A week ago today I was lucky enough to witness the transfer of two kiwi chicks - great spotted kiwi - into Riccarton Bush. They were to winter over in that location to learn how to build burrows, forage for food and generally learn how to be a kiwi before being released into the wild.

What struck me most about this experience was that the future of these small birds has been secured by the efforts of not one agency, but by many working in partnership. The Department of Conservation, Christchurch City Council, New Zealand Conservation Trust, Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, Riccarton Bush Trust, Gama Foundation, World Wide Fund for Nature, New Zealand Lottery Grants Board, BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust and students of Hurunui College each had made a contribution that cumulated in the kiwi being placed in Riccarton Bush.

And not only that, but their safety while staying in Riccarton Bush is now in the hands of the individuals that make up Christchurch city and all other visitors to this small forest remnant. This I believe is the best of conservation in action. It’s also a huge responsibility, and one that we all must take ownership of. Preserving our biodiversity is a local issue, a national issue, and a global issue. How we make all these connections is where strategies like the one we are launching today come into play. I am aware that the Department of Conservation and Christchurch City Council staff work closely together on implementing shared biodiversity priorities. For example, pest management on Banks Peninsula and the Port Hills is one particular area of co-operation as we strive to safeguard penguin colonies.

There have been a lot of references lately to ‘The Conservation Economy’. The central premise is that conservation is an economic investment, not simply a ‘social good’ cost. It reflects the interdependencies between nature’s systems, social systems and the economy. In its totality, conservation plays a critical role in validating the ‘clean pure’ brand that is the market advantage on which our producers rely.

The easiest place to see this is in tourism. Tourism is New Zealand’s largest single foreign exchange earner, and the destinations for both domestic and international visitors are primarily around public conservation lands and waters. The businesses that support and complement tourism are major contributors to our regional economies and local communities. The value of places like Riccarton Bush to the local tourism resource can only be strengthened by the role it has recently taken on as a ‘kiwi kindy’. It brings conservation and biodiversity out of the woods and back into the backyards of every New Zealander.

This year is International Year of Biodiversity. This brings to mind another catch phrase from a few years back - Think Globally, act Locally. Christchurch City Council’s Biodiversity Strategy will guide local action and allow us to work collaboratively towards a common goal. It certainly has my support.

Thank you and enjoy the launch.

Posted by staff in Speech at 13:26

Public submissions on the Holidays Act 2003 will be welcomed from tomorrow, 21 July, Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson has announced.

"The Holidays Act affects all business owners and employees. It is a significant piece of legislation but it has been criticised for its complexity, especially in the calculation of relevant daily pay."

An advisory group, chaired by specialist employment lawyer Peter Kiely, was appointed last month to conduct the review.

"The group is keen to hear what Kiwis think about the Holidays Act and what their suggestions are for improving it."

The advisory group has prepared a number of questions it would like people to address in their submissions. These questions can be found on the Department of Labour website at http://dol.govt.nz/consultation/holidays-act-review/.

Submissions close at 5pm on Friday 21 August. They should be e-mailed to

ERconsultation@dol.govt.nz or mailed to:

Holidays Act 2003 Review (DX SR57080)

C/o Employment Relations Policy

Department of Labour

PO Box 3705

WELLINGTON

Media contact: Christian Bonnevie 021 243 8266 & 04 817 8266

Posted by staff in News at 14:49

A discussion document proposing that the mandatory fortification of folic acid in bread be deferred until May 2012 will be released on Wednesday, says Minister for Food Safety Kate Wilkinson.

"I am confident that this option addresses the concerns the public have, while also ensuring our relationship with Australia under the joint food regulatory system remains intact.

"There is a consultation process we will go through and a final decision will be made once all submissions have been considered.

"The proposal aims to give us more time to evaluate the risks and benefits of the standard and to take into account the wishes of New Zealanders."

The Ministerial Council will meet in May 2012 and discuss the review of the mandatory folic acid standard in Australia.

New Zealand could then re-assess whether or not to go ahead with the standard at that point.

A copy of the discussion document will be available from Wednesday at www.nzfsa.govt.nz.

Submissions close on August 12.

Media contact: Christian Bonnevie 021 243 8266 & 04 817 8266

Posted by staff in News at 14:45

Good afternoon. It is great to be here in Greymouth to talk to you. I have been looking forward to this visit immensely. For those of you who don’t know much about me, or my background, I can tell you I thoroughly enjoy getting out into the fresh air of the provinces. My career might have taken me into an office, but I’m definitely more comfortable in my boots.

I have done a bit of reading on Minerals West Coast and I agree that a collaborative approach to driving growth will achieve the best outcomes. When you can work together you are far more likely to be heard and as result lead change.

There is a legacy in this country where economic growth has faced several restraints, such as convoluted or unnecessary compliance rules or difficulty securing investment. This Government is intent on growing this country and that means we want to see some sense returned to policy.

We also want to work with industry. The previous Government got lost issuing orders from their desks in Wellington, without stopping to actually see the real impacts for the community. We are determined not to be that kind of Government. We will always listen.

The West Coast is one of the biggest mining areas in New Zealand, with 12 times the proportion of workers employed in the industry nationwide. I believe the last employment figures in March this year showed there were 760 mine workers in the region. That’s a very healthy workforce.

The trick to keeping them that way is taking a hands-on approach to health and safety.

CEO Health and Safety Forum

The financial and social cost of New Zealand’s work toll is too big. Based on 2005 data, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research estimates it costs us $16 billion a year – or around 10% of GDP. That is a massive sum and takes into account a host of factors including lost quality of life and lost future earnings.

Despite huge gains in health and safety over the last 100 years, New Zealand still injures and kills too many people at work when compared with other first-world nations. There is a both a need and an opportunity to apply new tools and approaches to an old problem.

That’s why the Department of Labour is starting to work with a collection of CEOs from some of NZ’s largest firms to seek their ideas on how business and government can work together to improve workplace health and safety. Industry leaders are in a prime position to positively influence health and safety practices, not just in their own workplaces but across the supply chains and the communities in which they operate.

A Summit was held in May where government and business leaders made a commitment to work together on an ongoing basis. An interim steering group met in June to progress some practical actions, and the wider group of business leaders will be meeting again, with me, on 12 August.

The leadership role of our industry executives is critical if we are to bring down rates of illness and injury. The mining industry New Zealand is nothing like that in China, Papua New Guinea or South America, where mine shaft collapses kill masses of workers each year. We do have strict standards and it’s important they are maintained at all times.

We also see the impact on family of friends when an accident occurs in a tight-knit community like this. Everyone knows everyone, so the death of a mate in the mining industry is incredibly far-reaching.

Review of underground mining health and safety regulatory framework

Mining as a whole has a high incidence of work injuries. Even though it is a small industry, it consistently has the highest or second highest rate of ACC injury claims and claims for entitlements like weekly compensation.

The injury rate for mining in 2006 was 165 per 100,000 full time equivalent employees, compared to 126 for all industries, and the rate for entitlement claims was 32 per 100,000 compared to 19. The minerals industry also has a number of health risks, principally relating to coal dust.

Mining has fewer fatalities than some other industries, but there was considerable public concern about the two fatalities that occurred in underground mines in 2006. There have been no fatalities since then though, which shows the effort put in to secure these sites.

The Department of Labour’s shift since 2006 to targeting and prioritising inspection services in underground mines, on the basis of a relative risk site assessment, has improved the level of workplace surveillance within its limited specialist resource.

I have been asked about the Department’s current review of the regulatory framework for underground mining. However I can’t give you a whole lot of detail on it as the review is still underway.

Underground mining is a sector within the mining industry that has a high potential for catastrophic events. It already has some special regulatory rules because of that.

The review is looking at whether the current regulatory framework as a whole is ensuring good health and safety and hazard management in underground mines. Some of you here will have made submissions to the public consultation process that was held last year.

There were 17 submissions and while that is not a huge number, they have provided reasonable coverage of the sector. I am still considering options relating to the consultation feedback and how to move forward on this. It takes time to ensure that any changes are robust.

Some interesting features of the feedback were:

o submitters did not want to return to a prescriptive or heavily regulated approach;

o the most supported type of change was for better documentation for health and safety management systems, especially so that smaller mines have clearer and more consistent practices - and there was a second preference for a mandatory element to this documentation;

o submitters supported raising the competency standard of managers of small mines (fewer than 8 people) because the hazards are the same;

o but there was division on the issue of employee participation, and whether to regulate for check inspectors:

Posted by staff in Speech at 13:22

Good morning to you all.

This morning I have been asked to offer my thoughts on the challenges facing employment in the public sector in the current economic environment.

The word ‘challenge’ is a useful term. I say this because the word has both negative and positive connotations. Everyday a paper somewhere in New Zealand is writing about the latest job losses in their community. For those individuals who lose their job, there are some challenges ahead; uncertainty, stress and financial are the more obvious ones. These challenges are not lost on the Government and we have responded with various initiatives.

The word ‘challenge’ is also a call, a summons to engage, to invite and stimulate.

Both connotations have ramifications for New Zealand, both socially and economically. The Minister of Finance has frequently spoken about the impact job losses has on the country as whole. As Bill English has noted, the global recession has removed about $50 billion of GDP from New Zealand's output over the next four years. That’s about $15 billion less tax than was expected back in the Budget last year.

Given that figure, all of us have to expect that departmental budgets will be under pressure. Even with significant constraints, Budget 2009 still delivered increases to key sectors such as Health and Education and the Government has retained benefit entitlements.

The public sector is not immune to a recession nor, as some commentators have said, should it be protected at all cost. The public sector is a crucial part of our economy. It is part of the system. When one part of the system is under pressure, all parts of the system become pressured. To have a healthy economy we must have a well run public sector.

Over the past few years decisions have been made that do not represent good value. As a responsible Government we have had to make hard decisions and that has involved ending some programmes. Unfortunately some of these decisions result in job losses. No one likes to make such decisions but sometimes these decisions have to be made.

What we want is value for money and value that will be long-lasting.

I note that this conference has an emphasis on managing change, performance and getting the process right. It is obviously important that you get these elements right and looking at the speaker list, Lexis Nexis have assembled some fine speakers with many years of knowledge. I am sure that you will all take something away from these two days.

I’m not going to talk to you about redundancies or the Employment Relations Authority or Health and Safety. Instead I want to talk about productivity and importantly, the government’s goal.

Our policy direction is aimed at driving a more flexible and productive economy. Increasing flexibility requires a number of shifts over time. We need to break down and remove some of the barriers and we need to make small changes. Like interest in a bank account, small differences lead to compound growth.

In this space you will be aware that I introduced the 90 day trial period. This wasn’t the end of the world as some people said but the small shift, encouraging people to be ambitious, will make all the difference in the long run. You are also probably aware that I have just established an advisory group to look at the holidays act. The advisory group will report to me in August with their action plan. I know many of you will want to be involved and I will be making press statements when the plan is ready.

Of course there are numerous other areas being considered and I welcome input.

Aside from removing barriers, I suspect most of you know that our productivity and labour market issues remain largely unsolved. New Zealand has a high rate of labour utilisation. We have lots of people working but much lower rates of labour productivity. Our relatively moderate labour productivity growth over recent years has left us well in the bottom half of the OECD, at 22nd out of 30 nations.

As a proud New Zealander this is disturbing. We have just come through one of our brightest periods of economic growth, yet we are 22nd in the OECD.

We all know New Zealanders are hard workers. In a recent survey by the Department of Labour, 29% of the full time workforce worked more than 50 hours per week. While this will be nothing new to most farmers and I can tell you, officially 56% of farmers worked more than 50 hours per week. The second and third next occupational groups are managers and plant workers. This tells us that New Zealanders right across the board are not afraid of a hard days work.

Yet, we are 22nd in the OCED. And it’s not like we haven’t led the world in the past. New Zealand had the highest GDP on earth in the 1900’s. That seems like a long time ago but we were still 6th in the 1950’s.

Of course we have our own unique challenges. We are a small country at the bottom of the world. To get our products to the world we need to get on a boat or a plane. But these aren’t insurmountable.

There are various types of calculations on how fast our labour productivity would have to rise to match the income levels of other nations. I am not a maths professor so I will leave that calculation to others. For now the goal is to match Australian income levels and achieving productivity growth of 3% per annum. This is written into the National-Act Confidence and Supply Agreement.

It is ambitious compared to what has been achieved in recent years, considering such a rate of growth would be more than double our recent average.

We know it can be done, high productivity growth rates have been achieved in other Western nations, including Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Ireland is an illustration of how productivity performance can turn around in a small nation, with average productivity growth of around 4% over the last 20 years. Of course, many of you will know that Ireland got a few things wrong recently. So working smarter is not just about copying others.

While productivity primarily focuses on the private sector, that does not make it irrelevant to the public sector. Working smarter relates to us all whether your job is in the police, as a doctor, a policy advisor or a DoC ranger.

There is a lot that can be achieved in the public sector to boost the services provided without increasing costs. Better use of technology and more efficient management structures are a start. If we can work faster and smarter, we can assist the private sector to do the same and grow the economy.

Equally, there is a need to be realistic about the unsustainable rate of wage increases in the public sector and Mr English not so long ago signaled that wage rises needed to be matched by productivity gains.

I believe that is the biggest challenge the public service faces is in driving the country’s productivity growth. Again, I don’t mind that this challenge is ambitious.

Productivity can be influenced by many factors. I will touch on a couple of these to demonstrate.

Our own policy settings are critical for productivity performance. Immigration policy, for example, determines which people are permitted to settle for extended periods in New Zealand to work and study. The skills people bring to this country are an important factor in our growth. It is essential we have an Immigration Department that is assured in its processes and not creating uncertainty.

The success of our education policy will influence the so-called stock of human capital. Investing in people and skills can lead to improvements in productivity.

This Government has demonstrated its commitment to strengthening education by allocating $1.68 billion to improving front-line education services in the current year and over the next four years.

Budget 2009 builds on investments in early childhood, schools and tertiary education.

Investment in education also extends into community education. I know some of you would have heard the opposition say we have cut community education. We have refocused energies towards our priorities of literacy, numeracy and foundation skills. As I said earlier, a responsible Government focuses on the right issues and that is what we have done.

The importance of raising productivity in New Zealand has been raised by a number of agencies, including the Department of Labour, the Treasury, and the New Zealand Institute. A number of potential ways to raise labour productivity have been identified, including around workplaces, skills, investment and international connections.

The Department of Labour has a Workplace Productivity Agenda that sets out drivers of productivity and if you are curious as to what they are I suggest checking out the Department’s website. Productivity at a firm level contributes to overall productivity of the national economy, which in turn helps create higher living standards. Hence productivity benefits us all.

Much of New Zealand’s recent economic success has come about because more people have joined the labour force. There are constraints in the labour supply which means future economic growth will depend more on improved productivity. Let’s not forget we also have an ageing population.

The global recession has forced all of us to re-evaluate the way we do things. There is no reason why the public service can’t change.

I am of the mind that the public service can learn from the private sector. The pressure to perform in order to survive is a big incentive. Business has always had to get the maximum from the resources available to be successful. There are clearly distinct differences in how the sectors operate and the goals set, but the lesson in value for money should be the same.

Thank you.

Posted by staff in Speech at 16:36