Health and Safety Reform Bill

I move, That the Health and Safety Reform Bill be now read a second time. This bill represents the biggest reform in health and safety in more than 20 years. It is central to the Government’s ongoing commitment to improving New Zealander’s health and safety at work. It provides a balanced framework for health and safety in the workplace that better reflects modern working arrangements. It amends other Acts to ensure New Zealand has a consistent and robust health and safety regulatory system. It drives better health and safety outcomes, which will benefit business efficiency and productivity.

I want to thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its hard work and consideration of the bill. Indeed, I need to thank two select committees, as consideration of the bill spanned the 2014 general election. The current chair, Jonathan Young, wisely sought to rehear submissions to ensure that his committee was well versed in the issues. I thank him for his calm and effective leadership, and I thank all parliamentary colleagues who worked on the bill. Thanks go also to those who submitted on the bill. The select committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a number of amendments, which I fully support.

Since assuming responsibility for health and safety reform I have read and listened to many experts on health and safety both here and in other jurisdictions with which we compare ourselves and which have much better safety records than New Zealand. Their message is consistent and unequivocal: in order to reduce death and injury in the workplace, we must focus on the industries and activities with the highest risk. The changes recommended by the committee do just that, and I want to briefly outline those changes. But first I should restate to the House an important reason for the changes, apart from the obvious need to improve health and safety.

Workplaces, and even the nature of work, have changed. A generation ago, when the Health and Safety in Employment Act was passed, workplaces generally had a single employer employing all staff. Now, in construction, health care, forestry, and so on, there are multiple organisations all working together or in close proximity. Under the bill those entities, known as persons conducting a business or undertaking, or PCBUs, must do what is reasonably practicable to keep their workers and others affected by their work safe and healthy. In practice, duties can overlap, but this does not mean, or require, duplication of effort.

Having to work together to meet health and safety duties is not new, but the bill makes it clear that persons conducting a business or undertaking must cooperate in such situations. Attention is focused on what each person conducting a business or undertaking is able to influence and control, ensuring they take action that is reasonable and proportionate to the risks. Persons conducting a business or undertaking are best placed to have wide-reaching influence on achieving collaborative efforts towards, and in, health and safety throughout, and between, businesses. Collaborative approaches will not only act to improve health and safety but will have high potential to drive improvements in productivity.

Separate from the duties of the person conducting a business or undertaking, the bill also introduces a duty on officers. Officers must exercise due diligence by taking reasonable steps to ensure their person conducting a business or undertaking complies with their duties and obligations. Unlike the current law, officers cannot be made liable for the failure of their person conducting a business or undertaking. Rather, officers are liable only where they fail to perform their own due diligence duties. Who an officer is under the bill was considered to be ambiguous. The definition focused not on the person’s role in the organisation but on whether they made substantive decisions about the business. Although those holding specific positions such as company director will always be considered an officer, the committee has made changes to make it clear that officers will be only those who have a very senior governance role that allows them to exercise significant influence over the management of the business. This is appropriate. It is those senior leaders who have the real ability to influence the health and safety direction of an organisation and to ensure that the person conducting a business or undertaking proactively manages and addresses health and safety in how they operate their business. I intend to propose a further change to clarify that the extent of an officer’s duty will take into account the nature of their role and the nature of their responsibilities in the business. This will mean that the officer’s role in, and degree of influence over, the business will be taken into account in what they are expected to do.

Submitters considered that the bill’s failure to recognise any distinction between the work of regular volunteers and casual volunteers failed to reflect the reality of volunteering in New Zealand. The committee agreed, which is why it has proposed that the coverage of volunteers remains the same as it is under current law. As under current law, where any volunteer is undertaking certain voluntary work activities, they will not be treated as workers under the bill. This includes participating in fund-raising activities or assisting with sport or recreation for schools or clubs. Community purpose volunteer associations that do not employ anyone will continue to be excluded as persons conducting a business or undertaking under the bill. This ensures that volunteering will not be affected, and it recognises the significant contribution volunteers make to our communities.

Following the recommendations of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety, worker engagement and participation is strengthened under the bill. All persons conducting a business or undertaking must engage with workers on health and safety matters that affect them and must have ongoing practices that allow workers to effectively participate in improving health and safety. That has not changed as a consequence of the committee’s recommendations, and I am disappointed that some commentators have misrepresented the changes as having done that, with the unnecessary anxiety that this has created.

The changes to worker participation balance the needs of workers and businesses. The bill will allow for innovative and flexible practices while simplifying compliance for small businesses in low-risk sectors, where more formal approaches may not necessarily result in better health and safety outcomes. To this end, the committee has recommended that low-risk businesses or undertakings that have fewer than 20 workers will not be required to have formal health and safety representatives or to have a committee when requested. However, let me be clear: all persons conducting a business or undertaking, including small businesses, will still have a requirement for worker engagement and participation.

Small businesses in high-risk sectors will have to have formal health and safety reps if requested. A worker will have the ability to challenge whether the existing practices are effective. Where health and safety representatives are to be elected, changes have also been made to simplify some procedural requirements, such as determining the group of workers the representative is to be elected by and represent. Current participation systems will be recognised under the new law. Existing health and safety reps will have to undertake additional training to be able to exercise their new powers to issue provisional improvement notices or direct that unsafe work is to cease.

Changes have also been recommended by the committee to address concerns that a workplace could be considered a workplace for all time, even after work is finished or where the person conducting a business or undertaking does not have active control. The committee agreed that such an interpretation could have a considerable impact on the obligations of persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control such workplaces, and it has changed the definition of “workplace” to address this. Similarly, changes have been made to make it clear that persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control workplaces will not owe this duty to those who are in the workplace for unlawful purposes.

The duty of persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control workplaces has also been amended to recognise the practical dynamics of this duty when it applies to farming situations. In such circumstances it has been made clear that the duty of persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control workplaces will extend to the buildings and structures in the surrounding areas. The farm workplace for these purposes will not include other parts of the farm when work is not being carried out there. This provides farmers with greater clarity about their obligations. Many farmers generously provide access to, and through, their land for recreational activities. This change will provide assurance to everyone to ensure, for example, that cycleways, walking tracks, and beach access through farmland is not negatively affected by unclear legislation.

I also intend to propose a further change to provide certainty that the family home on a farm is excluded from the duty to manage or control the workplace. The changes recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee reflect a balanced and careful approach to health and safety. They clarify the scope and application of the bill’s obligations while ensuring that the appropriate level of responsibility for work health and safety is held by everyone. I commend this bill to the House.

Before I address the substance of the Health and Safety Reform Bill, I would like to acknowledge in particular the families of the victims of the Pike River tragedy, and, in fact, the families of all workers killed and injured at work, particularly in the past few years, as these changes to health and safety law in New Zealand have been considered. I would particularly like to acknowledge Deborah McMillan, Anna Osborne, and Sonya Rockhouse, who are in the gallery today and who have been vocal advocates for real reform and real change. This is personal for them. It is personal for them not just because they have lost loved ones in tragic events at work but also because, for Anna and Sonya in particular, the Government and the Prime Minister went to them and promised real change and real reform. That was his solemn promise to them as to the way that the Government and the nation would remember the tragic loss that befell their families. They are here today to tell Parliament that they are dissatisfied with the way that this legislation has come back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

It is with absolute regret that the Labour Party and other Opposition parties have had to withdraw their support for this bill. When it was introduced, we were enthusiastic about this legislation being a progressive and bold step forward for health and safety in New Zealand. We need it. Sure, the Pike River tragedy created the political impetus for change, but if we had stepped back and looked objectively at New Zealand’s appalling rate of death and injury in the workplace, with or without the Pike River disaster, it was time for change. Change was long overdue. We had to stop falling for the misguided ideology of deregulation, which was the overwhelming driver of the appalling health and safety record and which was, in fact, the thing that led to the Pike River disaster.

The bill as it was introduced was based on solid international evidence. It was based on Australian law that has been in place and has been working well for 10 years. It was based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, and it was based on the Government’s own independent task force on health and safety. It was good law, it was evidence based, and it drew on international best practice that we know and that has been demonstrated to make for safer workplaces. The changes that have been made at the select committee are based on misinformation and myth-making that the Government allowed to carry on out in the public.

💬 Phil Twyford: Encouraged.

Certain members of the Government actually encouraged the myth-making. It was pleasing when the Minister finally came to the select committee for the estimates hearing and admitted that many of the stories out there about this bill and about the way health and safety laws are implemented are pure myth and pure fantasy. But it was too late. By that stage, too many people in business had become fearful of what this legislation would do. The members opposite have caved in to that blatant and rampant fearmongering. Instead of dealing with it, instead of telling the truth, and instead of working with businesses to make them feel more secure about what this law would do they have weakened it to the point that there is almost no point in passing this legislation any more.

The changes that have been made are a direct response to some of the most strident attacks on this legislation that were made at the select committee, and those came from the handful of fringe employers who do not value health and safety and who come from industries with some of the worst health and safety records. They came from the farming industry, they came from the meat works industry, and they came from the fishing industry. They all came along—those industries that kill or maim their workers far more than any other industry in the country—and they told us that we did not need to make these changes. The Government listened to them, not to the workers and not to the mainstream employers who came and told us that this legislation was necessary, that it was based on good evidence, and that they had participated in the drafting of it and were pleased to see it coming before the House. No, they are not the ones whom National listened to. National listened to the ratbags—the ones who do not care for their workers. In fact, it came through clearly in the submissions that some of them have a very, very low opinion of their workers. Some of them came along and told us that by having health and safety representatives, their workforce would actively undermine the industry that they work in and would seek to destroy the businesses that they work for. Those are the people whom the National Government listened to on this legislation.

What gives us most concern on this side of the House are the attacks on health and safety representatives. It is clear from international evidence that worker participation in health and safety matters is one of the most important factors in reducing death and injury in the workplace, and the system that works the best is having elected health and safety representatives who are elected by their workmates, who represent their workmates, who receive training, and who have the knowledge to ensure that the workforce has an ongoing relationship with the employer and has an ongoing say in the health and safety of that workplace. That is what works, and that is what has been most stridently attacked by the changes put in place by the National Government MPs on the select committee.

We have heard from the Government about its exclusion of small businesses from having health and safety reps—notwithstanding the fact that small businesses have a worse record of killing or maiming their workers than large businesses. Notwithstanding that, we have heard from the Government that high-risk small businesses will still have to have health and safety reps. What the Minister cannot tell us is what a high-risk business will be and what a low-risk business will be. It is a bit like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, where the Government is saying “Trust us. We’ll get this right.” Well, the families of the Pike River 29 trusted the Government to get this legislation right. The families of the Pike River 29 trusted the Government members to listen to the recommendations of the royal commission and to implement them, and the Government has failed to live up to the trust expected of them. So how can they expect us to trust them to get this right?

Will farming be considered a high-risk business? Agriculture kills or maims more workers than any other industry in this country. Year after year after year it kills as many people as those who died in the Pike River disaster. It is our most dangerous industry, and, yet the Minister could not tell us in question time today whether or not farming will be considered as a high-risk industry. Well, if that is not going to be considered as a high-risk industry, how can we trust him to say that of any of the other high-risk industries: forestry, fishing, meat working? How can we trust this Government to actually get that regulation right and to ensure that people working in high-risk industries have the protections and the support that they need in order to improve that appalling record of deaths and injuries that we have in our workplaces?

It is not just the exclusion of small businesses; the fact that employers can now structure their workplace to limit the influence of health and safety reps is another reason why we are opposing this legislation. What is most insidious is a last-minute change introduced by the National MPs in order to allow an employer to refer a health and safety representative to WorkSafe and to ask WorkSafe to remove that health and safety representative. That might not sound so bad on the surface of it, but if WorkSafe actually says “No, actually, we think that health and safety representative is doing their job just fine.”, then the employer can then take that decision to the District Court. We know what some of our worst employers are going to do—the ones that really hate workers having a say in their workplace; the ones that came to the select committee and told us that they hate workers having a say in their workplace. They will refer those health and safety representatives to WorkSafe, and when WorkSafe says no—

I am sorry to interrupt the member, but his time has expired. Please take your seat.

Firstly, I would like to thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for the work that they have participated in, in the formation of this second edition of the bill. Can I also thank the officials who assisted us. Can I also acknowledge the women—Sonya Rockhouse, Anna Osborne, and Deborah McMillan—who are here at Parliament this afternoon to hear this very important bill be debated.

In the explanatory note in the first draft of the bill, before it even went to the select committee, it said that the main purpose “is to provide a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces.” From my understanding, it was never designed to be a one-size-fits-all. The balanced framework is not just about employer and employee responsibilities; it is about having an appropriately flexible regime, where it is not the imposition of one single system of doing things in companies that have already very effective health and safety practices. The balanced framework is about a safety regime that is proportionate to the level of risk in the workplace, driven by a principles-based system that establishes that all persons conducting a business or undertaking have a primary duty of care to their workers. As part of that primary duty of care, the persons conducting a business or undertaking put in place worker engagement and participation practices that enable the workers to be part of building the health and safety framework to ensure that their workplace is safe.

What has come through the select committee hearings, and come through quite obviously, is that a significant change is needed in the health and safety culture in the workplace in New Zealand. Our thinking must change. Laws are very important, but laws in themselves are not enough. We need leadership, we need commitment, and we need comprehensive participation right through the workforce, from the top down and the bottom up. Because of the tragedies of the past, in the development of this bill health and safety dominates, in a far stronger way, our thinking today, and so it should. The momentum for change has started a number of years ago and we are already seeing improvements in workplace health and safety, even before the bill becomes law. That is the power of culture change.

Over the past 5 years, from 2010 to 2014 inclusive, on average about one person a week has lost their life in the workplace. We know, of course, about the tragedy of Pike River. We acknowledge that. We also acknowledge that in 2013 the forestry sector lost 10 lives and the agricultural sector lost more than twice that. Because of that, we are seeing those two industries apply real change to their practices. Forestry’s workplace fatalities have fallen from an average of six a year down to a single life lost in these last 2 years, and every single life lost is tragic. Again, I acknowledge those who have lost a loved one. Our goal must be zero lives lost. Agriculture, which has seen the highest loss of life of all sectors, has seen a 33 percent reduction in workplace fatalities so far this year, and a lot more is yet to be done.

This improvement tells me that health and safety is truly on the agenda of New Zealand. There is a wide acceptance that our past practices were unacceptable. Secondly, it shows that the ability to drive down serious harm and death in the workplace is possible when an industry sector puts its mind to it. This has happened before the bill has become law.

The third thing I take from these recent statistics is that this law reform has the potential to drive those changes in thinking and practice even deeper into the workplace than what is currently happening, which will enable us to make even greater improvements in workplace health and safety.

I want to talk about what has emerged to be a controversial issue, and that is worker engagement and health and safety representation. The Green Party’s view is that this bill provides less opportunity for worker engagement than the provisions of the laws that this bill seeks to reform. I say that is incorrect. The Health and Safety Reform Bill actually strengthens existing requirements for worker engagement and participation, and stronger worker participation underlines the expectation in the bill that everyone in the workplace is responsible for workplace health and safety and that workers are empowered to intervene when they see an unsafe situation.

The current law says that if you have more than 30 employees, you must develop a participation scheme. We have removed that threshold. Under the changes all persons conducting a business or undertaking—whether they are small or large, low risk or high risk—are still required to engage with their workers on matters of health and safety that affect them. They also have to have worker participation practices that give their workers reasonable opportunities to participate effectively in improving work health and safety. Every person conducting a business or undertaking, every employer or organisation that employs someone, has a primary duty of care to engage with their employees. If the persons conducting a business or undertaking and the workers have agreed procedures for that engagement, the engagement must be in accordance with those procedures. This bill is quite explicit in what worker participation looks like.

I want to speak on worker representation. Opposition members of the committee have nailed their flag to the mast of worker representation. I suspect, as the previous speaker said, that their support of the bill hinged on this issue. At the select committee an amendment was proposed by the Opposition members. We were told that this amendment was highly significant for their ongoing support of the bill. I regret that they do not support this bill. I believe that the intent and also the outcome of this bill will be a massive improvement in health and safety in New Zealand.

Clause 62, which they proposed to change, is on the nature of engagement. It says: “If the workers are represented by a health and safety representative, the engagement must involve that representative.” The proposed amendment was to remove the words “health and safety”, so it would read: “If the workers are represented by a representative, the engagement must involve that representative.” So this was throwing it very broadly—that there would be a whole raft of representatives involved in the engagement process between the person conducting a business or undertaking and the workers. We were told to think very carefully about that before we rejected the proposal. We did think very clearly about it.

I had heard criticism that this bill was a stalking horse for unions in the workplace. But, to be truthful, in the select committee process I had not seen massive amounts of evidence of this; I saw what I expected to see. But this proposed amendment that was going to suggest that if a worker was represented by a union, obviously then the union representative would have to be—

💬 Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. I think the chair of the select committee is straying into select committee business that has not been reported back to the House. I seek your guidance on whether he is actually breaching privilege in that regard.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has been given some latitude because the previous speaker made strong accusations around matters that were dealt with in the select committee and had been left out, and made accusations as to why that should happen.

Speaking to the point of order, the amendment is on the website, available to the public.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That has been ruled on.

Thank you. What I want to say in this regard is that the proposed amendment would have opened up an issue where if the worker was represented by a union, then the union representative would have to be present at the engagement between the person conducting a business or undertaking and the worker.

The point I wish to make is that I voted against that proposal because I fundamentally believe that across-the-board engagement directly with workers will achieve a more integrated and comprehensive culture change than relying on a past paradigm of a union representative being the intermediary for workers. The biggest thing this bill does in terms of worker participation—the biggest thing this bill does—is connect the workers directly with the owners and managers and create a top-down and bottom-up discussion and decision-making process about health and safety.

I am not denigrating the work of unions in health and safety, but the New Zealand workplace is changing. Health and safety is not the prerogative of just the unions; it is now the prerogative of the persons conducting a business or undertaking and the people they employ. This is the culture change we need, where everybody owns the issue, the problem, and the solution. We are moving away from the few who are thinking about things to the many who are thinking about these things. I think that is the reason we have found the right balance. I commend this bill to the House.

Not that long ago, just over a year ago, I stood in this House and I implored this House to never ever forget the lessons that were learnt from the Pike River mine, as we had previously forgotten the lessons that we learnt from Cave Creek just some decades earlier. I implored the House to never ever forget the lesson that we learnt from both of those instances—that deregulation kills. Deregulation does not work in terms of the health and safety of working people. I thought then that maybe I was giving a warning to the House that we might forget those lessons in a decade or so. I did not expect to be standing in this House just over a year later telling that Government it has already forgotten those lessons. I did not expect to be standing up this quickly and telling that Government to get its amnesia in order. It has already forgotten those lessons. The bill that it has brought back to this House demonstrates that. Less than 12 months after I implored this House to never forget that, it has already done it, and the Government members are grinning about it. Well, I am sorry, but I find that reprehensible, actually.

We have some of the families in this Chamber today who have been deeply affected by previous Governments forgetting about how deregulation kills people. We have some of the families of the victims here listening to this debate today, and I want to pay my respects to the wāhine toa—the strong women—Deborah, Sonya, and Anna, who are here because they are fighting for other families. They are fighting for other families to never ever have to experience what they have had to experience, and that is the experience of seeing a loved one off to work in the morning—the thing that they do every day, the thing that they should do every day and come back from safely—and having them never return.

Make no mistake, that is what we are here to debate. That is what we are charged with preventing from ever happening to any family. Yet we have a Government that has gone out of its way to ignore the findings of the royal commission, to ignore the findings and recommendations of its own independent task force, and to ignore the international evidence that tells us that one of the best protections, one of the best ways to ensure that workers come home safely from their everyday working lives, is to make sure that workers have a voice in health and safety—to make sure that they are represented in that by having the right to elect one of their own to be the voice of health and safety.

I just do not get what is so controversial and so hard about that. What is so hard about that? But that Government, that National Government, quivered in its boots when it heard some of the employers with the worst track records in this country in health and safety come to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and argue how onerous it would be for small business to have elected health and safety representatives if workers ask for it. I want people who are listening to this debate to understand exactly what is so onerous, because we are not talking about employers having to employ anyone additional. There is no additional cost involved in this exercise. This is a person whom they already employ in their business, who is simply going to be, on the request of their workmates, elected to be the person who speaks on behalf of those other workers because they have asked to have an elected representative.

That does not impose any cost on business. It should not be something that good employers find at all alarming. In fact, I have lost count of the employers who have come up to me in the course of the last 10 days who are embarrassed by this approach that has been taken by this Government. They are embarrassed that that has been taken in their good name, because the vast majority of employers do not support the watering down of the recommendations that came from the royal commission. They do not support that. And employers, large numbers of employers, feel that their names have been sullied in this exercise because of what that Government has done.

I want to acknowledge and support the speech of my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway earlier. We did have large employers with very bad health and safety track records come before the committee and tell the committee that workers were going to run rampant and that they were going to use the ability to elect a health and safety representative for some other agenda, for some other secret, unnamed agenda.

I have read a very good book about the tragedy at the Pike River mine and I know that some of those same arguments—some of those very same arguments—were used in that environment. They were some of the same arguments that Jonathan Young just used: “Don’t talk to the union. Don’t have a representative. Come and talk directly with us.” That was the same culture that existed in the Pike River mine. It is exactly the same culture that existed there. And here is the National Government picking up that rhetoric and running with it and using that as an excuse to water down what is internationally accepted as being best practice when it comes to protecting workers in dangerous workplaces.

Today we had watched the debacle in question time of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Hapless Minister.

—the hapless Minister—being unable to answer the question about what high-risk industries would be required to have these health and safety representatives in place. Knowing the answer to that question, the definitive answer to that question, is incredibly important when we are debating this bill. I said before that some of the main proponents of this idea that workers cannot possibly have one of their own represent them in health and safety in small business were, in fact, large businesses. I confidently predict that if this bill goes through in its current form, here is what is going to happen next: those large employers with very bad reputations and absolutely no respect for their workers or their lives will start to restructure their businesses so that they fit within the category of having fewer than 20 employees. We have seen it before. I can confidently predict it because we have seen it before. When it comes to legislation that has been in front of this House that has been designed to protect vulnerable workers in contracting-out situations, and there have been similar provisions, we have seen the ratbag employers use those provisions to restructure their businesses so that they can escape giving their workers the best protection possible.

I apologise to the House if I sound a little angry; I am angry. I am absolutely furious about this. One of the things I did immediately before I came to this House as an MP was I trained health and safety representatives in their workplaces. So I have heard firsthand the stories of the devastation when it goes wrong. I have heard about the sorts of things that happen in workplaces, the sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle pressures put on workers to go and do unsafe things in their workplace in the interests of increasing the profits of those companies. Make no mistake about it, when we are debating this bill we are in the business of ensuring that people come before profits, and that requires a backbone. It requires strong regulation. It requires understanding the dynamics at work in the workplace and how workers are vulnerable to having that pressure placed on them.

This Government is failing those families. The Government is failing the 290 families who have lost loved ones since the Pike River mine disaster. It is failing every worker who walks out the door and goes to work in a workplace with fewer than 20 employees—and, by the way, that is a significant majority of workers in this country. We are opposed to this bill and I am proud of that.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise in support of this very important piece of legislation, the Health and Safety Reform Bill. Today I wear a dark armband for two reasons: in remembrance and acknowledgment of the passing of my partner Robyn’s father, John Calvert Noble-Campbell, yesterday afternoon, and the passing of all those who have died at work.

The Labour Party is not the only party that remembers those who have died at work. It is not the only party that is concerned about the health and safety of people at work, whether it is deaths or long-term injuries. Labour is not the only party that is aware of the cost of these deaths and long-term injuries in the family, in the community, and across the country. We acknowledge that there are too many workplace deaths in New Zealand, and that is why this bill is before the House today.

I would like to acknowledge the general cooperation from the Opposition members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and I would also like to acknowledge at this stage Mr Damien O’Connor, who brought to the House in recent months his member’s bill, which related to the health and safety of, specifically, coalminers. It is very important that we all contribute to the health and safety of workers because we all want the same thing: we all want our workers to be safe at work.

“She’ll be right.” is not good enough. It is not right at all. “Sweet as. That’s fine. I don’t care too much about this or that.”—the attitude in New Zealand when it comes to health and safety is not up to scratch, and as a result we have deaths and long-term injuries in our workplaces. So it is the attitude that must change. The legislation alone will not change the behaviour in our workplace.

We will all remember not long ago when seatbelts were brought in as being compulsory. I remember, at least, sliding around the backseat of the car, despite the fact that seatbelts were compulsory—sliding around the backseat of the car or even the front bench of the Holden Kingswood as mum and dad turned the corner. It took many years for attitudes to change, despite legislation being in place at the time. “It will never happen to me. It’s never going to happen to anyone I know. She’ll be right.” is not good enough.

There are several myths regarding this legislation that I would like to clear up. Most people talk about the need for common sense. They ask why we cannot have common sense in this legislation. Why can we not have fewer rules and regulations in this legislation? Why can we not have the individual taking some responsibility for himself or herself in this legislation? Well, the legislation does all of those things. The framework is actually very simple. It is based on common sense. It demands reasonable, practicable behaviour from all those involved, whether you are at the top of the pile as a director of a company or whether you are the lowest-paid worker in the business. You are required to apply common sense, and reasonable and practicable behaviour, because we are all responsible for the health and safety of ourselves and the health and safety of our work colleagues.

All we need to do is consider health and safety as we do our financial results, in the case of a business owner. That is all we require. There is a lot in this bill that is going to please a lot of people, once they get their head around it. It is not difficult to understand. For the farmers—the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety has explained the issue around farmers giving access to their land to recreational users. That is a myth that has been busted. Volunteer groups are concerned and have been concerned. The Minister has busted that myth.

My point is that the bill is common sense. It will assist in changing the attitudes of New Zealanders towards health and safety in the workplace. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.