Labour's Proposed Corporate Homicide Offence, Explained

Labour would create a new corporate homicide offence if it is elected, with life imprisonment for individuals and a fine of up to $10 million for companies. RNZ

Under the proposal, the prosecution would have to prove three things. It would need to show a legal duty of care, which is the legal obligation to keep people safe, exposure of a person to a risk of death or serious injury, and a death that followed.

Workplace relations and safety spokesperson Jan Tinetti said Labour developed the policy with unions, employers and families of Pike River victims.

The broader context here is why that consultation list counts. It brings organised labour, business and victims’ families into the same process before a bill is introduced. That is different from leaving employer views until a select committee, the group of MPs that examines proposed laws and hears submissions, considers the bill.

Families of those killed in the Pike River Mine disaster have long campaigned for a corporate homicide charge, and campaigner Sonya Rockhouse described the Labour policy as "fantastic". Rockhouse’s 21-year-old son Ben was among those killed at Pike River, and Anna Osborne’s husband Milt also died there. A methane-fuelled explosion at the coal mine in 2010 killed 29 workers.

The union movement has made a parallel call. New Zealand unions released a policy calling on the Government to introduce a new crime of corporate manslaughter, and the call was made on the anniversary of the Pike River disaster, 15 years after the tragedy. RNZ

Labour uses the term corporate homicide. The unions called for corporate manslaughter.

Looking at what this means for Parliament, both sit in the same territory. Both would attach criminal liability to a death that follows a breach of a duty, not only to the immediate act. The difficult question since 2010 has been attribution, or how the law links a death on site to decisions in a boardroom or management chain. Labour’s three-part test sets a high threshold, and each part would need to be proved. An opposition pledge backed in advance by victims’ families and unions carries weight in a campaign. It also invites close scrutiny from employers over scope, defences and how it would work alongside existing workplace safety law. Tinetti’s point about joint development anticipates that scrutiny. Whether the offence stands alone as a homicide provision, how prosecutors use their discretion, and what sentencing judges do with a maximum of life or $10 million will decide its use. The maximum is clear. The charging practice is not.