Robertson Grant: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 19 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5978. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I too as other colleagues have said am honoured and feel a sense of responsibility in taking my first call in this debate on Part 1 of the Health and Safety Reform Bill. In this call I want to cover off three main things. I want to cover off clause 3(1)(b) and also clause 3(1)(d) and then talk specifically also—if I do not do it in this call then in a subsequent call—to Iain Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper 100 and particularly the amendment to clauses 13A and 13B.The reason I want to start on the purpose clause—clause 3 and then in specific detail clause 3(1)(b)—is that in many ways this is the tragedy of this bill. When you read the purpose clause I think that most New Zealanders would look at that clause and say that that is what we want. That is exactly what we want in terms of protecting the health and safety of our workers. It is why the bill was supported across the House in its earlier stages. As you work through clause 3(1) the notion of “(a) protecting workers and other persons against harm to their health safety and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks”—that is what people want—“arising from work or from prescribed high-risk plant;” I will return to this point in a minute. But clause 3(1)(b) particularly which is “providing for fair and effective workplace representation consultation co-operation and resolution of issues in relation to work health and safety;” is exactly what people wanted in response to the tragedy of Pike River. That is exactly what people wanted in response to the huge death toll that we saw in industries like forestry. That is what was required in terms of a return from the tragic consequences of deregulation in health and safety.Standing up here today I do not want to make this about a party political statistic because I do think there was a genuine desire in the establishment of the working groups and the expert groups that went into this legislation to give meaning to clause 3. I think that is what people intended. There was a shared understanding across different Governments that the deregulation around health and safety had gone too far. That was a shared responsibility in this Parliament and the process that went into establishing the purpose of this bill under clause 3 was a good process because it took all of us back to what the purpose of health and safety law should be. That includes those core elements of clause 3: the principal elements of the protection of workers; the ability to provide for effective representation; and the ability for good quality advice information education and training to be available.They are the core bedrocks and what disappoints me so much in taking this call is that as we work our way through Part 1 we begin to see the undermining of that purpose clause. I think the majority of employers strongly support the notion of robust health and safety legislation. We know that. It happened as this was developed. Large employer groups are coming forward and saying: “We support this. We support clause 3(1)(b) because we do need more effective worker representation.” That is why it is so disappointing that when we fast-forward in this to clause 13 we start to see the unravelling of what we want here.So clause 13 in terms of the meaning of a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) is a good and positive development. It is a clearer clause to describe something that did not really work in terms of talking about an employer. It did not really give a full meaning of what that is. Saying that a PCBU is a person conducting a business alone or with others whether it is for profit or not is important. It has given us a nice broad definition. But then in clause 13A we start to see the unravelling of that by the narrowness of the definition around the meaning of an officer. Iain Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper 100 goes straight to this.The bill tells us that officers can be held responsible for health and safety practices including those with overall management responsibility but it critically leaves out those who have management responsibilities specifically for health and safety. It is my view and the Minister may choose to take a call on this that when you read clause 13A as it currently stands—and obviously subclause (a)(i) covers off the position of a director—as you read through I think that the only people who are going to fall under this are effectively chief executive officers of the company or those at that level.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Directors.GRANT ROBERTSON: I did say that—I said directors and chief executive officers. What it does not do is capture what I suggest would be the situation in a large number of firms where the officer is in fact somebody else. You see this in a range of firms. It might actually be a chief operating officer in some firms who actually within their ambit covers health and safety. In some firms—in good firms—it is often somebody with a senior role in health and safety. We are starting to see more of that in firms that are taking this seriously.We should be encouraging that. We should actually be saying that we want the definition of “officer” in clause 13A to be a positive thing—that we want to encourage companies that have those sorts of positions to be developed. Ultimately if we do not do that and if we leave the definition as it is today I think we will actually fail the purpose clause of the bill.If we go back to clause 3 what we see there is that we are failing clause 3(1)(a) because what we are not doing is providing an adequate definition to minimise and eliminate risk. What we are certainly not doing is dealing with clause 3(1)(b) in terms of fair and effective representation consultation and cooperation. We will not get the level of cooperation that we need in order to ensure the high standards of health and safety that I do believe members around this Chamber want if we narrow down within the definition of a PCBU whom we regard as an officer.As I said this is really the beginning of the unravelling and we will come to this a little more when we look at the definition of high-risk industries and when we look at how we decide whether or not an organisation requires workplace health and safety representatives but fundamentally it starts to unravel here. It is certainly my view in terms of clause 3(1)(c)—I do want to come back to that—“encouraging unions and employer organisations to take a constructive role in promoting improvements in work health and safety practices and assisting PCBUs and workers to achieve a healthier and safer working environment”.Every piece of literature that you will now read about what makes for a successful workplace will tell you that it is built on engagement between employers and workers. If you look at an organisation like Air New Zealand which has had huge problems in the past in terms of the way its industrial relations and health and safety has worked it is now on a new path because it has taken a different approach to this. It has actually adopted the words of clause 3(1)(c) in part in the charter that it is now working towards. That is how you get good quality health and safety. You do not get good quality health and safety by saying it is simply the responsibility of the director or the chief executive officer. The risk of clause 13A as it currently reads is that it effectively creates that tier and only that tier of people who have the responsibility.If we want high-functioning workplaces that minimise and eliminate the risks that arise from work we will get that only when we start to understand the different roles of people within an organisation. That means both the workers and also in this case—I would say the employer but I will use the terminology in the bill—thePCBU.So I am calling upon all parties to support Iain Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper 100—in fact all of the elements of Supplementary Order Paper 100; but under this part the replacement of clause 13A. The specific amendment he wants to make is that in clause 13A(b) he wants to insert a new paragraph (ba) so it says: “includes any person occupying a position in relation to the business or undertaking that allows the person to exercise significant influence over the health and safety practices of the businesses or undertaking;”. That means moving it beyond a director and beyond a chief executive officer to the people who will actually provide the responsibility for health and safety.