New Zealand First list MP: National's unintended side effects

New Zealand First list MP Clayton Mitchell. Photo/file

Can your 'sausage sizzle' afford to pay public liability insurance before setting up the barbecue? It may need to, according to some of the unintended consequences associated with health and safety reforms National has been trying to push through since May.

Other unintended consequences associated with National's proposed health and safety reforms would make one spouse working on a farm liable for prosecution in the event of fatal harm to the other spouse. This would place an already grieving spouse under further undue stress and open them up to unnecessary liability.

Other of these reforms would treat farms as worksites, making farmers liable for all 'visitors' - this could include anglers, hunters and trampers, if they are on areas of the farm where work is conducted. In order to protect themselves, farms may feel pressured into erecting "No Entry" signs. This would greatly restrict every Kiwi's access to land.

These are just three of the many challenges presented by the health and safety reform bill, which need to be seriously considered and reworked before the bill is enacted.

As a result of the plethora of unintended consequences in this reform bill, I have suggested the addition of three amendments to health and safety reforms; explicitly stating that spouses (de facto or civil union partners) would not be liable for prosecution in the event of fatal harm on the farm, reducing the threshold of the number of workers required to implement a 'health and safety representative' (HSR) and increasing personal responsibility with maintaining and looking after health and safety equipment.

At New Zealand First we promote health and safety for our workers, but we want to get the balance right. We need to add some common sense, which comes from making sure that New Zealand policies reflect New Zealand society. National cannot continue to copy and paste Australian laws into Kiwi society.

New Zealand First could see ourselves supporting this reform bill, if the Government addressed some of these unintended consequences.