Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Mr Speaker and colleagues, I am very pleased to be able to return to the House for the second reading of the bill, after the Education and Workforce Committee has completed its consideration and returned its report to the House. I wish to start by thanking the select committee for their hard work on this bill; thanking the, I think it was, 21 submitters who took the time to give their views and assist us in improving this piece of legislation; and also to thank the officials who supported the select committee with their consideration of the legislation. That is certainly valued.

I’m pleased, also, to be able to return for the next stage of this bill because it is another Labour Party manifesto commitment that we are fulfilling with the passage of this piece of legislation. It’s very important for me, as Minister in the workplace relations and safety portfolio, as it is in other portfolios, that we follow through on those things that we said we would do when elected. This was one of those specific things that we identified in our manifesto and received a clear vote of support at the election and an endorsement to move through with this policy. So it’s good to be able to move forward and follow through on that commitment. And it is an important one.

I don’t think any member of this House would feel satisfied with the level of harm that continues to occur in New Zealand workplaces, from the North to the South, the East, and the West. Overall levels of harm in New Zealand workplaces, be it acute injuries and fatalities, lesser levels of injury that none the less have significant impacts on individuals and significant impacts on productivity, or, in fact, the biggest area of them all—workplace-based health and poor health outcomes that flow from people’s working conditions—we would all want our country to do better and cannot feel good about the fact that, generally, we cause higher rates of harm in our workplaces than nearly any other developed country that we compare ourselves to. Rates of harm, across fatalities and serious injuries, are around about twice the rate of Australia and around about four times the rate of the United Kingdom.

Now, we have made some good progress. The Pike River tragedy was a wake-up call for our system. There was a widespread view that things needed to change. It led to the Health and Safety at Work Act, greater clarity about obligations within the system, a new regulator, and a new and strong focus, supported by a strong strategy that WorkSafe oversees. And we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we have made progress. We met the key targets around reducing fatalities and serious injuries, but they’re still too high, and we need to keep doing more work and keep moving forward if we want to shift them down. This bill speaks to the fact that we know—we know, without a shadow of a doubt, based on the experience of workers and businesses and based on the clear international academic research—that having an empowered workforce, with workers directly able to represent through their concerns and issues, to engage in problem-solving around health and safety, and sometimes to say, “No, that is not safe”, to receive appropriate training and support in that role, that having worker representatives in those roles makes a very significant difference to health and safety outcomes within our workplaces.

In New Zealand, we do have a system, under the existing Health and Safety at Work Act, that allows many workers to be able to have a representative in their workplace who has those rights, duties, and abilities under the Act, who is able to access education, and who has that formal role within the system. But, at the time that the legislation made its way through the House in 2015, the then National Government, which had originally proposed that as a universal right for workers—to have a representative—made a change during the legislative process to, effectively, carve out smaller workplaces of less than 20. It is true that, within the existing legislation, workers in smaller workplaces which are deemed to be high risk can continue to have the right to have a health and safety representative.

What are the problems with that that we’re trying to solve with this piece of legislation? Well, the primary one is that the size of the workplace does not mean that there is necessarily less risk to the workers who are there. It can equally be the case in a workplace of 80 people as it is in a workplace of 25 people that there are risks that might apply to those workers. And, on an evidential basis, we know that having a representative in place who is suitably educated and supported can help to reduce those risks and the possibility that those risks might play out in harm to their fellow workers.

There is also quite an important moral component, in my view, here as well. The people who bear the burden of harm in our workplaces are workers. They are the ones who get hurt, who become sick, who are injured, and who are killed. They are the ones who bear the burden of the harm, and so it is only important—in my view, just and reasonable—that they have a seat at the table in a formal sense to be able to represent concerns, to resolve issues, and to make our workplaces safer. So, effectively, this piece of legislation removes that carve-out that came midstream in the previous legislative process and ensures that workers in these smaller workplaces do have that ability to be able to request a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee, in the same way as workers in larger businesses do as well. That is the case for why we think it is important for this legislation to move through.

At the same time, I don’t overstate the impact of this piece of legislation. It is a modest but useful contribution to the health and safety landscape. It won’t fix everything on its own, by any stretch, but that fundamental right of workers to be able to have a rep, we think, is an important one. But, in noting that it is not a huge change, I do want to turn to some of the opposition and some of the arguments that we have heard against this, which I think, frankly, have just sort of overblown the potential impact of this change on workplaces up and down the country. The first thing to be clear about is that it doesn’t actually make it compulsory that every workplace have a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee; it simply means that workers in those workplaces of fewer than 20 employees have the legal right to request a health and safety representative and committee, and that the employer then has a legal duty to respond to that and facilitate it.

So what is my expectation here? It is that some of our smaller workplaces—workers there—will see the value in having a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee, and they will make that request, and the employers will need to respond to it and support it. But, actually, it’s my expectation that, quite probably, in many of our smaller workplaces, workers may not see that need. They may be satisfied to work within existing, less formal ways of raising issues, and that’s just fine if that works for them. But in those workplaces where those workers are the ones on the front line who face the risk, who are most exposed to and, therefore, most aware of the risks and what can be done, where in their judgment they would be safer and feel safer for having a health and safety representative or committee, I think it is quite appropriate that they have the ability to request that and for that to happen.

In the Australian experience, where there is no such exemption below 20—remembering that we based our Health and Safety at Work Act on the Australian model, law, and regulations—it has been a mix. Some smaller businesses have ended up with reps and committees, and some haven’t. So I think that is where we will land as well. I just put that on record, just so that we have a proportionate debate in this House. As I say, I think this is a useful change, but I think that some of the criticisms that this will be a significant burden across the economy simply aren’t borne out by the evidence and simply aren’t borne out by a reasonable set of assumptions about how this legislation will move forward.

I note that the select committee has made one change to the legislation that it received, and that was a change to some of the language, changing the language around workers having the ability to “may notify” an employer of their desire to have a rep or a committee—changing that to “may request”, which is then linked to the legal duty of the employer to respond to that request. The reason the select committee made that change is that it made the language more consistent with language in the rest of the Health and Safety at Work Act and, therefore, meant that there is a greater simplicity for people being able to engage with the legislation. And the advice that the committee received was that, if there was a different form of language, it might imply that Parliament meant something different by way of how that process should operate, which is not the intention. So I think the select committee has done a good job there of scrutinising the legislation and making sure that it’s as easy and efficacious to utilise for all concerned.

In concluding, health and safety is enormously important. Every Kiwi deserves to go home safe. Having a WorkSafe rep makes Kiwis safer, and this legislation will make sure that more workers have access to that. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill. I note the speech by the Minister around this legislation and what it fundamentally does.

About 10 years ago, or coming up to 10 years ago, a National Government brought in the health and safety legislation to try to improve the workplaces of New Zealand, the safety rates, following the Pike River disaster. And everybody in this Parliament—and, I’m sure, New Zealanders—agree with the basic premise that we should do what we can to ensure that people return home from work safe to their families, to their loved ones, so that they can continue to enjoy life as a New Zealand citizen and do well. And so there’s been enormous resources put in by Governments but also by businesses up and down the country to try and improve our safety record. There was a significant improvement in the first few years. That level of improvement has tailed off in recent years, notwithstanding continued large further investment. And that is a real challenge that we face as a country and one that we want to see improved.

The original legislation when it came to health and safety committees and representatives within workplaces put a cap on 20 employees for larger businesses. Yes, that all makes sense and it works, but we spared small businesses from having to have these arrangements, because we were concerned about the costs imposed on what are small businesses and the pressure that they are under. This bill removes that and says that even if you’re a tiny business with only five part-time employees, you may be required to have a committee and have a health and safety rep. They need to go off and do training for a day or two, and that’s just what has to happen.

We in the National Party don’t agree with this amendment. We think the original arrangement limiting it to businesses with more than 20 employees was appropriate. I heard the Minister say he had the moral case for this, and the moral case was that it is the workers that bear the burden of harm. And, yes, that is something we should be absolutely focused on in order to keep New Zealand workers safe. But one thing he sort of neglected to mention was that it’s not just workers that bear the burden of harm when it comes to trying to operate a small business successfully. We in Parliament go up and down the country meeting small-business owners, many of whom, as all the surveys will demonstrate, have very high levels of anxiety and depression. And there is a sense of hopelessness on the part of many small-business operators in this country who feel overwhelmed and overburdened with the pressures that they face not just from a from a trading perspective—that is part and parcel of trying to run a small business; you have to compete to survive—but they are also overwhelmed by the level of costs and regulations being imposed on them that they are not able necessarily to cope with or pass on to customers, and so the pressure is on them.

If you go to Retail NZ, if you go to the small-business agencies, you will see the real burden that falls upon them, as well—notwithstanding, of course, the law and order concerns if you’re a small retailer worried about ram raids or many other law and order type issues, which is a separate—well, it’s not unrelated when it comes to health and safety. For many of the small businesses I mentioned, particularly small retail operators, little dairies, the number one health and safety issue they face is crime and people attacking them. So a Government that’s really focused on them will be focused on actually restoring law and order in this country and doing that effectively.

Our concern more generally is to ask how we ensure that we continue to improve our health and safety outcomes as a country but also be mindful of the practicalities of those small-business operators who over the last few years under this Government have faced one thing after the other in terms of additional costs. We’ve seen very, very significant increases in the minimum wage, above the rate of inflation. And everybody wants to have higher incomes. Absolutely. But if the Government’s response is just to legislate for higher incomes and just assume that small businesses can afford to pay it, or their customers can afford to pay it, well, that’s fine, but most practical people will recognise that it’s only a more productive business that can sustainably pay higher incomes. That’s what you need. If you want to have higher incomes, you need a sustainably more productive and competitive business. Otherwise, higher incomes, in the absence of that, will inevitably lead either to higher prices or to that business struggling to survive.

And so they’ve had all those increases. They’ve also had a doubling of the sick leave entitlement. And, again, if you talk to most small-business operators, the amazing thing about the sick leave entitlements is they’re not pro rata-ed in the sense that if you have a person who works one day a week, they were entitled to five days’ sick leave; now they are entitled to 10 days’ sick leave. And so if you’re working one day a week, then all, of a sudden, 20 percent of your days could be sick leave days. And you’ll hear many small-business operators saying that the workforce does tend to fall into two camps: those who very rarely take sick leave and those who take the full entitlement. If you double the entitlement, then that has an impact. Then you’ve had an extra public holiday. Then you’ve had the imposition of fair pay agreements that are coming down the line, which will lead to a whole lot more additional costs.

And then there’s this one here, this bill, where a small operator with a handful of employees may have the obligation of sending one of them off for two days of health and safety. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment estimated it might cost $1,355 to provide the two days of training that’s required. Of course, they have to be put up somewhere else and there’s travel associated with it. And then there’s the small problem of: well, who actually does the job while they are away for two days? So you need an extra person coming in. So it all might add up to $2,000 or $3,000 that a small business has to find.

Now, Minister Wood, sitting here in Wellington, says, “Well, that’s no big deal, nothing to worry about; everything will be fine.” But if you’re on the edge, a small trader who’s under pressure, it all adds up. And as the Minister said, yes, the end of the world is not going to arrive because of this bill. This is not a major piece of legislation that’s going to be the end of the world for small businesses. It’s just another—another—thing that they need to concerned about; just another thing that that comes on top of all the other things that have come down the line. And so our overall perspective is that this is another burden that they don’t need at this time. And the idea is that a small business with a small group of people who sit down around the table at morning tea together over their sausage rolls and their cup of tea can sort out these issues informally and be very focused on a health and safety culture, because the obligations of an employer in terms of providing a safe employment operation don’t change if you’re a small business or a big business; the obligations still lie on the owners of those businesses. And so that is how we think it should be carried out.

We on this side of the House stand very much for a culture of improving our health and safety in this country. We believe the existing legislation with regard to health and safety representatives and health and safety committees is appropriate—that is to say that larger businesses with more than 20 employees should have them, and those smaller businesses should be able to deal with these things as they have over the last few years. And with that, I’ll leave my comments.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to be standing here and taking a call on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill. The reason it is good is because looking after workers means we look after businesses. Looking after workers means we look after the economy. When we talk about sustainability, it is as much about the people in our economy as any other input.

I just want to reflect for a moment on some of the submissions and valid concerns that were raised in the select committee. One of them was from Business New Zealand, who suggested that smaller persons conducting a business or undertaking would know their workers and would know each other and that informal supervision would be effective. Well, if that is the case, and a firm already has great health and safety systems and great relationships with their workers, the workers may not need or feel the need to go down this road. But it is their option—their right—that we are giving to the 500,000 workers who work in these smaller enterprises.

They were concerned that the existence of official appointees sends a signal that health and safety is that person’s responsibility and not that of every worker. It’s not true; it’s the opposite. In having workers who are well-trained, they take up the responsibility to look after each other and they will improve things in the workplace.

We keep hearing about the cost of workers. Actually, workers are an investment, and we know that when we invest in these workers and their education, health and safety improves, productivity improves, and staff turnover reduces. Sometimes the most costly investment that a small business makes is in its team and its workers, and this investment is impactful. It is really important.

We heard about the cost of sending them off for two days’ training. Well, I think, now, that’s a great thing—a grand incentive to have that on your CV. Imagine valuing a worker who’s got really good skills when it comes to health and safety, and working collegially with their workmates to make their workplace safer and thus more productive—imagine valuing that. “I’ve got this on my CV, employ me.”—what a wonderful conversation to be having.

This is about enabling workplaces to be great; this isn’t about clamping down. This is a great piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m happy to take a call on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill.

I’ll just pick up on a couple of the comments made by the last speaker, Angela Roberts. Firstly, her point that we keep hearing about costs, the point I would make to that speaker is, yes, and you continually don’t listen.

I want to give the House a case of a small-business owner who I had a conversation with about this bill, who was echoing many of the sentiments of the submitters who came to speak on the bill, because she was saying to me, “Erica, my business is barely viable because of all of the increased costs.” And some of the costs are those that the previous speaker from the National Party side spoke of, about the increase in extra leave—sick leave, public holidays—wage increases, general cost increases. She said, “My business is squeezed.” I said to her, “Well, here’s something that’s coming down the pipeline in this bill.” When I explained it to her, she just threw her hands up and said, “When will the assault on small businesses in this country stop?” She said, “My business is barely viable as it is with all of the additional costs over the last few years and this is just another thing on top of another thing that we don’t need.” So when the previous speaker says, “We keep hearing about the costs.”, well, this is a business owner who is in the eye of the storm of these costs and she just wants this Government to listen and say, “Actually, stop putting all of these burdens on us, because we are sinking rather than swimming, and that’s what we want for our businesses.”

The other thing that the last speaker mentioned was, “Look, I’ve got this on my CV, employ me.”, and that’s one of the points that I was going to make in my contribution, around the fact that, regardless of the need, the requirement, for a health and safety representative, committee, and formal process for these small businesses, regardless of whether or not there have been health and safety breaches or it’s an unsafe workplace, regardless of the fact that it might be the safest workplace with no breaches and everything’s been working fine, if an employee decides that they want to go down this track and make a request of the employer, then the employer has no choice: they must oblige. And so in the case of a business where there have been no breaches, where there is a perfect safety record, they still have to—regardless of all of that—say yes to the worker so that, in response to the last speaker, yes, that employee can have it on their CV and have it as a great thing to say to the next employer: “Look what I’ve got on my CV.”, at the cost of the last employer, who had no choice, regardless of the fact that his business was actually perfectly safe and he only had two employees.

We spent hours—it’s almost to the point of being amusing—in select committee talking about two words. I want to just turn now to the fact that there was one small change made to the bill and there were hours of deliberation over this, around the fact that replacement section 62, inserted by clause 4, said a worker “may notify” and section 62(2) said if a person conducting the business or undertaking (PCBU) “receives notification”. The majority of the committee decided that that was in contrast with replacement section 66, inserted by clause 5, which says workers “may request” the PCBU to establish a health and safety committee and then the PCBU must establish a committee after receiving a request. So using the terms, apparently, “notify” and “notification” and then “request” may well have been confusing.

The committee decided, by majority, about the different actions that are required because of these two different words and decided that “notify” might mean a more formal process. So we had to make it very clear in our select committee report that that was not the intent—that it’s not around a super formal process that has to be in writing, for example. So we went down the track of changing everything so it all lined up to say “request”, but we have said in our deliberations that that does not imply that the PCBU can decline, because when you think about the word “request” it indicates that there could be a declining of that request; we have made it very clear in our select committee report that action must be taken. So, many hours spent poring over the words “notify” and “request” and then ending up with “request” but making the note that request cannot be declined. So that was the only change that was made to the bill.

We won’t be supporting this bill, as my colleague Paul Goldsmith has already given many reasons for. But I think, in the end, it comes down to a balance. You know, the National Government that put in place these rules realised the cost—the enormous cost on small businesses—and set that level of 20 employees. We don’t believe that the balance needs to be shifted in this case. And, actually, this bill, we think, goes too far in that it forces employers, once a request is made, to put in place a health and safety representative and committee, regardless of their track record and regardless of the health and safety potential problems in that business.

So, for that reason and for the all of the additional costs that have been piling up on our small businesses, we will be voting against this bill. And I say to the woman that I was in the car with the other day, who was talking about all of these additional costs and the fact that she’s barely holding her head above water and that this would just be another thing that would potentially mean that her business wasn’t viable—I say to her that the National Party will continue to stand up for the 105,000 small businesses around the country that will be impacted by this law, and vote against this and other similar legislation which just puts more and more costs on our small businesses who, actually, in these times, we need to fire up. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to take a short call on the second reading of this bill. It is the first time I’ve been able to speak in this House, and I just want to acknowledge the terrible devastation that happened in Wellington—in Newtown, particularly—yesterday at the Loafers Lodge. Six people, incidentally, lost their lives, and that is a tragedy and it’s unnecessary.

I stand here in this House today talking about health and safety. I listened to the other side of the House and I listened to their arguments about not supporting this bill, about not supporting the rights of the workers in companies to be able to elect a health and safety representative or even a health and safety committee, and I think about the unfolding situation as the police go in and do their investigation at the Loafers Lodge and I think about the health and safety surrounding that particular building. I wonder and I care for the workers who worked inside that building and, potentially, some of the health and safety concerns that they may have wanted to raise but maybe didn’t have the opportunity to raise.

This bill will, from the time that it passes in this House—and this bill will pass—give workers the opportunity to be able to elect a health and safety representative and a health and safety committee, if they choose to, to be able to request information from the business itself and to be able to inspect a workplace. Trained health and safety representatives may be able to issue a provisional improvement notice to address a health or safety problem or to direct a worker to cease unsafe work.

Workers inside any company see things at the front line, and it’s incredibly important to be able to give those workers the opportunity to be able to raise problems when they see them. I know that because, as of the middle of last year, I was a hospitality business owner. We had a bar and a restaurant, and we had many health and safety issues that would come forward. Often it was staff raising it, but I also understand how I was an open-minded business owner and I would listen to my staff, how I knew that there were some operators that actually didn’t and/or wouldn’t listen to their workers, because they had other pressing priorities. It is a shame, and I think that what we’re attempting to do here, to give voice to those workers, is incredibly important.

I heard the previous member talk about the imposition of potential cost and the assault on businesses. This is not an assault on businesses. This is an incredibly rational piece of legislation which is going to give voice to workers and, hopefully, those workers and business owners—small-business owners—will be able to work constructively together on the issues that are raised. This is 100 percent not part of an assault on business owners, as was previously suggested. This is a great piece of legislation that workers up and down the country will, hopefully, breathe a sigh of relief from, and I hope that we start seeing them pop up.

And it’s not compulsory—this is not compulsory; this is an option. It is absolutely just an option for workers to be able to take this up if they so feel as though their voice isn’t being heard.

On this side of the House, the Labour Party have always been about looking after the voice of workers, and this bill demonstrates that 100 percent. The contribution from the other side of the House represents their interests and who they represent. On this side of the House, we’re doing the right thing. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to speak to the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill. It’ll come as no surprise to anyone that ACT opposes this bill. Listening to the arguments from the Opposition, it is really quite sad. I’m really pleased that the last speaker, Tāmati Coffey, is one of the only good ex-employers around, but he might be really interested to know that most employers—most of them—are actually good people just like you.

The name of the bill is comical, even. It’s lots of words needed just to set up a committee that, in itself, isn’t needed. And it really does show how out of touch the Government is when it comes to doing small businesses working in New Zealand. Like the Plain Language Act, the fair pay agreements, last night I listened to the Grocery Industry Competition Bill—just solutions looking for a problem and just make it harder to do business in this country.

The bill amends the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 to reduce the size of the persons conducting business as usual from 20 down to with no limit, health and safety representative or five or more workers “may establish a health and safety committee”. It’s not going to be compulsory, as was mentioned, and workers may prefer to engage in less formal ways through regular health and safety meetings, like they do now; like almost every business that I know—small business—does now, quite happily; they don’t need this. Again, it’s the lack of consideration of the imposition on businesses, and the fact that there is no evidence that there’s anything to solve and to acknowledge that productivity must be a major consideration in any legislation.

I would like to thank the submitters, and obviously they did fall into two separate groups. The Employers and Manufacturers Association pointed out there was no evidence to support the bill that would justify the cost and disruption to business, As was mentioned before, it’s going to take two days training per year, 105,000 businesses: that’s 210,000 training days. Fees are paid for by the business, plus you’ve got to replace the person who’s out being trained. The lack of productivity is just immense.

I heard the Government members scoffing when one of the National speakers started talking about minimum wage and the sick leave, and scoffing as if, “Here we go again.” Absolutely no understanding of the effect that these policies are having on small businesses at all. Business New Zealand said that to impose additional and unwarranted obligations on smaller businesses at a time when many are already facing difficult economic conditions—and, again, it’s a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.

Of course, we also heard from supporters of the bill. Guess who! The unions, those groups who represent 14 percent of workers. Unite Union said employers “have no interest in workers’ views on their [health and safety] and actively prevent effective [worker engagement, participation, and representation].” They forget to put any evidence at all for that statement. The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions said evidence would indicate that, in the long run, the change is likely to “benefit the balance sheets of small business.” I don’t know where they get that from; there’s no evidence attached at all.

On Monday, I met with a workplace compliance officer to inspect the LPG tanks in my business. We went round, we had a look—looked at the safety valves, checked out the fire extinguishers, made sure the folder was all up to date of staff training, and doing what we’ve done every year once a year. This sort of stuff already happens—it already happens—and it’s a real shame that the Government doesn’t know that.

Most employers and employees who I speak to think that sections 45 and 46 are the most important of the Health and Safety at Work Act. It reads: the “Duties of workers while at work” and 46, the “Duties of other persons at a workplace” must “take reasonable care for his or her own health and safety; and take reasonable care that his or her acts or omissions do not adversely affect the health and safety of other persons.”

It’s the common-sense rule, the personal responsibility rule that, unfortunately, just doesn’t equate with the current regime. Whether it’s education or committing crimes, it’s always someone else’s fault or someone else’s responsibility. One submitter who owns a small business said, “This will introduce unnecessary additional compliance for small business, add cost, and in turn drive further price increases and inflation. There should be more responsibility and liability attached to individuals to encourage them to take responsibility for their own actions.” Just so much common sense.

The constant assumption from the Government that “employers are bad; employees and good” is really quite offensive. The division that they intentionally try and create is very unhelpful for business in New Zealand. Employers are good people; they care about their employees, their conditions, their pay, their welfare, and their future. Like farmers looking after their land, it’s in their best interests. ACT opposes this bill.

Thank you. I’m pleased to rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill.

What this bill does is it removes the ability for a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) with fewer than 20 staff that are not in the high-risk designated area of employment to decline the request for an election for a health and safety rep, and also the ability for any PCBU to refuse a request to establish a health and safety committee where the PCBU is satisfied existing practices sufficiently meet their requirements. Basically, it’s about making sure that more of our businesses have the ability, when requested, to have worker voice to improve the health and safety. What this will result in is, hopefully, appropriately trained health and safety reps who can meet with the employer and pass on information from other colleagues who may be struggling to articulate their concerns about what they’re seeing in a workplace, who might be a bit nervous or not that confident in communicating or have had negative experiences with an employer previously. It enables that trained health and safety rep to do an inspection in a workplace and to be able to issue—if they’re appropriately trained—provisional improvement notices (PINs) to get a change to ensure that the workplace hazard is removed and people can be safe in their workplace, and that they can direct workers not to undertake unsafe work until fixed.

Now, these provisions—in effect, we are following through on a recommendation of an independent task force that was set up in the wake of Pike River, where they noted that worker participation was a crucial weak link in the New Zealand health and safety system, and they recommended that all workplaces have access to reps and health and safety committees. That was in the wake of what I think everybody around this House surely recognises as a day of absolute shame for our country, where the just running down and hands-off approach to health and safety came home to roost in the death of 29 men in their workplace.

I hear the discussion from National and ACT saying, “This is a solution looking for a problem. There is no evidence of a problem.” I want to just speak back to that and say that, last year, 64 people died at work. More than one person a week died at work in this country, and they are saying that there is no problem. We have a rate of workplace fatalities double that of Australia per capita; death in our workplaces is four times that of the UK. And this National and ACT Party are saying there is no problem. They are happy with that status quo. They are happy and willing to accept that number of people not coming home from work, that number of families who lose a member close to them. That is what they are accepting when they stand up in this House and say, “Everything is fine. The cost on business is balanced equal to the cost of those lives.”

💬 Joseph Mooney: Absolutely disgraceful. What a disgrace—what a disgrace.

That is what those members are saying, and I think that is disgraceful.

I would also note where they’re saying—it’s nothing to do with this bill, maybe, but we have to recognise that, actually, the data we do have in terms of injuries, the now workplace, not even the fatalities show that the smaller businesses have much higher rates of injury.

💬 Chris Baillie: Can you show that?

Yes, the ACC data showed that workplaces and firms of around 20 workers or less were 57 percent more likely to suffer an injury than larger businesses, and 23 percent more likely to suffer severe injuries than workers in a larger firm. But that side of the House is saying, “That is not a problem; nothing to see here.” The international evidence is unequivocal: it is absolutely clear that health and safety reps, that workers’ voice, and that those committees make a difference. They make our workplaces safer because, actually, those people doing the work, see the problems. Sometimes it just needs support structurally—it’s not about the intention of the employer, but just the structure for that voice to be heard, to be able to address the problems, and to ensure the safety of people. I see somebody in National theatrically yawning at this conversation about the safety and death of workers and our country, and I just have to say that I find that deeply offensive.

💬 Hon Members: Deeply offensive!

So they find my speech offensive—so offensive to actually be bringing into this House the reality of workplaces in this country—

💬 Chris Baillie: You’re abusing employers.

—and it’s seen as an attack on employers to be talking about the deaths of people in their employ. How is that the case? Why is that adversarial? I’m not making it adversarial. I am saying that that status quo is unacceptable, those deaths are unacceptable, and we have a choice in this House to make a difference based on evidence to save some lives, and to prevent people from further serious injury.

I would say that in this bill that a lot of the submissions—I do want to speak briefly on those. That, actually, there were a lot of other issues raised around this, and I do think that this bill is a first step. I think there is clearly, from the submissions that came to us, more work that needs to be done. Significant concern was raised about the way the legislation is currently being interpreted in terms of the training available, and there was a call for the legislation to ensure that the initial training of two days enables health and safety reps to achieve the New Zealand Qualifications Authority standard that would enable them to take action and issue a PIN.

I would note that I was deeply disappointed in one of the employer groups that came to the committee: they offer a two-day training—two days is prescribed in legislation—but it does not include the assessment for that qualification to enable the workers who do that training to issue PINs. So if they want to be able to have that intervention, they have to do additional training in their own time, at their own cost, to be able to play the role that was intended by the legislation. I don’t believe that that necessarily needs a legislative change, but it absolutely needs intervention to change it because it is, I think, an appalling abdication of responsibility and working around the legislation as it is not intended.

Also, there was the call for union reps to be able to issue PINs and therefore being roving reps. Also, the Disabled Persons Assembly had a great contribution at the Education and Workforce Committee, noting the concern for disabled people being able to access some of the health and safety measures in their workplace and that there was systemic discrimination. There is a fund through the Ministry of Social Development to support people in the workplace, but recent research from the Disabled Persons Assembly shows that, actually, people are not accessing that as they need to. It’s very clear to me that we need to have more promotion of that and a review of those rules.

Finally, I just want to call out for the petition that was launched on Workers’ Memorial Day for there to be legislation to introduce corporate manslaughter to actually hold people accountable for the failures to keep people safe at work and to recognise that as a profound duty, which it is not currently, properly, I believe, recognised as.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, what about the rest of us?

—and Committees) Amendment Bill. Mr Brownlee’s woken up over there. Now, during the committee stage of the bill and today, you know, the Opposition have focused the debate around productivity. They say the two days’ training per year for small businesses would equate to too much lost productivity, but it doesn’t appear that they have considered the lost days of productivity across those businesses due to preventable workplace injuries, and I want to point out that according to ACC, the average care hours per serious injury claim is 58 days. That’s 58 days where that worker would be away from work, which will be at significant cost—not only for the businesses but also the workers’ families and the workers themselves. Now, if that serious injury was prevented by a trained health and safety rep, I would argue that investment in that two-day course is money well spent.

So I suppose my question for the Opposition is: what would be the Opposition’s message for the family of an employee who has suffered a life-changing injury at work in a small business? That could be entirely preventable had that employer invested in that two-day course for that health and safety rep. On all injury claims in New Zealand, 36 percent are still not back working after 10 weeks. So if that trained health and safety rep prevents one serious injury in the workplace or, in other words, if a serious injury is prevented in 5,000 of those businesses with under 20 employees, you’re saving around 250,000 days in lost productivity.

The point I’m making is that injuries arising from accidents demand an attack on three fronts. The most important is obviously prevention. Yes, the employee has a role in that, but so does the employer. Next in importance is the obligation to rehabilitate the injured. Thirdly, there is the duty to compensate them for their losses.

Now, to ensure the longevity of our world-renowned ACC scheme, we need the likes of the Opposition to consider the financial sustainability of the scheme, and to consider the potential burden that preventable injuries place on future levy payers, including the Government. And given that around 575,000 small businesses exist in New Zealand, making up 97 percent of the total firms and 29.3 percent of our workforce, small businesses play a valuable role in contributing to the improved health and safety outcomes of New Zealand workplaces. This legislation will help small businesses do just that. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Sam Uffindell—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s very good to rise and follow on from my friend Dan Rosewarne over the side of the aisle. It’s good to see you back here in New Zealand, my friend.

I rise to speak on the health and safety at work amendment bill—

💬 Hon David Bennett: Right, stop this speech now—stop it now.

—terrible speech, isn’t it?—and I am going to oppose it. I see Minister Michael Wood is over there. We are definitely going to oppose this one. I mean, this is just a classic—more regulation, more costs—and what is the problem we’re trying to solve?

Look, it’s probably a good endeavour—you know, you see something there and you’re like “Oh, if we have a health and safety person, that’s going to really stop all the bad things from happening.” But I’m not sure how much risk assessment has been done around whether this is a high-risk situation. You’ve got a small business and you’ve got one person who says, “Oh, I want a health and safety inspector.” Is it actually closing any risk?

Also, are we just going to play the game where we look to minimise risk at any cost, irrespective of what it may be? That’s why I asked at the start whether there has been any cost-benefit analysis done on this one, and I’m not necessarily sure that there would have been.

I also note that there wasn’t a lot of consultation that was done with the small retailers and businesses involved, and I find that pretty disappointing. I think that if you are going to go out of your way to impose costs on people, then you need to engage with them in some sort of discussion to understand what their circumstances are and understand whether they’ve got the ability to cope with it and whether it’s actually going to move the needle and make things safer for people. I mean, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is typical of this Government, which just continues to not really consult and continues to add costs on to businesses.

Businesses have had a real hard time under this Government in the past few years: consistent minimum wage increases, consistent additions of compliance, worker shortages—there are a lot of things that keep getting piled up on this. On top of that, you get the wider economic issues that we’re all facing: inflation; additional regulations, wherever it may be; and chronic worker shortages, adding to more worker inflation. So my suggestion to the Government would be: instead of adding continual burdens to small businesses, it would actually be better off considering giving the regulator WorkSafe New Zealand a clear set of objectives to work to, rather than the vague measures that have recently been released.

There are some reasonable costs here. It’s approximately $1,300 a year for people to make sure that they are training up or providing that training to that mandated health and safety person, who may not necessarily make much of a difference. That might not be a one-off cost either, because you might get the situation in a few small businesses you may have a bit of a turnover happening there and these people may be having to face that cost every year, and so why have we really done it? That cost also doesn’t take any account of any potential lost productivity.

So it seems that every time I rise to speak on any bill that this Minister has introduced, I, unfortunately, have to rise to oppose it, and this is going to be no different. He hasn’t looked up at me yet. I keep trying to bait him, but there he is. He’s working away on the next piece of legislation that I’ll get to rise and speak against, no doubt, before this Parliament is out.

💬 Hon Michael Wood: Say something useful and you might get a response.

Oh, he’s chirped up now—there he goes. That’s good. I’m glad I got your attention, Minister. The “Minister for Potholes”, the “Minister for Auckland Light Rail”, the “Minister for Nurse Shortages”—he’s lit up. But no, no, it’s very good to have you here, Minister. I do admire a Minister who actually sits through the duration of the readings.

💬 Hon David Bennett: No, he’s on duty.

He’s on duty. Well, there you go. I mean, one day, maybe when you’re the leader of the Labour Party in six months’ time, you might not have to do House duty.

But I will wrap this up there—all tongue in cheek here—and just say that we will of course oppose this bill, and I will leave it there. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Marja Lubeck—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill. Unlike the previous speaker, Sam Uffindell, who was smiling all through a very serious issue of people getting seriously injured, hurt, and even killed in our workplaces, I would like to talk a little bit about what the bill actually does.

I also want to make a comment on the words that the ACT member used a few times during his speech, which was the word “offensive”. But what I find terribly offensive is referring to this bill and the measures that it takes to keep our workers safe as an “imposition”. I also take offence to the previous speaker talking about “playing games”, when it has been pointed out by the Green Party member very eloquently that we still have hideous rates of injury at our New Zealand workplaces: 64 people die a year in their workplaces. And that member called it playing games. Now, that is offensive.

Nobody on this side of the House is saying that employers are bad, but our levels of harm need to reduce because the rates of injuries and killing of workers is too high in comparison to other countries. We have made good progress, as the Minister pointed out previously, but we need to keep doing that work to reduce the harm done to New Zealand workers.

Now, the previous speaker and others have also mentioned: what is the problem we’re trying to solve? It is serious injuries of so many workers in our New Zealand workplaces; it’s 64 workers not returning home to their families from a day’s work—now, that is the problem we’re trying to resolve, and I commend the Minister for bringing this bill to the House and not kicking the can down the road, because this Government actually does tackle the long-term challenges we see in this country. It is international research. So I say to the people that are saying we don’t know what a risk assessment is and a cost-benefit ratio, read the international research. The evidence is really clear that worker representations make a real significant difference to the health and safety outcomes in a workplace, and that is why this bill is so important.

Now, it is no surprise to me that ACT or National advocate for the status quo, because that is what they do. But “status quo” in this case means that the rates of fatalities per 100,000 workers are, roughly, double what we see in Australia and they’re four times what we see in the UK. Now, our Government doesn’t think that’s good enough, so our Government is taking measures to change that with this bill—this very good bill that the Education and Workforce Committee, chaired by the excellent Camilla Belich, has tackled.

I thank the committee for their work. I thank the Minister for having the courage to bring so many good bills to this House addressing some of those long-term challenges, addressing the gaps that the National Government left us, and I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Before I begin, can I please acknowledge the tragic deaths at Loafers Lodge, and specifically the families that have now been displaced. I do want to acknowledge the firefighters and the first responders, and, as we move forward, specifically the Wellington community. May those who lost their lives rest in peace; manuia lau malaga.

I rise to make a short contribution. On this side of the House, we have heard our Minister speak that the reason why this amendment bill must come to the House—must be passed—is it’s about honouring the Labour manifesto, the election promise that we made in 2020, to support and protect our workers, because, currently, the health and safety of many workers across the motu—there are decisions being made for them that they don’t understand—specifically those employees in small firms where the workers are only totalling 20 or under. This bill, the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill, will help those workers to be formally engaged to request that, when they require some good advice for health and safety requirements, they are able to participate and they are able to use this mechanism, because currently they don’t feel safe.

A person who is labelled as a “person conducting a business or undertaking” can make the decision, if they are working for an employer with under 20 workers, to refuse to establish a health and safety representative or a health and safety committee, because, in their view, the current practice meets the requirements.

This amendment bill was introduced and referred to the Education and Workforce Committee and was reported back to the House on 5 May. I want to acknowledge the officials and the 24 submitters who provided further recommendations for the Education and Workforce Committee, and I thank them for their work, and I am very pleased that I am now a member of the Education and Workforce Committee.

The intent and the objectives of this bill are very clear, because we want our workers to be safe, we want them to understand their rights and their obligations, and we want to reduce the harm in terms of some of those workplaces where they don’t feel safe. So we’ve heard what the other side have said, and they say there’s no problem—they are the problem: the National Party and ACT. Labour is delivering on its election promise. We want this bill to go through to reduce the risks for our workers. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition to the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill in this, its second reading. I speak in opposition to it because this is just another burden being added on to small businesses. The bill removes the threshold where persons conducting a business or undertaking are only required to have a health and safety representative or establish a health and safety committee if they employ more than 20 employees.

Some of the banter that’s been going on in the House today has been fairly unpleasant around employers showing disregard for their staff members. I have never seen, in my time as an employer and liaising with a range of industry employers, that they are not absolutely committed to ensuring that their staff are safe and are not in situations where they are hurt or worse. But this legislation has no risk assessment, so it’s another one of this Government’s one-size-fits-all. It doesn’t matter whether a small business is low risk, they will be required to elect a health and safety representative and pay for their training if just one person within their employment requests that, regardless of what the risk of that small business is.

When the National Government previously brought in the health and safety legislation, that limit of 20 employees was set because many small businesses are low risk, and the cost of putting in and training health and safety representatives was too great, and there were more informal ways in which those small businesses could address health and safety issues in their business. Many small businesses have a range of ways in which they support their staff. Many of these small businesses are family-type businesses; they look after their staff as if they are family. I’ve been to a number of industry small businesses, particularly, where they’ve put in place a range of health and safety measures—things like tool box talks at the start of the day to go over risk assessment, sensible things that are going to work to keep their staff safe. So this takes away from the employers doing those sensible things with their staff and, instead, requires them to set up processes that are more appropriate for larger businesses.

It’s disappointing that the regulatory impact statement notes that there was no particular consultation with small businesses, which, again, speaks to this Government just going ahead and doing things without asking the small businesses: what is the impact? How could this be done better? Is there another way to do it? “No. We know best. We are Government; we know best here in Wellington. This is how you will do it.” So it’s not surprising that they didn’t undertake that consultation, because I’m pretty sure they would know that the feedback would be that it is not welcome—another potential cost and more regulation, and it would not be welcome.

Month after month, we see this Government passing new legislation and more regulations that add further to the cost of running a small business. We know that small businesses in this country are already struggling with a number of other factors. They’re struggling to get back on their feet after COVID-19. They’re struggling with rapid and rampant inflation. They’re struggling with chronic worker shortages, ram raids, crime—things that are impacting on the viability of their businesses. You might—sorry, not you, Madam Speaker; the Government might think that just adding another thing on isn’t a lot, but it’s the final straw that breaks the camel’s back, in many cases. The smallbusiness owners and the farmers feel like they are just facing a deluge of regulations and legislation, and it is impacting on their confidence. We see that regularly in the surveys that are done and the polls that are done around confidence levels. It impacts on their innovation and their desire to grow their businesses.

So this bill does nothing but impose additional costs on at a time that our small businesses are being absolutely hammered by enough costs already. This Government is very good at sheeting back inflation to things that are happening overseas, but this Government needs to realise that every time they add on another regulation, another piece of legislation with a burden on small businesses, it has to go somewhere. It has to be passed on somewhere, and that somewhere is on to rising costs of products and services that those small businesses are responsible for. So this Government doesn’t seem to get that there is a correlation between their actions and the inflation that this country is experiencing.

There might have been noble reasons stated today on the other side of the House of why this legislation has been put up, but let’s remember, this was part—and, in fact, the previous speaker, Lemauga Lydia Sosene, said it; this was honouring the manifesto of the Labour Party in the 2020 election. This was payback for the unions. So this is something that they have promised the unions—

💬 Hon Michael Wood: A point of order. It is a longstanding Speaker’s ruling that implying that a member or a party is doing something as payback for an external organisation is out of order.

Thank you to the member and with apologies. I hadn’t picked that up. The member will withdraw and apologise.

💬 PENNY SIMMONDS: I withdraw and apologise. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The previous speaker noted that this was honouring their manifesto—the Labour Party’s 2020 election manifesto. It was honouring a promise to the unions. So the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has calculated what this will cost small businesses—and, again, the other side of the House might say $1,300 or $1,400 is small change, but, in these small businesses, that’s actually a significant cost to them. It becomes more significant when there is turnover of staff, and often these small businesses have high turnover of staff. They may well have a number of staff coming in for a short period of time, and so this actually could become quite a consistent burden for that small business that they are constantly having to train their staff and have their staff away from the small business during that time.

Small businesses have had to absorb so many additional costs over a short period of time from this Government, and I’ve gone over a number of those already, but the small businesses cannot keep absorbing this cost. They must pass those costs on eventually, and that does impact on inflation. It does impact on the cost of living crisis. This Government really needs to start joining the dots and seeing what they are contributing to this cost of living crisis.

This is not a bill with only narrow impact—105,000 businesses in New Zealand fall under that 20-staff threshold. So this is a piece of legislation that is going to potentially impact widely across New Zealand on small businesses. So we can expect to see the products and services that small businesses, supply going up as a result of this piece of legislation that this Government has put in place. Therefore, this Government will have to take responsibility for the impact that has on inflation. This Government will have to stop saying that everything that contributes to inflation is external to New Zealand. It is not; it is the things that this Government is doing, the spending that this Government is undertaking, and the burdens of legislation and regulations that this Government is putting on to the productive part of our economy that are contributing to inflation.

This implies that our small-business owners are not doing everything they can at the moment for the health and safety of their employees. It is an unnecessary piece of legislation. Our employers are committed to keeping safe their most valuable assets: their staff. We oppose this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Health and Safety at Work (Health and Safety Representatives and Committees) Amendment Bill.

I also want to start with my acknowledgment of yesterday’s tragedy in Newtown. This incident happened about 300 metres from where I live—just down the road from me. A lot of people who have been caught in this tragedy are people that I know very well. Specifically, I want to acknowledge Liam Hockings; today, we found out that he is missing. Liam was my neighbour in 2011 when I lived in one of the apartments in Wellington Central. Then we both ended up moving to Newtown. Every day, I’d see him walking down the street and buying stuff from Countdown in Newtown. It would be only a few days ago that I spoke to him, and he looked very happy. I want to acknowledge his family and that this is very devastating news to all of us.

Health and safety issues in New Zealand is—at some point, something needed to be done about it. I actually want to acknowledge the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety—who unapologetically has been standing up for working people, for vulnerable people—and the Education and Workforce Committee for their work on this bill. The situation around health and safety needs to be improved, and this bill is going to do just that. It’s a step in the right direction.

Workers in New Zealand are exposed to a higher risk of work-related harm than other countries, like the UK, US, Australia. Only in 2022, about 60 people have lost their lives. If this incident, if this fatality doesn’t wake us up, then what’s going to wake us up?

I hear the argument that “this is going to cause more monetary loss for businesses.” What about the lives that are being lost? Those lives, by simple legislation, can be saved. But the fact that people’s lives are being ignored, that the monetary benefits are being put before people’s lives—I just can’t understand it.

We are a First World country in many ways, but our health and safety issues or problems need to improve. I have worked as a cleaner, I have worked in farms, and I have seen vacuums blowing up on people’s backs, and I’ve seen people being hospitalised by accidents that could have been prevented if we had legislation like this in place.

We do have a legislation—we do have a health and safety legislation. For example, setting up health and safety committees brings workers and the employers together, and they can cooperate on improving health and safety. This legislation that we have now only applies to employers who have more than 20 employees. It doesn’t go far enough in protecting people and saving people’s lives.

So this is a very simple legislation that’s going to make a difference in people’s lives. It does really concern me that members on the other side are really standing up on this bill, opposing this bill, but without even giving enough reasons, except the monetary loss to employers.

This is sensible legislation that’s going to change people’s lives. It’s the right one. I commend it to the House.