Let’s be honest about why National are risking NZers lives with weak Health & Safety laws

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
25
0

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Come on, let’s be honest as to why the Government have bent over backwards to the Farming lobby to water down and weaken the health and safety laws.

Surely the dead at Pike River Mine and those workers in other industries who have not come home after work deserve us to be honest with why their deaths have meant nothing.

The reason National are putting workers lives in danger and made a mockery of the law by putting worm farming and butterfly breeding in high risk while leaving dairy, lamb and beef in low risk is because the Government feared giving Unions a platform to possibly recruit.

As Audrey Young points out…

During select committee deliberations, it dawned on the Government that such reps could give unions a platform to strengthen their membership in small worksites.

The Government decided that the political dangers of unions regaining a presence in small workplaces outweighed the benefits unions could bring to reducing physical danger in the workplace.

…that’s how idealogical this Government really are. While pundits will tell us on panel shows that this Government are ‘moderate’ the reality is that this Government would prefer to have workers die on the job than possibly give Unions more power.

It’s the ugly reality behind all the mockery of worm farms and parrot breeding.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

25 COMMENTS

  1. And didn’t Judith Collins also have something to do with delaying and tweaking the bill too? You wouldn’t have to look too far to find her motivation

  2. This “Government” has turned themselves into a world circus of means beyond belief.
    On one hand, calling our Law Society wrong in their comnents against the “Government’s” last minute changes to the health & safety bill, and then trying to hide any watering down of changes to worker health for fear of union strength increasing.
    This isn’t a “Government”, this is the get rich quick squad who don’t give a toss for the majority of a society they’re supposed to represent.
    The Key circus is out of control.

    • How so very , very right you are…..

      The Get Rich Quick Squad.

      Est . 1984.

      Inc and affiliated with the Mont Pelerins , Milton Freidmann and the Chicago School of Economics.

  3. The gutless left and their stinking union followers are hell bent on interfering with farming. If they think they will ever get a foot in the door to unionise the industry best they wake up. The types that work on farms are industrious and decent, not the leeches CTU thugs attract. Furthermore, most farmers are extremely careful in whom they employ, and in many cases, contractors perform the tasks they are trying to muscle into. I welcome the day when one of these deadbeats has the audacity to come near any of our family or staff . . . they will sure wish they had stayed in their car.

    • Hahahaha great parody of a right wing nut job “mortense”. I particularly like the way you baselessly call the CTU “thugs” and then go on to thuggishly threaten anyone who has “the audacity to come near any of our family ….. funny.

    • There is a very dark irony to your post Mortein, with the death of a farmer on his quad bike less than 24 hrs after this scurrilous legislation was railroaded through “parliament”.

      Death, unlike the National Government, comes to all…

    • As a New Zealander, I am deeply ashamed that this government reflects so badly on us as people. Outsiders will wonder about our lack of compassion. When I read comments like yours, Mortense, I shudder.

    • @ Mortense . You precisely represent the idiot-farmer mentality that jonky-stien and his hoards of predecessors have exploited that’s lead NZ / Aotearoa into the stinking mess it’s in. You’ve been so successfully brainwashed by a cadre of crooks more clever than you into believing the Unions are to blame that you’d rather eat your own foot than believe otherwise. It’s a tragedy that our economy is so heavily reliant on such dimwitted thought processes such as yours.
      I’ve spent a lifetime watching fellow NZ farmers flounder in the mud of their own making and all because they’d rather live in ignorance. Try thinking, before you open your mouth and spill out your compost. And talking tough ? You make yourself look like a fool.
      You just keep on alienating yourself from the unions and towns people and see where that gets you. Does shit creek run by near you? I bet you’re so far up it that only a mortgagee sale will release you from your prison.
      Farmers must align themselves with their unionised service providers and it’s my view NZ farmers must have their own peer to peer bank that puts them out of harms way from being manipulated by Bankers and Banks.
      @ Mortense . If you are the type of person whom I think you are then you may find solace in the fact that sadly for NZ / Aotearoa, there are thousands of your kind out there . Clumping about in the mud, cursing the weather and your God, shutting out the missus and bullying your kids.
      Albert Einstein once said ” The definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. ” You’re mindless adoration of Jonky-stien and his perverse quislings will, perhaps has, led you into madness.

      • I don’t think a short, aggressive comment is improved by a much longer one. With respect to the mods, I questions their decision to let you abuse another user on their platform. CB I’ve seen you come up with plenty of critique that plays the ball, not the player, let’s seem more of that and less of this.

    • The tragedy at Pike River could have been avoided and thus lives saved, if safety regulations were adhered to. Ruth Richardson and the national Party have blood on their hands.

  4. The process of undermining health and safety in workplaces has been a two and a half decade long process.

    The gutting of the mines inspectorate and permitting self-regulation by mining companies, had it’s genesis in the early 1990s – under the Bolger-led National government – where Bill Birch introduced the so-called “Health and Safety in Employment Act”, in 1992.

    Under the guise of “eliminating red tape”, this dangerous piece of legislation allowed mining companies to self-monitor their own activitie.”

    This excerpt from the Dept of Labour (Now MBIE) is revealing;

    “39. Prior to the enactment of the HSE Act, New Zealand had a ‘mishmash of legislation’[5], in which the duties of employers and others tended to be set out prescriptively and in considerable detail. Under this regime, specification standards directed duty holders as to precisely what preventive measures they must take in particular circumstances. Such standards identified inputs, telling duty holders how to meet a goal, rather than health and safety outcomes to be achieved…

    42. In undertaking reform, New Zealand, like the UK and Australia before it, was strongly influenced by the British Robens Report of 1972. This report resulted in widespread legislative change, from the traditional, ‘command and control’ model, imposing detailed obligations on firms enforced by a state inspectorate, to a more ‘self-regulatory’ regime, using less direct means to achieve broad social goals…

    46. New Zealand embraced the Robens philosophy of self-regulation somewhat belatedly, but with particular enthusiasm and in the context of a political environment that was strongly supportive of deregulation. Indeed, in various forms, deregulation (and reducing the regulatory burden on industry more broadly) was strongly endorsed by the Labour Government that came into power in 1984 and by the National Government that succeeded it in 1990. The HSE Act was a product of this deregulatory environment and in its initial version was stripped of some of the key measures recommended by Robens, not least tripartism, worker participation and an independent executive. It was regarded, so we were told, as a ‘necessary evil’ at a time when the predominant public policy goal was to enhance business competitiveness…”

    Source: http://www.dol.govt.nz/news/media/pikeriver/Pike-River-Mine-review/regulatory-role.asp (Note; dead link – the report has been removed from the govt website)

    Even state-owned coal-mining company, Solid Energy publicly expressed it’s dis-satisfaction and called for the process to be handed over to Queensland for safety oversight,

    “Solid Energy has called for New Zealand’s mines’ inspectorate to be run out of Queensland, saying the lack of resource at the Department of Labour was partly to blame for the Pike River tragedy.

    The state-owned power company is hoping to be the new owner of Pike River Coal, and said the best option to ensure the mine’s safety is to align New Zealand’s framework with that of Queensland.

    “We are suggesting Queensland because we believe it is at the forefront of safety in Australia,” said chief executive Dr Don Elder.

    “The industry needs research capability to look at the best advances overseas and evaluate how those might be applied locally.”

    […]

    However, Elder said because New Zealand mining is a small industry, it would be too expensive to provide all of those services, so the most sustainable option is to contract inspectorate and support services to Australia.”

    http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/solid-energy-wants-australia-run-mines-inspectorate-4811727

    In all the focus on irrelevancies and ministerial mis-information, the truth is plain and there for anyone who wants to see it; ideological-based de-regulation dismantled health and safety in one of the most dangerous industries on this planet (worm farms notwithstanding) and 29 men paid that price.

    No one was held to account.

    • This really isnt about ideology, although that’s the way its presented.
      The fear of unions is about workers taking control of production and putting limits on how the bosses screw their profits out of their workers.
      The real issue is maximising profits, the ideological gloss is about bosses rights to screw workers.
      All of this makes sense once you accept that without workers there would be no profits,
      Bosses know this in their heart which is why they use governnents to rig the labour market against workers.
      Farmers like all small businesses are especially virulent about this because they know that value comes from their own labor and as aspirant capitalists they want to offload that burden onto their employees.
      This is the old story of white settler colonisation famously illustrated by Karl Marx with the delightful story of the aspirant capitalist Mr Peel who bought workers and machinery to Western Australia to work his stolen land. He was left bereft of profits when his workers shot through to the bush to work for themselves. Mr Peel ended up as a land agent.

  5. Our workplace is small. There are only 6 of us in the company.And unfortunately Unions have no interest in such small workplaces.I should know as I phoned a Union to find out.
    Some years ago one of my colleagues badly broke her leg in a workplace accident.The matter was not recorded and the manager at the time stated to whomever enquired about the accident that it was the fault of the employee and not the workplace.The matter did not proceed any further. That work colleague now has a metal plate in her knee that she has to live with for the rest of her life.
    A while after the Pike River 29 deaths John Key made his usual empty promises.But then it, the time after the deaths, was almost 12 months out from the next election and Key and co were in damage control.The Cantetury quakes didn’t help matters much at all as we saw with the CTV building collapse and loss of life.in 24 hours.
    We have noticed since he became PM that Key makes promises he discards once election votes have been counted. He is without qualm or compassion unliess there are votes required.
    The Pike River 29 as well as the residents affected by the Cantebury quakes are probably best referred to as the ‘Disposable New Zealander’.
    Besides when big business has greater influence upon thei government than ordinary NZ workers then we all know this government will always vouch(and vote)in favour of big business.
    Unfortunately it means that NZers will be injured or even lose their lives because this government sees profits more important than human safety in the workplace.
    And so(in deliberate upper case here). VOTE THESE RATS(THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT) OUT IN 2017. THEY DO NOT MERIT OUR SUPPORT OR RESPECT BECAUSE THEY HAVE PERFECTLY REFLECTED THEIR ABHORRENCE AND HATRED OF ORDINARY WORKERS BY ALLOWING THIS ACT OF ARROGANCE TO PROCEED.

    • Well now Helena, he always does doesn’t he?

      Sexual harassment
      Misusing GCSB and lying about it
      Lying about sexist comments
      Manipulating election results
      Killing children by inaction
      etc
      etc
      etc

      If I were given the opportunity to pass judgement on him in a court of law I would need to place a black cloth on my head as I deliver my sentence…

        • I am not religious and am only now finding out about the Forces of the Light, which are bringing an end to the Illuminati.
          According to spiritual websites, we are going to have our chance soon enough to sit in judgement – as long as our consciousness is raised in Love to achieve the highest loving good for ourselves and for others. (The International Courts of Justice are going to be busy for a number of years dealing with the war crimes.)
          I would be quite happy to see jonkey pushing a broom cleaning streets doing his community service for however long. @ J S Bark … perhaps you could throw in the occasional cleaning of the public loos. 😀

  7. Some people are fighting to save the environment, other’s are fighting for social justice. Farmers are fighting for the right for them, their partners and their children to die and be injured in large numbers on their farms.

  8. Be good if the article took it further into unions and gov’t. Article’s are getting shorter and shorter online, the guardian and al ja zeera still write long ones I hear it’s because people respond better to short articles because we lack the attention span online and I’d rather have something educating aswel as informing.

  10. Thanks Frank for the facts and figures, wish the rest of the country did their homework as well as you. Very informative, but sad, to see the slow breakdown of this crucial law.
    For all those families who have lost loved ones in the workplace, it is imperative that any future Govenment once again strengthen this law.

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