of cereal. Would you say on balance that that bowl of cereal is still good cereal? If you imagine that that fly had been flying about in a pigsty or in a cow paddock would you still think on balance that that bowl of porridge is still good legislation? I say no. That is the argument I want to present to the Minister and to Mr Peter Dunne.I now want to refer you to clause 61 “Duty to engage with workers”. Although the legislation uses the acronym PCBU—which is quite long and tongue-tied—let me just use the word “business” for the sake of that. In subpart 1 of Part 3 it says: “A PCBU [or business] must so far as is reasonably practicable engage with workers—”. If you remove the words “so far as is reasonably practicable” the clause should say: “A business must engage with workers.” But when the Government adds on “so far as is reasonably practicable” next to “must” it removes the strength of that word “must”. Therefore I say to Peter Dunne and the Minister that they are wrong because the use of those two groups of words next to each other actually weakens that particular clause.I refer the Minister to the regulatory impact statement where it reads—and I will quote it for the sake of this Committee—“small businesses and self-employed workers will need to engage more actively with health and safety requirements than they perhaps did under the [present legislation]”. The way that that clause has been worded by using a compulsive term “must” and then by putting another statement “so far as is reasonably practicable” makes that whole clause irrelevant. So this is why you have the voices of the past or the voices of the families who came to Parliament saying that this piece of legislation has been watered down.Let me go to clause 61(2). It says: “If the PCBU”—or business—“and the workers have agreed to procedures for engagement the engagement must be in accordance with those procedures.” The use of the word “if” suggests that it may or may not happen. If the use of the word “if” is there again this is an example of why this legislation is not as strong as was originally recommended. It has actually weakened it. The words that should have been there are words that require the engagement—that would insist on the engagement—but instead we have the word “if” to begin that particular clause.I also want to look at clause 61(4)(b): “for any other person to a fine not exceeding $100000.” That suggests that this fine is going to prevent something from happening but the reality is that because of the word “if” at the very top there is no compulsion. The Government uses the huge fine of $100000 as if that would deter some wrongdoing but the reality is that because of the word “if” at the beginning nothing is going to happen anyway. It is quite deceptive in that particular clause.I turn to subclause (1) of clause 62 “Nature of engagement”. In paragraph (a) you have the words “timely manner;” and in paragraph (b) you have the words “reasonable opportunity”. I ask the Government to explain when it put that engagement with workers in subclause (2) requires “relevant information about the matter be shared with workers in a timely manner;”—when will that be? Will it be today tomorrow or in a week’s time? Will it be in a month’s time or in a year? The word that should have been there was “immediately”. If we are talking about the lives—Jonathan Young: That was a Labour amendment we accepted.Su’a WILLIAM SIO: —hush—of New Zealanders and remembering the symbol of people who have died then we should not be waiting around. Our actions should be immediate and because of the word “if” which has been used consistently throughout Part 3 it suggests that nothing is going to happen and that is a sad indictment on this particular Government.I remind you of the words that I began with—the general words about why the public out there does not believe because this part here is bad that on balance you have good legislation. I remind you about the fly sitting in the porridge bowl. There are words about reasonable opportunity—that workers be given a reasonable opportunity to express their views. In the workplace we have a bicultural society but we also have a workforce that is diverse culturally and language-wise. To expect that workers in a power situation where some may fear the employer and may not be willing to reveal what is in their minds to an employer—giving workers reasonable opportunity could mean nothing. It could mean nothing happens and that puts workers in danger.We see in clause 62(2) that it says: “If the workers are represented by a health and safety representative the engagement must involve that representative.”Again by the use of the word “if” it suggests that there may not be health and safety representatives. What then happens to that group of workers irrespective of whether there are 20 or fewer?It has been suggested by some members of this Committee that Parliament is a safe environment yet I can remember three occasions—the first was when somebody was about to jump down from the gallery here. Is this a safe environment? Yet somebody was prepared to jump down here and I and others were sitting back here. The second one was when I had a group of workers who were locked up in the lift in the Beehive. For about 4 or 5 hours we were locked in there. The staff here did not know how to open it up; in fact somebody else had to come in. The three women who were locked up with me in that lift were afraid and one of them got sick. We were ill-prepared for that. The third incident was my tripping over on a group of stairs and I hurt my ankle. What I am saying is that we think this is a safe environment but nobody plans on having accidents and therefore—