MEDIA RELEASE

New Bill will not improve workplace safety

Health and Safety changes tabled yesterday will neither improve safety nor be easier for businesses to follow – it’s a big, missed opportunity say health and safety experts.

“The new requirements outlined in the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, are confusing and could add to compliance costs, particularly for small businesses,” said Mike Cosman, spokesperson for the New Zealand Institute of Safety Management (NZISM).

“We are experts who work everyday helping businesses make their workplaces safer, this Bill will not help that.

“We see this as a significant missed opportunity to improve New Zealand’s patchy record on health and safety and ignores many of the widely supported suggestions made during the review.

“This Bill allows small businesses to only focus on critical risks in the workplace and exempts them from most of their current health and safety obligations. While critical risks that cause death and the most severe injuries are very important, this approach ignores the evidence that most injuries do not result in this degree of harm (but make up 75% of ACC’s work injury costs).”

Small to medium sized organisations make up the bulk of kiwi firms but are generally less safe than their larger counterparts.

“The cost of workplace harm is conservatively estimated at $5.4 billion a year. These changes are likely to increase harm to workers, families, businesses, communities along with cost blowouts for the Government books in ACC, health and welfare.”

The Bill creates significant compliance obligations:

• To understand whether a risk is deemed critical, in many situations an organisation will need to assess whether death or serious injury is ‘likely’. Doing so will require a risk assessment for all risks and is highly subjective as there are no criteria for the assessment.
• Many important risks, such as violence and aggression in retail, back injuries, some occupational diseases and work-related mental harm are unlikely to meet the threshold for a critical risk but cause significant harm to workers. The Bill encourages small employers to abdicate responsibility for addressing these risks; doing so will result in more harm, workers needing time off work, and ultimately less productivity.
• Organisations wanting to utilise the exemption will need to keep a running tally of their workers (an average based on people who do work for them including contractors) to understand whether they meet the threshold for ‘small’.

NZISM said there were many other fishhooks in the Bill and proposals which seem, at first look, to be poorly considered including around officer duties of CEOs and the disapplication of the Act when there is other legislation in the same area, even if it sets a lower standard.

“The Select Committee now faces an uphill battle to make the Bill workable.”

NZISM will be making a detailed submission to the Select Committee.

“This Bill does not do justice to the results of the recent consultation. We urge a radical rethink of the proposals.  New Zealand workers and businesses deserve better,” said Mike Cosman.