Safety reform delay risks forgetting Pike River: big business group

Big business backers of controversial health and safety reforms say New Zealand "risks forgetting" the Pike River coalmine disaster if opposition coming from farmers and small business owners is allowed to water down the Health and Safety Reform Bill currently before Parliament.

A government backbench revolt against the legislation saw its report back from the transport and industrial relations select committee delayed for two months after MPs claimed a backlash from small business and farming constituents about the increased health and safety responsibilities the new regime would place on them.

But the head of the Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum, Francois Barton, said big business wants the reforms passed swiftly and for both large and small firms to be brought into the regime, saying health and safety has for too long been treated as a "PC nanny state issue."

"We don't want to see any undue delay or dilution," said Mr Barton, whose forum represents 178 of New Zealand's largest companies, ranging from the electricity, oil and gas, port, aviation and forestry sectors, to manufacturing, telecommunications and infrastructure businesses. "If that gets watered down, it waters down everyone's ability to play their part," Mr Barton said. "When everyone plays their part, you can get positive change."

According to Radio New Zealand, the bill has already been gutted of requirements to involve staff in health and safety management for employers with fewer than 20 workers. It is unclear what further elements may also be affected.

"I don't have any idea on the policy issues," Mr Barton said. "There is a range of commentary on small business exemptions. We are concerned that this is unnecessary delay."

His comments were echoed by the general manager for health and safety at Z Energy, Julian Hughes. Their comments are the first from the business sector to back up calls from the trade union movement not to delay or dilute the bill.

Mr Hughes said the groups apparently most concerned about it were "in fact ... the highest risk groups in our workplaces."

"The saying goes that we have a Pike River on our farms every year," he said, referring to the coalmine explosion in 2009 that killed 29 miners, revealing a culture of disregard for health and safety. "We just do it one at a time. We have 20 to 30 farmers a year killed in New Zealand.

"Things need to change. That's not a sustainable or satisfactory way to go."

Opposition to the new regime suggested some New Zealand firms only supported health and safety initiatives "as long as it's fair and balanced and doable."

"I just don't think that's a position you can take," Mr Hughes said. "What you should say is: 'we're only going to do the work if we can do it safely', not the other way around.

"I don't think we've forgotten Pike River but we're in danger of forgetting Pike River," he said. "The changes we put in place is what we owe those men."

Mr Barton cited the example of the forestry industry, where the industry and workers acted in unison after 13 fatalities in 2013. There were no deaths in the following year.

"We talk about the 'living room test'," Mr Barton said. "That is: how would it go repeating the arguments [opposing the new law] to the grieving family of a person killed at work?"

"This has been considered for too long a PC, nanny state issue. Eighty-odd people are dying a year by going to work, and 600 to 900 deaths occur from occupational illnesses. It would be welcome if there was a bit more ownership of the problem."

Fears staff health and safety representatives might abuse the power to close an unsafe workplace weren't borne out by the evidence from Australia, Mr Hughes said.

"It's very rarely used and, if you've got people at work that are so concerned they want to shut it down, isn't that something you'd be interested in as an employer? I find it hard to understand why that's such a bad thing."

Failure by small contractors to buy into a new health and safety culture could lead to large companies like Z "deciding it's too risky to use them."

(BusinessDesk)