Smith Nick: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 20 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:6051. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I firstly want to say how distanced the previous member Damien O’Connor is from the practical reality of New Zealand farming when under Part 3 of the Health and Safety Reform Bill he maintains a position that he thinks we need to have safety committees for most of our farms that employ only two or three people. That just shows how impractical and out of touch the Labour Party is with farming life in New Zealand.The reason I want to make a brief call on this part is to express my disappointment at the churlish attack by the Labour Party members in this debate under the privilege of Parliament on the Talley family and their group of companies. To say that their safety record was bad and was poor and the way in which Labour targeted them in my view is unfair wrong and unsubstantiated. I as a local member of Parliament for the constituency of Tasman and more recently as the member of Parliament for Nelson have had 25 years of involvement and engagement with that family. There have been many issues on which I have disagreed with that family—Sue Moroney: How much have they donated?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and for the record for that member who has actually just alleged issues of donations actually there have been no donations of substance of the declarable form to me. I ask the same question of Mr Damien O’Connor. He should talk to his colleague there because that is the sort of outrageous allegation that you get from Sue Moroney without her dealing with the facts. What I have done is I have visited over a dozen of Talley’s factories. I have spent a week on a deep-sea fishing boat of that company. For members opposite to get up in this Chamber and say that that firm has no regard for health and safety is untrue unfair and in my view spiteful. In my view—and I have met many of the health and safety supervisors for that company—it works very hard to make its workplaces safe. I challenge the member who has made those allegations. How many of those fishing boats has she gone out on? How many of those factories has she visited? Or does she just sit from the protection of her parliamentary office wearing her union cloth-cap and her Labour Party glasses and throw allegations around in this Parliament about the important issues in Part 3? I challenge her: how many of those 18 plants has she visited?Sue Moroney: If you’d give me a call I could explain.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Just answer the question: how many have you visited? I suspect none at all.It is true that the Talley’s business has had tragic accidents but I put this to the Committee: tell me any business that employs more than 5000 people in this country that has not. I take the Department of Conservation for example. Actually the Department of Conservation employs fewer than half the number of people that Talley’s have and it too has had tragic accidents including in the term of the previous Labour Government. Why have those members not targeted it? Why have they just targeted Talley’s? It is unfair and it is wrong. Where it is contradictory—where it is contradictory—is this: we know that we have got challenges in regions like mine to create jobs. I know of no family in New Zealand that provides as many jobs in regional New Zealand as Talley’s and you cannot stand in this Parliament and say that you stand up for regions and employment unless you are prepared to stand up for some of the businesses that provide employment in regional New Zealand. I would also point out that in the fishing industry a large number of New Zealand’s fishing companies employ foreign boats. Actually Talley’s—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is not a general debate. I will ask the member to come back to the content of Part 3.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The content of Part 3 is about employment representatives and in that debate scurrilous allegations were made by the Labour Party members against one of the biggest employers—Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There were no allegations against any employers made by Labour Party members in the Part 3 debate.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. Look these are debating points.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Mr Chairperson—