Health and Safety Bill passes; Winston Peters promises to negotiate amendments after election
Wednesday, 1 July 2026
Controversial health and safety reforms have been passed by Parliament, but with NZ First leader Winston Peters claiming some support from within the National Party for his commitment to “fix” the legislation after the election.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden announced on Tuesday implementation of the legislation would be delayed by five months until April next year, in what appeared an awkward political compromise.
Van Velden said the delay would “provide more time for businesses, workers and sector groups to understand the law and develop advice and guidance”.
But she also confirmed the delay was part of a coalition deal. Peters said last week that he agreed with concerns voiced by ACC that the legislation would “cause injuries and deaths”.
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Peters said the delay would give NZ First time to make the fixes it thought were necessary before the legislation came into effect next year, making clear the pause in its implementation was down to the party.
“How shall I say — we’re not boasting about it; we’re just the ones that caused this to happen. Those are the facts,” he said.
Peters reiterated he had made a promise to “fix” the legislation. “I’ve set out to achieve that and the first step to doing that was to make sure it could not come in before April 1, next year. As I said last week, it’s going to be ‘dead on arrival’ and it is.”
He envisaged changing the bill through amendments that NZ First intended to negotiate with coalition partners after the election - rather than seeking to repeal it.
“It will be our endeavour to try and make it part of the negotiations, because we’ll have the numbers to persuade others,” he said.
The amendments would be designed to ensure the reforms fulfilled their “proper purpose”, which was to simplify the law and not end up complicating it, he said.
RNZ reported ACT Party leader David Seymour saying the implementation delay would make no difference as ACT would not allow the bill to be repealed as long as it was still part of the coalition.
Peters said in response that “Mr Seymour can state what his position is”.
“We are stating ours and we’re putting it to the voters, and the voters will decide this issue.
“This is not a ‘bottom line’. It’s just a promise we’re going to keep, like so many other promises we keep.”
Seymour did not rule out discussions with NZ First on amendments to the legislation after the election.
“Any discussion is possible, but despite this going through Cabinet and being agreed over several years, they haven't been able to say what changes they would like,” he said.
That put the parties at an impasse, he said.
Peters said NZ First had discussed its concerns about the legislation with National.
“It wouldn’t be wrong to say that there are some National Party people who see it clearly our way,” he said, while declining to provide further details.
A National Party spokesperson confirmed late on Wednesday, after the bill passed, that the party was open to making changes to the legislation.
NZ First joined National and ACT in voting the bill into law - as Peters said it was obliged to do so under a coalition agreement.
But, before doing so, NZ First MP Mark Patterson said in his third-reading speech that there was “overwhelming consensus against the changes”, which he said would add complexity to health and safety rules rather than making them simpler.
The most controversial aspect of the reforms is that they would exempt firms with fewer than 20 staff from managing certain health and safety obligations relating to risks that were unlikely to result in a risk of “critical injury”.
Van Velden has said that would help small businesses focus on critical risks.
But Patterson said “a culture of turning a blind eye to small risks can inadvertently lead to a cavalier attitude to high risks”.
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty repeatedly called out “don’t vote for it then” from the floor of House as Patterson made his remarks.
The Institute of Safety Management said in a statement that delaying the implementation date “simply punts all of the problematic changes down the field”.
“A broad coalition stretching from the Employers and Manufacturers Association to the Council of Trade Unions has been consistently raising concerns that the complex, confused and contradictory bill will lead to more harm without providing benefits to employers,” it said.
NZ First “deserved some credit” for taking those concerns to van Velden, the institute said. But the party had “apparently backed down when it comes to voting against the bill”.
“We will be asking all parties to commit to immediate repeal of the bill post-election,” it said.
Health and safety experts had spent thousands of hours “patiently explaining why the changes will push New Zealand further behind Australia and the UK in terms of harm and productivity”, it said.
The passage of the bill “represents an enormous waste of time” that could have been spent improving health and safety, it said.
Van Velden has implied in Parliament that health and safety professionals have a vested interest in red tape, and maintained the intent and effects of the legislation have been misunderstood by its critics.
Labour MP Phil Twyford sarcastically lampooned van Velden’s dismissal of the institute’s view during the bill’s second reading.
“The New Zealand Institute of Safety Management — the peak body of health and safety experts — what would they know about this bill?” he said.
Speaking to The Post after the third reading, Labour workplace relations spokesperson Jan Tinetti agreed that if parties representing the majority of MPs could approve a law that they believed was likely to result in people’s deaths, that did raise questions over whether Parliament was working for the people.
“That’s absolutely right and that’s something that needs to be looked at,” she said.