Health reform funding plan ‘unacceptable’

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 17

Health reform funding plan ‘unacceptable’

' PA Wellington Employers say they do not want to carry the financial costs of the Gov- ~ ernment’s planned reform '■ of occupational health ' and safety controls. Reform was necessary to “tidy up the legislative mess,” resulting from the number of separate pieces of legislation and Government agencies involved. The occupational health and safety adviser for the Employers’ Federation, ; Dr David Farlow, told a Victoria University indus- “ trial relations centre seminar. «• But suggestions that a 7, new authority and instiZ tute should be funded by £ an employers’ levy would «. be totally unacceptable. “ It was “fashionable” at » the moment to attempt to

push costs for all manner of things on to employers, he said. “All this serves to do is increase the cost of employment, or to put it even more bluntly, it would put more people out of work because employers just cannot afford extra levies.” He warned that employers did not want to see reform of the legislation used as an excuse for placing “extra unwarranted controls” on employers. Reform meant simplification of legislation and bureaucracy. Neither must it give . “extra rights to employees.” Employers favoured a single act together with regulations and codes of practice as appropriate,

he said. New leglisation should set in place a new administrative system, comprising a tripartite commission, stand-alone authority and scientific and technical institute. But the status of the code of practice for health and safety committees should be seen as a separate issue, Dr Farlow said. It should not become mandatory or transformed into regulations. "Making the code mandatory will not improve health and safety, and could be counterproductive.” Rigid structures and legislatively imposed procedures were a disincentive to real progress, and could set back gains made through a voluntary system, he said.