Health and Safety Reform – Consultation Process Underway

Last week the Government announced a review of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSW Act).

The genesis of the review is founded on the following concepts:

• Workers, organisations, and businesses spend significant time and money trying to comply with health and safety rules and regulations, yet New Zealand’s workplace fatality rate is far too high compared with countries like Australia and the United Kingdom.
• Although New Zealand’s work health and safety law is adapted from the Australian law, New Zealand’s health and safety record remains worse than Australia's and has been slow to improve.
• It is clear the current approach to health and safety is not achieving the results most New Zealanders would expect.
• New Zealand's health and safety system needs to be clear, sensible, proportionate, and effective.
• The steps businesses and workers take to protect health and safety should be appropriate and meaningful, rather than just a 'tick-box' exercise.

What the Government is aiming to achieve

The Government wants to ensure the work health and safety regulatory system is functioning as intended, meaning that it protects people from harm in a way that is:

• clear
• effective
• flexible and durable
• proportionate to the risks
• balances risks with costs

Consultation being sought

The Government is seeking feedback on the work health and safety regulatory system - how workers, businesses, and the public think it is working now, and what they think should change. It wants to hear from New Zealanders of all backgrounds so it can better understand where to best focus efforts for improvement.

Five specific focuses of feedback

There are five key areas where feedback is being focused.

Focus area one – Businesses are best placed to understand and manage their risks

Acknowledging that businesses are best placed to understand and manage their risks, the Government is seeking to understand how businesses and organisations make their decisions about health and safety and the reasons behind these decisions, and how they manage overlapping duties with other businesses

Focus area two – Balance of flexibility and certainty

For lower-risk businesses and activities, the HSW Act provides greater flexibility on how to comply, so that businesses take actions that are proportionate to the risks. For higher-risk businesses and activities, there is more detail on how to comply in regulations, standards, approved codes of practice, and guidance. The Government is seeking feedback on whether the law strikes the right balance which involves asking whether it may be too strict or detailed in some cases, or not detailed or clear enough with too much ambiguity in others.

The HSW Act also covers sectors and industries that may have their own legislation (e.g. transport and building). The Government wants to hear about experiences where the work health and safety regulatory system overlaps with other regulatory systems, including whether this is causing any problems.

Focus area three - Worker engagement and participation

The Government wants to understand how businesses and organisations engage with workers, how workers participate in health and safety, and the impact this has on health and safety.

Focus area four: Effective regulators

The wide-reaching nature of health and safety law means WorkSafe, as the primary regulator, must cover a range of hazards and risks across different businesses, activities, and sectors/industries. The Government is seeking feedback on experiences with the health and safety regulators, and the people and organisations that have roles within this system.

Focus area five: The objective of the work health and safety regulatory system

The objective of the work health and safety regulatory system should be to protect people from harm, in a way that is clear, effective, flexible and durable, proportionate to the risks, and balances risks with costs. The Government is seeking feedback on whether the current regulatory system is meeting these objectives.

What is not in scope?

The Government is not consulting or seeking feedback on government agency funding, the rate of the Health and Safety at Work Levy, or the effectiveness, efficiency measures and targets for WorkSafe's frontline activities. These are being progressed separately.

Timing

All feedback is sought by 31 October, 2024.Please let us know if you would like any assistance with providing your feedback.