Energy Safety Review Bill

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) Link to this

It is with pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the second reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill. This is a significant bill, and it has been a very useful introduction for me during my first term of Parliament to the process of select committees. The bill seeks, in its purpose, to assure the public that electrical workers are competent to undertake the work of electricians, and that electricity and gas supply systems do not put the public at significant risk. This is a bill that affects every single household in New Zealand and every single householder.

I guess, in talking about risk, it is worth reflecting on personal experience. During my career with the dairy industry, we moved around New Zealand a little bit, as I was posted from place to place. When we bought a property it was usually a lower-priced property and we always had the wiring checked, and every single time we had to have the place rewired. In one of the houses, in particular, a previous owner had done the wiring himself, and the electrician we engaged described the load factors. It was an absolute horror story of what could have happened if we had used more appliances than the system would have coped with. We could easily have had a fire in the roof. It is a very significant aspect of energy safety that houses and industrial sites are properly wired.

The bill as introduced contained parts relating to the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Regulations. It is significant to mention that, because the Commerce Committee had to divide those parts from the bill to give proper effect to the concentration required for the various skills. It was a substantial work, and I think the select committee demonstrated a real commitment to having legislation that worked. I, along with my colleagues from National, was a little surprised to find considerable acrimony being expressed by groups of submitters towards the changes imposed by the bill. It was almost as if the very people who were supposed to benefit from the legislation viewed it antagonistically. So we listened carefully to them.

We then found that it was almost as if the Hon Harry Duynhoven, the Minister responsible, was expecting the select committee to do his work for him. There seemed to have been no consultation with the industry in putting the bill together—none at all. There had been no consultation with the tradespeople—master plumbers, gasfitters, or drainlayers. Electricians were equally upset. It seems as if the Minister simply sat around the table with his officials and drafted up what they considered to be an appropriate bill, without reference to the people who would be carrying out the work. It is a bill that is full of compliance issues for the tradespeople. He brought it to Parliament, where he then expected the select committee to accept what had been dished up.

I will always recall the groups of sincere and extremely concerned master tradesmen who came before the committee. Their concerns extended well beyond their personal interest. They had their industries and their trades at heart. I will always remember the phone calls that I had from people back on the West Coast who were equally concerned about the bill as it affected their trades. I shall never forget meeting a plumber who, with some considerable pride, explained that he was a fourth-generation master plumber, and was deeply hurt by the aspects of the bill that would take away that creditable reputation and tradition that his family had pursued.

The initial bill sought to remove the registration of plumbers, electricians, and other trades. and I never quite understood why, but the Government sought to do that. National strongly argued the importance of keeping those registrations, so parts of the bill were changed. It was a major win for all the relevant tradesmen. It is very easy sitting in the isolation of Parliament, especially in the pleasurable surroundings of a select committee, to forget the reality of the world outside. Plumbers have extended our quality of life considerably more than the medical services have. If we did not have good plumbing, and if we did not have safe electricity, that would certainly be a major blow to the quality of life.

Turning back to the positive aspects of the bill, having been a little bit critical of the way it was presented to the select committee, I can honestly say, looking across at my colleagues who were part of the whole team, that there was a genuine desire on everybody’s part to come up with the best possible result. So we worked hard for that. The purpose of the bill was to assure the public that electrical workers are competent to undertake the work that electricity and gas supply systems do not put the public at significant risk.

The bill improves procedures for addressing complaints against workers, and enhances enforcement provisions. This is particularly important. When we reflect on the goodness knows how many millions of dollars of problems that have been the result of the kinds of issues that have led to the leaky building debacle in the building sector, we certainly would not want regulations that allowed that kind of thing to happen in the electricity and gas sector. So there are improved procedures for addressing complaints against people, and the enforcement provisions are enhanced.

The bill broadens obligations to notify authorities of accidents caused by, or involving, or affecting electricity or its generation, conversion, transformation, conveyance, or use. It was interesting to note during the discussion on the bill the various considerations that had to be taken into account. I well remember one of the gasfitters explaining that a gas fitting was not necessarily a gas fitting until such time as it was connected. In other words, the people who came before us had some concerns that the gas fittings, or articles that were going to be powered by gas, could be installed by people who were not qualified, only then to be connected having been installed incorrectly. So we had to make sure that the legislation covered those circumstances beyond just connecting, so that installation was covered, as well.

The bill provides for the obligation of electricity-system owners to implement a safety-management system, and this is a particularly important aspect. The bill restricts people from doing or assisting with prescribed electrical work unless that person is licensed, but it does provide for exemptions from this. It is a significant thing. I understand that with some plumbing work one can work towards installation then have it checked through by a qualified plumber or drainlayer, but in relation to electricity the bill restricts people from simply assisting. It allows for different classes of licences and associated licensing standards lasting for up to 2 years. This was a significant part of the bill as far as the tradespeople were concerned. The bill provides for the licensing of employers for up to 5 years to ensure their employees are licensed and supervised. Supervision is a significant aspect of the whole bill and it establishes, importantly, a register of electrical workers that is publicly available.

It allows for complaints to be made by any person. People do not have to accept work that is done to an unsatisfactory level and think they have to put up with it. Another aspect that I think that every member of the select committee was impressed by was the care and concern—the sort of overview—that master tradesmen have towards their work. They take their work far more seriously than just being a commercial operation. It is singularly important to plumbers that everything is done right, and to electricians that everything is done correctly, particularly from a safety point of view.

National opposed the first reading of the bill due to the insufficient consultation with plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers and the appropriation of standards setting. We objected also to a lack of assessment of additional costs and impact on availability of skilled tradespeople. Finally, it has been a pleasure to be associated with this fairly major Energy Safety Review Bill. On behalf of the National team I am confident to say that we are proud of its production, we think it will do the job, and we are pleased to have stood by the tradespeople involved in it.

MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

I rise to speak on the second reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill. Before I begin on the points I wish to cover, I need to address some points made by my colleague Chris Auchinvole, who has just resumed his seat. He and I were both on the Commerce Committee. I have two points to make. First, consultation did occur in the drafting of this legislation. There was substantial consultation on the part of the Minister with the electrical workers’ unions, electrical contractors, and the Electrical Registration Board. In fact, it came as no surprise to anybody. So I need to put on the record that the presumption made by the previous speaker is inaccurate. A great deal of consultation went on beforehand. In fact, submitters came to the table and said how long the process had been in train.

The second point to make in rebuttal is simply that the process of hearing submissions is a fundamental part of the democratic process. If legislation, on first drafting, is not perfect, that should be no surprise. The whole process of hearing submissions, hearing responses to them, and the work of the select committee in proposing amendments is the stuff of this Parliament. It is the stuff of this House. It is the material purpose for MPs sitting on select committees. So that should come as no surprise, either. The fact that submitters recommended changes and at times registered complaints about parts of process is not unusual. It is part of the process; it is part of opening up the legislative process to the public for comment, and that is as it should be.

Having dealt with those matters arising out of the contribution of the previous speaker, I wish to get to a couple of key points in this bill. First, energy is critical to economic growth, as the Minister said in his second reading speech. But it is also critical that energy is delivered to New Zealanders in a way that is safe for people, safe for property, and safe for the workers who are delivering that energy. As a result, this bill amends a number of Acts: the Electricity Act 1992, the Gas Act 1992, the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, and the Ministry of Energy (Abolition Act) 1989. In the course of amending those Acts, it is not just the safety of supply that is important but the safety of the workers is also important in the delivery of energy and, in the case of this bill in particular, of electricity to consumers throughout New Zealand.

The process of splitting the original bill into two parts has been touched on by my colleague Chris Auchinvole. I want to comment on that briefly because it was important that the part of the original omnibus bill that related to electrical workers was allowed to proceed without hindrance. It should have been allowed to proceed without interruption to its next stage while certain issues relating to plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers were sorted. There were clearly issues pertaining to the latter sectors that did not pertain to electrical workers, and it made no sense to the Commerce Committee to detain the progress of the bits pertaining to electrical workers until the rest could be sorted out. So we awaited the report of Hazel Armstrong, which will become the subject of more discussion in this House when the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill is debated in this House shortly.

The next point that I wish to make is probably the most critical point. It is to do with the registration and licensing regime that the Energy Safety Review Bill proposes. The original bill proposed a licensing-only scheme. It became very clear in the course of submissions that there was an attachment to registration that was readily understood by many of the members of the select committee. So the members of the select committee resolved to revert to a registration and licensing system.

To make this perfectly clear, registration is the “ticket”. Registration is what one gets when one has completed all the requirements to become an electrician. Electricians represented their position to us as strongly as any profession would represent its cause around registration to us: that it is a point of identification for electricians that they are electricians. It is a point of identification for doctors that they are doctors; it is no less the case for electricians. So the retention of registration—that is, getting that ticket that says that one is a registered electrician—remains absolutely critical.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) Link to this

On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to take a very short call on the Energy Safety Review Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill. We recognise that it is a very important bill for all New Zealanders, as householders, in particular, are dependent on the safety of electrical wiring in their homes and their electrical appliances. We note, with the return of this bill to the House, that part of the original bill has been divided off, to form another bill. This bill now focuses on the electrical workers, as the previous speakers commented on.

I must say that, as a householder, I have had dealings with electricians on a number of occasions for many small electrical jobs, and all of them have completed an excellent job. I have never ever had any complaints about their work. This is one area that, as a member of Parliament, I have never had any complaints about from the public. The electricians always test their work prior to leaving the house, and they always ensure that the customer is totally satisfied.

When I did a search of the media coverage relating to this bill, there was very little available. I could find only two references, which were both from the Independent. Those references stated that this bill had the potential to cost consumers slightly more, as affected industries will have to pass on the costs of licences. However, that cost should be offset by the fact that the duration of a licence has been extended from 2 to 5 years. The commentary states: “This change aims to remove perceived disincentives, in the form of increased costs, for those contemplating becoming electrical workers.” The Commerce Committee has also recommended extending the duration of a provisional licence from 3 to 12 months. Again, this will give provisional licence holders time to complete the licensing requirement within the duration of the provisional licence.

My late father would have been most interested in this bill, as he was a registered electrician. I must say that it was a registration and a licence that he was very proud of and always kept up to date right throughout his life. As children and young people, he always taught us to be extremely careful of electricity, because it is very rare ever to get a second chance when something goes wrong in this area.

So New Zealand First members support this bill and we look forward to more input into it at the Committee stage.

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou te Whare. The value of the democratic process is in letting the people have a say—hearing the voices of the voiceless, and providing an opportunity for their kōrero to be heard. So it was that, at the first reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill, we supported the bill going through to the Commerce Committee, to enable the democratic process to proceed.

One by one the submissions to the select committee raised concerns and issues that we have found of great interest in our further deliberations. We noted that the members of the New Zealand Electrical Institute opposed the bill, concluding that it was neither practical nor effective for workers, as it revamps a regulatory regime that is already sufficient. The Wellington and Southland branches of the New Zealand Electrical Institute considered that the changes are not necessary, as any improvements that were needed have been made by regulation over the last 10 years. We also read with interest the views of the Electrical Safety Organisation in supporting the inclusion of section 80, “Testing, certification, and inspection” in new Part 9, inserted by clause 12. We have considered those issues in our further analysis of the bill, and we want to say right from the outset that we believe that public and worker safety is of the utmost importance. Our voting in support of this bill recognises the need for improvements in the electrical safety regime and in the occupational regulation of electricity workers.

But there are wider issues that we believe should be usefully addressed in the further stages of this bill. Electricity work is a career option. As a starting point, we want to ensure that the status and professionalism of electricity workers are guaranteed. The Māori Party believes that in a buoyant economy, we should expect more people to benefit from employment opportunities. In the 1980s the ruthless economic restructuring driven through by Labour increased Māori unemployment to record levels. The damage caused in the 1980s has left a lasting impact, with the latest household labour force survey showing that the unemployment rate of 8 percent for Māori is still more than twice the national rate of 3.8 percent.

The Māori Party believes that a responsible Government must target the workforce response in order to meet demand. To that end, the fact that electricians are listed in the 16 trade areas described as suffering from acute skill shortages must surely make that occupation a priority. Furthermore, in the Department of Labour’s current list of 57 priority occupations for immigration purposes, electricians are included as one of the two traditional trades. Our research also tells us that at the 2001 census 651 Māori were working as electricians, constituting about 6.5 percent of the total number, yet that workforce makes up less than 0.5 percent of the employed Māori population. So there is plenty of scope for Māori to be recruited into this area of acute skill shortage—for tangata whenua to be enticed into taking up a priority occupation before we start looking offshore and making up immigration quotas, as we have been doing in this particular trade for the last 26-odd years.

The Māori Party has raised the issue in this House before of the value of the trade training schemes that used to be an accepted career pathway for many of our rangatahi. In doing research for this bill, I came across the Auckland Star of 1965. The paper featured the spectacular achievements of a Ngāpuhi boy, Eric Beazley from Rāwene, who had gained top marks—96 percent—in the practical section of the electricians registration board examinations. That outstanding achievement had won him a gold medal award from the British cable manufacturers association. Eric had taken up an apprenticeship in 1963 as an electrical trainee at the Auckland Technical Institute, under the trade training scheme conducted by the Department of Māori Affairs. It made me think how important those types of schemes have been in creating a desperately needed workforce for this nation.

This bill is meant to be focused on the needs of that workforce. It includes mechanisms that are meant to ensure the public of worker competence and to encourage us to believe that electricity supply systems will not be put at risk. But when I think about what will really change for electricians, electrical service technicians, line mechanics, inspectors, electronic security installers, and workers in the other classes of electrical work, I am not convinced of that. One of the key issues that came up again and again during the select committee process was that the current registration and licensing system should be retained. We support the recommendation from the select committee that the registration and licensing system that currently operates should be retained. We are influenced by the committee’s advice that the proposed change does not clarify the competency of workers to consumers and that it also undermines the workers’ belief that registration is the apex of their qualifications.

On that matter, the issue of accountability and transparency, we were very interested in the submission from the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union, where Paul Tolich described how workers do not have faith in allowing companies to self-regulate. He talked also about the risk that the skills shortages that I referred to earlier may mean that employers may use less trained and experienced people, thereby placing other workers and the public at risk. The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union does not support the proposal for the board to issue employer licences whereby employers can hold practising licences, believing that this will compromise both workers and the public. The Māori Party absolutely agrees with the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union that it is vital that those employed are highly trained people whom their fellow workers can rely on. We know that it gives workers confidence to know that their colleagues are being properly trained and hold a practising licence, rather than the licence being held by the employer. In recognition of the importance of those very concerns, the Māori Party will be introducing a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee stage of this bill, seeking to remove the proposals for companies to self-regulate.

The Māori Party certainly supports the recommendation from the select committee that the Electrical Workers Licensing Board must be guided by principles of public safety. We also support the commitment to prevent undue costs being passed on to electricians and/or the public. We believe we must do everything possible to uphold public and workers’ safety. The risk of danger being created through enlisting laypersons as electrical workers is too high, and we do not support any moves that would threaten safety. But we are equally of the view that increased competency testing is an unnecessary expense for workers. Where there are increased compliance costs for workers and businesses, we can be sure that those costs will be passed on, at least in part, to consumers.

Finally, I say that today my office made contact with the son of Eric Beazley, the winner of the gold medal award from the British cable manufacturers association. Eric Beazley Jnr, the son, confirmed for the information of the House that his father still lives in Rāwene, and that the story of the gold medal award is frequently told. Through mud, through ice, and through wind and storm, the story of Eric the sparky captivates the excitement of all the whānau from Rāwene, and beyond there. Members of the whānau light up when talking of Eric, and talking about that gold medal award still gives them a charge. The Māori Party also celebrates that success, and believes that that commitment and excellence is something for all of us to learn from. We hope that the Energy Safety Review Bill will build on that success. Tēnā tātou katoa.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) Link to this

The Energy Safety Review Bill received its first reading in this House on 21 June 2005, prior to the last election. It was, of course, referred to the Commerce Committee, which then in its usual way went out to the New Zealand public, and particularly to the trades and professions involved in the original bill, and asked for submissions. After the election, I found myself the deputy chair of the Commerce Committee, and I was therefore introduced to the bill for the first time.

Being a member of that select committee has been something of an unforgettable experience, because when we first started looking at the original bill I had no idea of what a huge wave of submissions we would receive, and how negative many of those submitters would be in terms of the way the bill had been drafted. That is oversimplifying things a little bit, because we actually had two groups of submitters: we had submissions from electricians and their professional associations, and we also had submissions from plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers.

It was those in the second group who came with their teeth gnashing in rage—and I will deal a lot more with them when we talk about the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill later today. Suffice it to say, people came to the select committee from all parts of New Zealand, at great personal expense, to express their fury that there had been no consultation with them about the contents of Parts 5 to 8 of the original bill, dealing with plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers. I will not go into that part of the original bill now, because there will be an opportunity when the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill comes to the House, hopefully, later today to talk about what has happened from thereon, in terms of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers.

At this stage, it is right just to talk about this bill—which was originally Parts 1 to 4 of the Energy Safety Review Bill—as it now stands, in relation to safety management systems, the regulation of electricians, and also the regulation of gas supply systems.

I think one of the things that also impressed me about the select committee process was actually having electrical workers from various parts of that sector come to talk to us. Some of them brought along slides and photographs, and it made us realise again just how dangerous it is to work in the electrical system: how dangerous it is to put in place our transmission wires and our transmission grids, and how dangerous it is to repair the electricity wires that come into our homes in the middle of the kind of weather we have had all too frequently in Wellington this year, with major gales, storms, and so forth.

It is quite sobering for us to realise, as we sit at home and flick a switch—which day by day brings power to our lights, heating to our homes, and power to our computers and to all the other things we take for granted, like our television sets—that there are people who devote their professional lives and trade lives to ensuring that we get that kind of service. It is actually very, very dangerous work. It is dangerous for men—I do not think too many women go up those great pylons, but there might be a few—to repair the damage done to our transmission grid and to the wiring system that goes with it, and, at the other end of the system, for the sparkies who come along to our homes to fix the problems that we have. We all know what a danger electricity is to the human body. I guess most of us have had shocks at various times, so we have experienced, hands on, the danger involved with this profession. So it is right and proper for Parliament to put in place very rigorous safety management systems.

A similar thing applies to the gas supply system. Again, that is something I take for granted. I have a little device that I click on my gas heater at home, and on my gas hob for making a cup of tea in the morning. The gas comes on and it is all fine. But we all know, also, that when gas goes wrong, there can be very, very serious consequences. I speak as one whose uncle actually died in New York after a gas leakage. He was one of a number of people who were killed in that particular instance, and he was buried in New York.

But here in New Zealand, too, even since we have been looking at this bill, I have had people write to me who have had horrendous personal health problems and tragedies following gas accidents. In one particular case, a woman who lives in Waikanae has been battling a whole array of illnesses, all arising from one faulty gas-powered hot-water cylinder. Again, it just makes us realise that a great deal of danger is associated with both electricity and gas.

This bill has the intent of making those systems as safe as we can humanly make them. I think the bill, as it has now come back to the House, is a very, very good bill. It legislates for a number of things to happen, but it also allows for regulation-making powers through an Order in Council—through the Governor-General—so as to get down to some of the nitty-gritty issues around specific circumstances involving electricity or gas that could not adequately be dealt with within the legislative framework. So this bill is, if you like, the base of a pyramid of safety around these issues, but it is not the whole story, and there will be more to come as we go forward.

As others have mentioned, the bill also deals with the way in which electricians become qualified, the way they become registered, and the way their ongoing competency is licensed. That is all designed to ensure that when these men and women go on to the front line—be it in the middle of a raging storm to fix our power network, our power system, and our power wires, or be it just coming into our homes on a day-by-day basis to ensure that our wiring systems are in order and safe—we will be safe because they are competent, fully trained, and proficient at the important work they do.

I am pleased at the changes the Commerce Committee has made. I commend this bill to the House. It has the support of United Future.