Brooke van Velden’s Risky Final Act as a Politician

nt standing – BusinessNZ – dropped its support last month. Jarvie says, “We’re puzzled as to how this … benefits business owners.”
So this is the paradox: a piece of legislation that puts small firms and their workers at risk, that has next to no support from the business community, and that seems designed to achieve nothing other than – in Jarvie’s words – “generat[ing] more paperwork for businesses and go[ing] against best practice”.
But there’s more. Van Velden’s bill also means she – or whoever ends up as mental health and safety minister – will take on an “extraordinary and dangerous” workload, according to ACC. If the bill passes, fewer employees will be protected by a fall in mental health risk management, the opposite of what is needed in a nation increasingly plagued by mental ill-health and workplace stress. ACC says the bill will result in “increased mental health, addiction and physical harm”.
In short, this is a bill that will harm a vast number of workers and create a world of new problems for the government, if a future government wants to clean up the mess.
So, as the bill heads towards its inevitable vote this week, Brooke van Velden is poised to pull off the seemingly impossible: pass into law something that is opposed by the business community, that worsens the health and safety of tens of thousands of workers, that increases injury costs, and that intensifies pressure on our mental health system. If she does manage this, it will be an extraordinary, troubling last act as a politician.