The last month has been a tough one for WorkSafe staff on top of a difficult couple of years. Minister van Velden claimed that consultation and her roadshow had revealed a “huge culture of fear" around WorkSafe. The Minister announced changes that would refocus WorkSafe’s mandate and push their enforcement activity towards the most open-and-shut cases and critical risks.

The WorkSafe portrayed in Minister van Velden’s comments is not a WorkSafe that I recognise and I’ve worked with WorkSafe in many capacities since its formation. The WorkSafe staff I know (current and former) are kind, committed, passionate people. Scary? Not so much.

This seems to be a common sentiment. I attended the Safeguard Conference last week. Garth Galloway (who has acted for clients in hundreds of health and safety investigations) and Joe Bain (who has acted as an expert engineering witness in dozens) both went out of their way to say that they had not seen a culture of intimidation and fear from the regulator. Richard Wagstaff from the CTU said something similar on RNZ.

In search of the culture of fear, I turned to our 2024 survey of members regarding health and safety reforms. With 1,300 responses to the survey compared to 1,000 for Minister van Velden’s consultation, the NZISM survey has a claim to being more comprehensive (particularly of views of safety experts). The NZISM survey asked respondents about their interactions with WorkSafe over the past year and if they had been positive. More than three quarters said yes, they had.

There were also more than 600 comments about WorkSafe generally. Of these comments, only 3 could fairly be said to contain fear about WorkSafe (less than half of one percent).

Instead, our members wanted WorkSafe to succeed. They expressed some concerns about consistency and training and workplace culture as it stood but they also wanted to invest in WorkSafe. This investment has been lacking from this and the previous Government and no new money came with the Minister’s announcements.

As of today’s date, NZISM has 168 members who work at WorkSafe at all levels of the organisation from the frontline to the Board. We welcome our WorkSafe members with open arms. We share a mission and a goal. I urge other NZISM members to look after our WorkSafe colleagues at local events and help them understand our industry and our profession.

NZISM will always be a critical friend of WorkSafe. We will call out strange decisions and odd processes because we care and want WorkSafe to succeed for all our sakes. We will always do so as friends.

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou
ka ora ai te iwi (with your food basket and mine, the people will thrive).

Ngā mihi

Jeff Sissons
NZISM CEO