Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Mr Chairperson Rurawhe. I'm very happy to take a call on the bill. I want to focus my comments in on Supplementary Order Paper 4 in the name of the Minister in the chair the Hon Julie Anne Genter.Most of us in this House—in fact I think most people—admire the quality of chutzpah; that is the ability and the willingness to sort of stick your jaw out there and make an argument or a proposition no matter how preposterous it might be. I want to thank the member who launched off in this debate for demonstrating ample qualities of chutzpah at the outset.Jami-Lee Ross: Preposterous!MICHAEL WOOD: Well let's come to that Mr Ross because what we had here was a National Party member from a Government that oversaw the Pike River tragedy and the carnage in our forests lecture the Labour Party and demonise the unions about worker safety. Of course we're getting to this very quickly in National Party speeches. Anything that comes up the unions are the bogeymen—the unions are the bogeymen. Well actually what we're seeing in the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by the Minister is quite simply a position that is about evidence. What we had in the original bill from the Government in respect of drug and alcohol management plans was a solution looking for a problem.If you actually review the submissions if you actually review the select committee process and if you review in fact the majority report from the select committee what you actually find is an absolute paucity of evidence that there is a systemic problem that requires the implementation of drug and alcohol management plans. It should be a fundamental precept of the way that we make policy in this House that before we impose legislative burdens on whole sectors of our economy we actually clearly identify the evidence and the problem and then work out a solution that is proportionate to that. That is simply what we do not have in this case.So the Minister makes a very good point. The Minister makes the very good point that still within the bill with the provisions as changed by the Supplementary Order Paper we still in fact have rigorous provisions for ensuring the health and safety of people working in the shipping sector. Let's just talk through those briefly. The very first point and it's affirmed in the Supplementary Order Paper in the bill itself is we still in fact have the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act that apply. It was a bill that was passed by this House what one two years ago? That's all. It was a bill that was worked through in a pretty collaborative manner which imposes an extremely systemic health and safety framework across every employment sector in our economy. It places a burden on the person conducting a business or undertaking which will generally be the employer in this sector to ensure that risks are appropriately managed. They must identify the risks and if they identify a risk around drug and alcohol abuse they must have a plan in place to eliminate or minimise those risks. They must. Those are the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act that already apply.Now overlaid on top of that we have in the bill still—and this is left in place as a result of the Supplementary Order Paper—the relatively extraordinary power for the director to require random drug and alcohol testing and the Government continues to support that provision to ensure that there is a backstop where the evidence supports that that should happen. So let's just be very clear: this is not any sort of soft bill as has been made out in the opening comments from the Opposition in which we're going to have Cheech and Chong captaining vessels on the New Zealand high seas. This is a bill that sees the continuance of the Health and Safety at Work Act and its provisions and the implementation where required of random drug and alcohol testing in place. But we're not going to put in place additional legislative burdens on that whole sector that in fact aren't necessary and are not supported by the evidence that has been put before the House and put before the select committee.The second point I just want to touch on relates to the other change in the Supplementary Order Paper around shipping services to the Chatham Islands. Really this is one where the committee just needs to listen because the people of the Chatham Islands who are represented by Mr Paul Eagle are entirely reliant on a sustainable shipping service to sustain their society and their economy. They are deeply concerned—and they made these representations to the select committee—that opening up that line would allow effectively predatory commercial behaviour to come in to undermine the current operator and to potentially put at risk a long-term sustainable shipping service to that island. It's a small population. Quite frankly it's unlikely to justify multiple operators. They have a situation that works well for them now and the changes put forward by the Minister in the Supplementary Order Paper will simply ensure that this committee listens to those concerns and doesn't disrupt a very important service. Thank you Mr Chair.