Health and Safety Reform Bill

Members, we now come to the debate on Part 4, which is clauses 122 to 204 and includes schedule 2A.

Suddenly there is not so much enthusiasm to debate Part 4.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): It’s a chief listening time, though.

Yes, that is right. It is drive time, as they say, at quarter to 6. Obviously, I will make a very brief reference to Part 3 in the context of Part 4, because the decisions that have just been made to pass the amended Part 3—which I believe to be wrong and a travesty in terms of what this bill could have been—have a consequence in Part 4, which is that in the absence of having workplace health and safety representatives in, now, a very large number of workplaces—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: 97 percent.

Whether or not it is 97 percent, 95 percent, or 90 percent, it does not really matter. It is thousands of workplaces in New Zealand that now will not have elected workplace health and safety representatives, which is a bizarre situation and a dangerous situation created by a National Government hell-bent on rewarding the people whom it thinks are its voters, at the expense of New Zealanders’ lives.

This bill was meant to be about risk to workers, and it has turned into a bill about National managing its political risk, and that is just what has happened in Part 3. But the consequence of that for Part 4 is that those who are charged with inspecting workplaces now have a lot bigger job to do. In the absence of those representatives there will be more of a call upon labour inspectors to find their way to workplaces.

If we look at it this way, there are a number of Labour Party speakers who have said throughout the debate that there are a number of changes and enhancements to workplace health and safety law here that we think are good. In order for them to be enforced, we will now require a greater level of activity among workplace inspectors. If we look at all of subpart 1, we are talking about workplace inspectors taking on roles in places where we do not have workplace committees and where we do not have workplace health and safety representatives. They will be required to, effectively, take up the duties of those who would have undertaken those positions.

We know that if Mr Woodhouse was in the chair, he would actually stand up and tell us: “No, we’ve employed more workplace health and safety inspectors.”, and that would be numerically true. But it is nowhere near sufficient for New Zealanders to have confidence that this law that is being put in place today will actually be implemented.

There is no point in National Party members standing up and going on about the obligations that there now are on employers and then, on the other hand, not providing the enforcement mechanism to make sure those things are implemented. We know that that is what is required. Time after time when we see inquiries and court cases into workplace deaths, what we learn is that it is all very well to have rules, but they are not always followed. We are not making laws, as Mr Scott would have had us know in his previous intervention, for the employers who are good employers. If we did that we would have very few laws on our statute book about anything. We would not have a Crimes Act. Good people do not commit murder, so we would not need to have a law against it.

That is what happens here. That is why you need inspectors. That is why you need proper laws—not for the good employers, but for the bad employers. I would venture to suggest that that is exactly what the inspectors required under Part 4 of this bill will actually be having to look at. Good employers will create their own health and safety representatives and their own health and safety committees, regardless of how many employees they have. It is the bad employers, the lax employers who have decided that they will put profit above human lives, who are the ones who will be required to have inspectors appointed under Part 4. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is woefully understaffed when it comes to this kind of activity—incapable, in my view, of being able to ensure the full implementation of this law.

So I want now to look at clauses 123 to 126. This is the question of improvement notices, and I think this is where we start to see the work that would need to be undertaken.

It is great to take a call on Part 4, which is all about enforcement matters. There are some good points made here, but we in New Zealand First have some serious concerns in relation to Part 4. In the latest Budget we had Bill English come through and make it quite clear that the Government was going to take labour enforcement seriously and to adequately fund it to ensure that the three parts of the triangle, if you will, are actually brought together: engagement with workers, participation from employers and employees, and, of course, funding for those regulators to ensure that they have got labour enforcement.

When you have $8 million and the Government is struggling to get a surplus—in fact, it is struggling woefully to keep its head above water—there are some serious concerns that the role of these labour enforcement officers who have $8 million a year will actually be to go and revenue gather. There are concerns that they are going to be going around and putting infringements on small and medium sized businesses to try to balance their own books. That has got some serious issues, which we see happening. It is interesting to know that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has got more paid staff on its books as public relations people, people who are designed to make that ministry look good—than it has labour inspectors ensuring that people have got good work conditions. So we do have some serious reservations around Part 4 in relation to that.

I would like to say that New Zealand First supports Iain Lees-Galloway’s amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 101, and we hope that that comes through here. It amends clause 167B by inserting “(ba) within 6 months after the date on which the regulator announces a decision not to prosecute:”. If there is action taken against a workplace or a person conducting a business or undertaking, and it is found that there is actually not going to be any prosecution taken, that amendment enables a person to have 6 months’ leeway to enforce that and actually go and take their own personal action. That is my understanding of that clause. So that is going to be supported by New Zealand First. We also hope that that gets support in the Committee.

I see that Marama Fox has also got Supplementary Order Paper 107, which enables personal actions to be brought within 3 months after that workplace decision. Again, our fall-back position is that we think that is fair and reasonable, as well as it being a fall-back. But we hope that Labour gets support for Iain Lees-Galloway’s amendment.

I am somewhat concerned about some of the contradictions that we are hearing in the Committee about well-being this evening, particularly around—

The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.