NZ First treads awkward line as health & safety bill it says will kill workers returns to Parliament
Thursday, 25 June 2026
NZ First offered what it described as “tepid support” for a health and safety bill that party leader Winston Peters said earlier in the day would cause deaths, when debate on its second reading began in Parliament last night.
Peters has said the party was bound by a coalition agreement to back the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, which Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden insists could improve rather than worsen safety outcomes while reducing compliance costs for businesses.
NZ First MP Mark Patterson, speaking on behalf of NZ First at the bill’s second reading, said the party was offering “what I could generously describe as tepid support” for the legislation, but went on to sharply criticise it, before the debate was adjourned.
“We do agree with the minister's intention. Health and safety has been too bureaucratic [with] too much focus on clipboards and not practical solutions. The current system is not working,” Patterson said.
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But he said workplace safety was “essentially a culture issue and it is important that this Parliament does not send the wrong signal”.
The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill ‒ one effect of which would be to absolve businesses with fewer than 20 staff from managing safety risks that weren’t deemed “critical” ‒ had been “universally slammed in select committee”, he said.
“We had literally a conga line of organisations in our offices raising the alarm bells, and not just the usual suspects of the unions that might be described — possibly unkindly — as professional clipboard operators.”
The Employers and Manufacturers Association had said it believed the bill would undo progress made to date and create a two-tier platform where a large number of employees may be at risk of receiving a lower level of protection, he said.
The bill’s supporters have pointed to backing for the changes from Business Canterbury and some positive comments from BusinessNZ.
Earlier in the day, Peters had said he agreed with an assessment from accident insurer ACC that the changes the Government was proposing carried “a real and material risk of increasing deaths, injuries, claims and costs”.
Peters said ACC was “not just making a statement”.
“They’re right, it’s going to create accidents and deaths, and that’s what I’m concerned about.”
NZ First said yesterday that the Government intended to advance the bill to its committee stage, which is the penultimate vote before it becomes law, this week, after it received its second reading.
But Patterson indicated it still hoped to block or change the bill while at the same time voting for it at second reading.
“If there has ever been a case that we step back and reassess … this is it,” Patterson said.
“The risks of getting this wrong are high. We continue to seek constructive dialogue with the minister and our coalition partners before the Committee of the Whole House stage,” he said, before the debate was adjourned.
Van Velden said there had been no decision to delay the legislation and she assumed debate on the second reading of the bill would resume next week.
“Mr Peters hasn’t reached out to meet with me,” she said.
“We’ve done two years of policy work on this proposal, and it’s born out of a good idea, which is that there are far too many small businesses up and down this country who don’t know how to comply with our health and safety laws,” she said.
A spokesperson for van Velden said she had not outright refused a request from Patterson yesterday for an urgent meeting and had said she could meet with him next week. Yesterday, she also voiced a willingness to meet with Peters, if he requested that.