Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill – First Reading

I move that the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill be now read a first time.

I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the Bill and, at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the Bill be reported to the House by 30 October 2013.

Mr Speaker, this Bill is part of the Government’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy by the end of 2013. The Bill paves the way for a new set of mining regulations that will improve health and safety in the mining industry and bring New Zealand’s regulation of mining health and safety in line with international best practice. We owe this to the workers who lost their lives at Pike River and their families, and to all current and future workers in the mining industry.

This Bill before us today is an omnibus Bill which addresses those recommendations of the Royal Commission that require new, or amended, primary legislation. It will establish a new stand-alone Crown agent – WorkSafe New Zealand – to focus on workplace health and safety; and will amend the Health and Safety in Employment Act and replace the Mines Rescue Trust Act.

The first part of this Bill establishes WorkSafe New Zealand. The creation of a stand-alone Crown agent with a dedicated focus on health and safety was a key recommendation of both the Royal Commission and the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety. It signals the step-change required in the regulation of health and safety in the workplace.

WorkSafe New Zealand will play a significant role in achieving this Government’s target of reducing workplace fatality and serious injury rates by 25 per cent by 2020. This goal should be representative of the type of approach this new regulator should take: improving health and safety is not simply about giving people checklists and telling them what to do, but letting them know what they need to achieve so that they can then set about achieving that.

Part two of the Bill amends the Health and Safety in Employment Act to provide the necessary statutory support for the new mining regulations.

This includes establishing new classes of duty holder under the Act, specifically ‘mine worker’ and ‘mine operator’. It also includes a definition of the mining operations that will be covered by the new regulatory regime for mining. This will include all surface and underground mines, and some quarries and tunnels.

Part two also provides for enhanced worker participation arrangements in the mining industry. The provisions strengthen worker participation in health and safety in the mining industry, in particular the functions and powers of health and safety representatives. At the same time it ensures there are appropriate checks and balances to prevent undue interference in the day-to-day running of mining operations.

All mining operations will be required to have a documented worker participation system and this system will cover all mine workers at a site, including contractors and sub-contractors, and their employees.

The functions and powers of site health and safety representatives will be explicitly set out in legislation. These include the ability for suitably trained representatives to perform inspections and stop operations if there is an imminent risk of serious harm occurring.

The Bill also establishes a new position of industry-wide health and safety representative to provide, in the Royal Commission’s words, “an extra set of eyes and ears, and a further line of defence”. These positions can be appointed and funded either by a union or other group of mine workers.

The functions and powers of both site and industry health and safety representatives will be balanced by provisions that ensure that health and safety representatives only carry out their functions for health and safety purposes and do not unnecessarily impede production.

Part three of the Bill ensures that the legislation that supports the Mines Rescue Service is fit for purpose. The Mines Rescue Service plays a crucial role in emergency response. The Royal Commission recommended that the Mines Rescue Trust Act better reflect the functions that the Service actually carries out, and that there is a review of the adequacy and fairness of the levy that funds the Service.

Part three also reflects the Government’s decision to broaden the response to the Royal Commission to other forms of mining as well as underground coal mining. It does so by expanding the coverage of the Mines Rescue Service. The governance structure of the Mines Rescue Trust is also amended to reflect this change in coverage.

The Mines Rescue Service has unique expertise in training and equipping brigades to respond to emergencies, assisting mine operators in emergency preparedness and deploying brigades and providing advice to mine operators during emergencies. All of these capabilities will be reflected in the new functions of the Mines Rescue Service provided for in the Bill.

The Bill also enables the levy that funds the service to be set in regulations. Officials are currently developing proposals to ensure that the levy adequately covers the core functions of the service, while remaining fair and proportionate for the mine operators that will be required to pay it.

The introduction and consideration of this Bill is happening in parallel with public consultation on the wider package of proposals for the new regulatory regime for mining. While the consultation mainly concerns the proposed mining regulations, it also covers the worker participation and mines rescue elements of this Bill. This parallel process is necessary to meet the commitment to implement the response to the Royal Commission by the end of the year.

Submitters have been advised that their submissions on these issues will be taken into account when officials advise the Government and the Select Committee on any changes that may be needed to the Bill. The public discussion paper also informs likely submitters of this Bill, and invites them to get involved in the public submission process on it.

This Government has made a commitment to the families of the victims of Pike River to ensure we follow through on every recommendation of the Royal Commission. If there can be any good from the tragic loss of lives, then let it be movement from platitudes to action, a creation of frameworks that will shape better behaviour and outcomes at the workplace.

This Bill is an important step in this process and will improve workplace health and safety in the mining sector and beyond in New Zealand.

Mr Speaker, I commend this Bill to the House.