industrial safety news september-october 2015

INDU

STRI

ALSafetyNewsPPE • ACCESS • CHEMICALS • HEALTH • INJURY • MANAGEMENT • ENVIRONMENT • FOCUS September-October 2015 VOL 10 NO. 4 Price $9

Free in this issue

& online at

infrastructurenews.co.nz

isn.co.nz Full coverage insideFree H&S Handbook

Our unique HSNO Approved Codes and chemical safety posters make it as easy and

stress-free as possible to safely manage your workplace chemicals.

SIMPLE STEPS TO MANAGINGYOUR WORKPLACECHEMICALS

Maintain a Site Hazard Register Identify each chemical product you have, particularly Tracked substances. Record the Hazard classification and maximum quantities at any one time, in this Register.

Obtain Compliant Safety Data Sheets (SDS) from your supplier [ACoP].

Appoint a ‘Person in Charge’Responsible for security and management of chemicals [HSNO].

MANAGETHE RISKObtain advice from: Person in Charge, Approved Handlers. Chemical Suppliers.

Group Standards including Site and Storage Conditions. Approved Codes of Practice [ACoPs]. Health & Safety Inspectors. Hazardous Substances Enforcement Officers. Test Certifiers. Industry Association.

SAFELY MANAGEYOUR SITEchemicals Correctly segregate and store chemicals [ACoP].

Ensure Secondary Containment is in place [ACoP].

Provide appropriate fire extinguishers and spill kits. Install Emergency Showers/Eyewash adjacent to chemical operations. Provide trained First Aiders. Review site signage [ACoP] Develop and annually test emergency response plan [ACoP].

Ensure chemicals are correctly packaged and labelled. Ensure SDS are available within 10 minutes [ACoP]. Provide correct Personal Protective Equipment [PPE].

Site Plan must include: Hazardous Substances Locations. Hazardous Atmosphere Zones. Hazardous Control Zones.

Verify the need for: Test Certificates. Approved Handlers. Location Test Certificates. Stationary Container Systems [Bulk Storage] [ACoP].a helping hand

www.responsiblecarenz.com

Another Responsible Care New Zealand chemical safety initiative

HSNO

HSW

RuLEDG

RMA

CODEIBUILDING

Expl

osive

s 1

Flam

mab

le Ga

s 2.1

inclu

ding

2.1.1A

& B

Flam

mab

le Ae

roso

l 2.1

inclu

ding

2.1.2A

Non-

Flam

mab

le No

n-To

xic g

as 2.

2

Toxic

gas

2.3

Flam

mab

le Li

quid

3.1 i

nclu

ding

3.1A,

B, C

& D

Liqu

id D

esen

sitise

d Ex

plos

ive 3

inclu

ding

3.2A,

B &

C

Flam

mab

le So

lid 4.

1 (re

adily

com

bust

ible)

4.1.1

A &

B

Flam

mab

le So

lid 4.

1 (se

lf re

activ

e)

4.1.2

A, B

, C, D

, E, F

& G

Flam

mab

le So

lid 4.

1 (de

sens

itise

d ex

plos

ive)

4.1.3

A, B

& C

Spon

tane

ously

Com

bust

ible

4.2 in

cludi

ng

4.2 A

, B &

C

Dang

erou

s Whe

n W

et 4.

3 inc

ludi

ng

4.3 A

, B &

C

Oxid

iser 5

.1 in

cludi

ng

5.1.1

A, B

& C

- 5.1

.2 A

Orga

nic P

erox

ide 5

.2 in

cludi

ng

5.2 A

, B, C

, D, E

& F

Toxic

6.1 i

nclu

ding

6.1 A

, B &

C (L

iquids

& S

olids

only

- Gas

es se

e 2.3)

Toxic

Cya

nide

s 6.1

inclu

ding

6.1 A

, B &

C

Infe

ctio

us S

ubst

ance

s 6.2

Radi

oact

ive M

ater

ials 7

Corro

sive A

cid 8

PG I &

II in

cludi

ng

8.2 A

& B

Corro

sive A

lkali 8

PG

I & II

inclu

ding

8.2 A

& B

Corro

sive A

cid 8

PG III

inclu

ding

8.2 C

Corro

sive A

lkali 8

PG

III in

cludi

ng

8.2 C

Ecot

oxic

9.1 A

& B

Food

Item

[see

NOTE

S]

Explosives 14 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

Flammable Gas 2.1 including

2.1.1A & B

4 ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Flammable Aerosol 2.1 including

2.1.2A

4 ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Non-Flammable Non-Toxic gas 2.2

4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Toxic gas 2.34 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Flammable Liquid 3.1 including

3.1A, B, C & D

4 ✘ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Liquid Desensitised Explosive 3 including

3.2A, B & C

4 1 1 ✔ ✔ 1 ✔ 1 1 ✔ 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Flammable Solid 4.1 (readily combustible)

4.1.1 A & B

4 1 1 ✔ ✔ 1 1 ✔ 1 1 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Flammable Solid 4.1 (self reactive)

4.1.2 A, B, C, D, E, F & G

4 1 1 ✔ ✔ 1 1 1 ✔ 1 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Flammable Solid 4.1 (desensitised explosive)

4.1.3 A, B & C

4 1 1 ✔ ✔ 1 ✔ 1 1 ✔ 1 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Spontaneously Combustible 4.2 including

4.2 A, B & C

4 1 1 ✘ ✘ 1 1 1 1 1 ✔ 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Dangerous When Wet 4.3 including

4.3 A, B & C

4 1 1 ✔ ✔ 1 1 1 1 1 1 ✔ 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ 1 1 1 1 ✔ ✔

Oxidiser 5.1 including

5.1.1 A, B & C - 5.1.2 A

4 2 2 ✔ ✘ 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ✔ 3 2 2 ✘ ✘ 2 2 2 2 ✘ ✔

Organic Peroxide 5.2 including

5.2 A, B, C, D, E & F

4 3 3 ✘ ✘ 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 ✔ 3 3 ✘ ✘ 3 3 3 3 ✘ ✔

Toxic 6.1 including

6.1 A, B & C (Liquids & Solids only - Gases see 2.3)4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Toxic Cyanides 6.1 including

6.1 A, B & C

4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘

Infectious Substances 6.24 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Radioactive Materials 74 ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔

Corrosive Acid 8 PG I & II including

8.2 A & B

4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 1 2 3 ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Corrosive Alkali 8 PG I & II including

8.2 A & B

4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Corrosive Acid 8 PG III including

8.2 C

4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 1 2 3 ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Corrosive Alkali 8 PG III including

8.2 C

4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 1 2 3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Ecotoxic 9.1 A & B4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘

Food Item [seeNOTES]4 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔

KEYThis code is intended to enable Persons in Charge, Approved Handlers and everyone storing

Hazardous Substances to comply with the segregation requirements of regulations 21, 76, 78, 87,

95, 105 and 117 of the Hazardous Substances [Classes 1 to 5 Controls] Regulations 2001, Industry

Best Practice and the NOTES

✔ Compatible substances that can be stored together

✘Incompatible substances that must NOT be stored together. Must be separate so that

substances do not come in contact. Keep in separate compounds or segregate by a

distance of at least 3 metres

1 Separation requirement: Fire resistant wall rated 120/120/120 minutes,or separated by three

metres

2Separation requirements for 5.1: Fire resistant wall rated 120/120/120

minutes, or separate by the correct distance required in HS [Classes 1

to 5 Controls] Regulations 87 and 95

3 Separation requirements for 5.2: Fire resistant wall rating for appropriate use, or separated

by the correct distance required in HS [Classes 1 to 5 Controls] Regulation 105 and 117

4 Explosives require special storage. Refer HS [Classes 1 to 5 Controls] Regulations 2001

NOTES ✱ Consult the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) or Supplier to confirm compatibility

✱Packaging: This code provides a means of compliance for the storage of packages and

transportable containers [IBCs]

✱

Food Item: means both

(a) Anything that is used or represented for use as food or drink for humans or animals, and

(b) Any packaging known, reasonably expected to be known, intended for, or which may

in the future be used to contain food, drink, or any other substance intended for human or

animal consumption. (Land Transport Rule: Dangerous Goods 2005)

✱Classes 6.1D, 6.1E, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 6.6, 6.7, 6.8 and 6.9 should be stored same as

Toxic 6.1

✱ Classes 8.1 and 8.3 should be stored same as 8.2C

✱ Ecotoxic 9.1C, 9.1D, 9.2, 9.3, & 9.4 should be stored same as 9.1A & B

✱ Ecotoxic pictogram can be or

✱ Classes 2.2, 6.2 & 7 and Food Item are covered by the LT Rule : Dangerous Goods 2005

✱ Class 2.3 is covered by HSNO class 6.1

✱ DG Limited Quantities marks and : consult the SDS to confirm compatibility

✱ DG Excepted Quantities mark : consult the SDS to confirm compatibility

REFERENCES

■ Hazardous Substances (Classes 1 to 5 Controls) Regulations 2001

■ Hazardous Substances (Classification) Regulations 2001

■ Land Transport Rule: Dangerous Goods 2005

Responsible Care New Zealand

PO Box 5557 Wellington 6145 Phone: +64 4 499 4311

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.responsiblecarenz.com ©RCNZ June 2014

Approved Code of Practice under the HSNO Act 1996

Dated: 14/06/2014

STORAGE OF HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES HSNO COP 16 version 2.0 June 2014

• Carcinogen• Mutagenicity

• Reproductive Toxicity• Respiratory Sensitizer• Target Organ Toxicity

• Aspiration Toxicity

Know Your Chemical Labels

AnotherResponsible Care New Zealandworkplace chemical safety initiative

Phone +64 4 499 4311

Health Hazards

• Irritant (skin and eye)• Skin Sensitizer• Acute Toxicity

• Narcotic Effects• Respiratory Tract Irritant

• Hazardous to Ozone Layer

• Skin Corrosion/Burns• Eye Damage

• Corrosive to Metals

Acute Toxicity (fatal or toxic)

• Explosives • Self-Reactives• Organic Peroxides

Oxidizers

• Flammables• Pyrophorics• Self-Heating

• Emits Flammable Gas• Self-Reactives

• Organic Peroxides

Gases Under Pressure

1.1. 1.2 & 1.3

Ecotoxic

DANGEROUS

GOODS

Mixed Class Tracking

Elevated Temperature Substances

Excepted Quantities

Dangerous Goods

Limited QuantitiesDangerous Goods

Limited Quantities (Air)Dangerous Goods

Environmental Hazard Miscellaneous

Physical Hazards

DATED MAY 2015

Lithium batteries New 1 Jan 2015

RCNZ copyright 2015©

IT’S ALL HERE!

OBTAIN YOUR COPIES FROM WWW.RESPONSIBLECARENZ.COM/SHOP OR EMAIL [email protected] BULK DISCOUNTS ARE AVAILABLE.

Ph: 04 499 4311 ANOTHER RESPONSIBLE CARE NZ WORKPLACE CHEMICAL SAFETY INITIATIVE

RESPONSIBLE CARE NZ PROVIDES PRACTICAL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO ENABLE COMPLIANCE WITH NEW ZEALAND’S

WORLD CLASS CHEMICAL MANAGEMENT REGIME.

isn_july_aug15_1-31.indd 2 21/07/15 2:56 pm

The solution will reflect key govern-

ment policies such as upskilling the

workforce, less government involve-

ment and greater self-sufficiency by

businesses, without increasing costs.

An effective regime would ideally include:

• bi-partisan legislation setting realistic expecta-

tions to improve national workplace health and

safety performance

• minimal legislation with best practice per-

formance objectives described in regulations

noted for clear and concise, plain language

• the 15-year experience with our world-class

chemical management regime

• comprehensive supporting infrastructure to

enable implementation from Day One

• universal applicability without exceptions.

Are we getting there? An over-excited media

focuses on Kiwi work sites deemed ‘high risk’

such as worm farms and miniature golf, not to

mention the prospect of destroying children’s’

playgrounds, while demonstrably unsafe work-

places are exempted.

Sadly, a lazy media prefers controversy and

sound bites to investigating the substance. The

government has not helped with a poor response

rather than proactively focusing on key advantag-

es of the new regime.

Responsible employers know they must provide

a safe workplace. Identifying, eliminating, isolating

or minimizing the hazard is well known, whereas

including the site chemical inventory in the man-

datory site hazard register less so.

Exemptions are to be avoided, particular-

ly before new performance requirements are

bedded in and demonstrate fine tuning is neces-

sary. An exemption-free goods and services tax

avoids complicated and expensive compliance.

Compulsory health and safety committees

with worker representatives attracted the ire

of both business and labour. Critics argued that

smaller businesses, comprising some 97 percent

of our economy, should not be required to have

a compulsory health and safety representative

organisation.

Examination reveals a widely misrepresented

situation. Our much-maligned workplace chemi-

cal management regime (HSNO) reflects present

government policy by requiring a competent

person to manage selected chemicals over a

specified quantity.

Thousands of HSNO Approved Handlers are

performing important roles in workplaces, large

and small, competently carrying out their daily

chemical-related duties safely and efficiently.

Your Approved Handler is also every employ-

er’s immediate source of safe chemical handling

advice, facilitating compliance in 120,000 work-

places and reflecting another key government

policy of requiring greater industry self-reliance

and independence from ‘Big Government’.

Proven processThe Approved Handler ‘product’ is not perfect,

but would we have thousands of Approved Han-

dlers if it were not mandated?

Railing against the ‘cost’ of training a competent

employee overlooks the fact H&S representa-

tive training involves two paid days each year to

attend subsidised local courses.

Critics are reluctant to realistically compare

the investment in training and equipping their

workers with the true cost of a preventable in-

cident – replacing a dead or injured worker, loss

of business reputation and perhaps customers

and not forgetting increasingly severe legal con-

sequences which could close a business. Worst of

all is knowing you were responsible for harming

another person.

There are of course many ways of achieving a

desirable outcome. What if every business, re-

gardless of size, was required to have at least one

person qualified as a health and safety represent-

ative within (say) two years?

This person would have qualified on a combined

HSNO approved handler and workplace health

and safety representative course, passing modules

ranging from basic risk management and work-

place safety issues such as PPE to special-to-task

requirements for agrichem users, construction

workers, etc.

With subsidised, multi-skill packages undertaken

online and confirmed during convenient, practical

assessment sessions at a local WorkSafe NZ office,

training qualifications could quickly incorporate

changing priorities, such as a drive on occupational

health or machinery safety. Skilled personnel would

be identified and onsite numbers would reflect the

extent of business operations.

Feasible? Having obtained your hard-won driv-

er’s licence, you are expected to operate your

vehicle legally and safely. You must ensure your ve-

hicle is fit for purpose and operated responsibly

for a multitude of tasks. Compliance and enforce-

ment is both necessary and increasingly expected

by the community at large.

What would be so different about obtaining a

formal ‘licence to operate’ in your workplace?

A wallet-sized card

confirming your

competency to

carry out designated

workplace chemi-

cal responsibilities

safely, providing a

role model for both colleagues and new entrants

while continually improving workplace health and

safety performance.

Improved performance and clear accountability

are threatened by emulating the worst aspects of

the HSNO regime – complex legislation, failing to

provide the required comprehensive infrastruc-

ture and a reluctance to address failing policies

and processes, compounded by a reluctance to

establish a mutually rewarding partnership with

the chemical industry.

Fifteen years’ experience with HSNO offers a

formidable yet valuable foundation for improve-

ment. Retention of an improved test certification

regime, including the mandatory ‘competent op-

erator’ requirement and our unique DG/GHS

regime, is vital.

Regulations required to support the Health and

Safety at Work Act can rely heavily on the con-

troversial Australian model or preferably build

in the huge investment in HSNO by providing

clear, comprehensive and universally applicable

chemical safety management and compliance re-

quirements; thus improving our poor workplace

health and safety performance.

The Health and Safety at Work Act is likely to

be implemented from 4th April 2016.

An early casualty is the regrettable loss of

bi-partisan support for legislation better than

what we currently have.

The draft regulations will be out for public

comment before Christmas. We therefore have

time for considered discussions about options

for successfully enhancing workplace chemical

safety performance, encapsulating our invaluable

experience with the world’s only integrated DG/

GHs chemical management system.

Let’s ignore the trivial distractions and col-

lectively focus on ensuring we provide the

safe workplaces we deserve – evolution not

revolution!

Barry Dyer is the Chief Executive of Responsible

Care NZ, which provides practical products

and services to enable compliance with New

Zealand’s world-class chemical management

regime. Tel: +644 499 4311,

email: [email protected],

visit: www.responsiblecarenz.com

Evolution not revolution is the best way forwardThe requirement is clear - develop a workplace health and safety regime which will deliver a superior result to what is presently being achieved

T H I S I S S U E > > S e p t e m b e r / O c t o b e r 2 0 1 5

September/October – 20154

12-26 Cover story

The Health and Safety at Work ActEvolution not revolution is the best way forward (3) The H&S at Work Act which will come into effect on 4 April next year has made several key changes to health and safety. The most impor-tant covers the responsibilities of a Person Conducting a Business or Un-dertaking - PCBU (12-17). The Act includes a series of ob-ligations concerning worker engagement, participation and rep-resentation which are prescriptive and will establish new obligations (18-20)Business NZ Chief Phil O’Reilly (20) labels the Act “practical” while Work-place Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse describes it as “a major step forward” (21)Federated Farmers board member Katie Milne says farmers will not shirk their responsibilities (24) Council of Trades Union economist Bill Rosenberg (22-24) calls it a farce and a tragedy and the Green Party’s Denise Roche (25-26) sees it as a missed opportunity

Comment3 Develop a workplace health and safety regime which will deliver a superior result by evolution not rev-olution says Responsible Care’s Barry Dyer6 Absolutely Essential Health and Safety Toolkit for Small Construction Sites can help. It’s a starter course in the basics of good health and safety practice that you can slip into your back pocket and use again and again according to WorkSafe New Zealand10-11 Improved workplace health and safety requires behaviour change. Workplace chief executive Katherine Percy advises on how to motivate people to do things differently 34-35 It is often also found that in underperforming companies, em-ployees have a tendency to ignore

OUR COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY

Editor Geoff Picken 0212 507 559geoff@ mediasolutions.net.nz

Managing partnerPhil Pilbrow027 564 7778 or 09 489 [email protected]

Design & pre-press Jamie [email protected]

Web developmentNeo [email protected]

PublisherMike Bishara 09 444 5140027 564 [email protected]

[email protected] Rates: $30 incl GST and postage for 5 issues, plus digital editions to five email addresses. Overseas rates available on request.

Industrial Safety News is endorsed by NZ Safety Council

the HSE rules that are intended to protect them in the workplace says NOSA’s Lance Hiscoe38 A strong safety climate is usually associated with a safer workplace, and a safety climate is hard to achieve without strong employee safety attitudes and overtly safe be-haviour says PeopleCentric’s Moira Howson

Environment7 Spill containment berms are increasingly being used to cost-ef-fectively prevent clean-up costs and minimise the risk accidents27 One of the most direct ways to cure noise, vibration and harshness issues in commercial and industrial buildings is to install inexpensive simple inflatable or solid rubber mounts28-29 Nelson Pine found a state-of-the art solution that emphasised control and safety while improving productivity when it updated its aging plant 31 Solar Bright is lighting the way with icy-road warning technology with solar-powered blue road mark-ers that flash when road conditions are icy

Access8 ACTIV’Shield Bar incorporates an alert that warns the operator of po-tential entrapment situations and features a Safety Gap which prevents full entrapment33 The Rollgliss Rope-Mate provides a safe and reliable tamper proof me-chanical prusik that eliminates the use of knots or hitches that could be tied incorrectly

PPE9 3M has released a hearing protec-tor fit test system to help combat noise-induced hearing loss which routinely shows the highest number of recordable illness cases in private industry manufacturing

Management10-11 Advice on how to motivate

people to do things differently and improve workplace health and safety32 The Vulnerable Children Act 2014 came into effect on July 1 and re-quires organisations that provide services to children to conduct safety checks on staff34-35 Underperformance is often clearly illustrated through the oc-currence of serious accidents and lack of management control from an occupational health, safety and envi-ronment risk perspective 38 What can organisations do to drive safer attitudes and behaviours, not only in ensuring employee safety but also meeting their increasing re-sponsibilities ubder the H&S at Work Act

Technology8 ACTIV’Shield Bar incorporates an alert that warns the operator of po-tential entrapment situations and features a Safety Gap which prevents full entrapment30 MBIE has issued a RFP for the de-velopment of a mobile app and web service that will allow emergency services in New Zealand to better respond

SITE SAFE Awards36-37 The initiative shown by two small companies in winning awards last year clearly demonstrate that site safety is a major priority in organisa-tions of all shapes and sizes and sets the benchmark for this year’s awards in November

Mike felt it was time to express his health and safety concerns at work

Action Safety P9

Autoline P27

Buddle Findlay P15

Geosciences P17 & 26

Impac P19

Innovative Ceiling Systems P21

Intaks P35

Lynn River P31

Paramount Safety P37

People Centric P5

PBI Height Safety P7

Quality Safety P29

Red Cross P40

Responsible Care P2-3

Safety & Apparel P23

Safety Ladderlegs P25

Safety N Action P13

Technical Compliance Consultants P11

Telarc P39

Vertical Horizonz P8

www.isn.co.nz 5

Supporters

www.isn.co.nzFree access online to an interactive digital edition. Free access to the industry’s most comprehensive, key word searchable archives in eight key industrial safety categories:PPE, Access, Hazmat, Health, Injury, Management, Environment, Focus.Free access to daily updated news with the ISN online carousel Printed by Crucial Colour24 Fairfax Avenue, Penrose, Auckland+64 9 589 1550Published by Media Solutions Ltd3c 12 Tamariki Ave, Orewa 0931PO Box 31397, Milford 074109 444 5140

+64 9 963 5020www.peoplecentric.co.nz

Neglecting psychological health and wellbeing in the workplace costs Australian businesses $10.9 billion and New Zealand businesses over $2 billion a year.

What is it costing you?

VAcciNAte AgAiNst the cost of work stresscontact Peoplecentric today to foster employee health and wellbeing while enhancing performance and productivity.


F I R S T W O R D > > T o o l b o x T i m e

That’s where WorkSafe New Zealand’s Absolutely Essential Health and Safety Toolkit for Small Construction Sites can

help. It’s a starter course in the basics of good health and safety practice that you can slip into your back pocket and use again and again. The toolkit covers a range of topics, from working at height to personal protective equipment – in-cluding moving materials.

You can’t build without the concrete, timber, glass or whatever other materials you are using – but moving those materials about is a major workplace risk all by itself. And it’s not just throwing your back out lifting a bag of concrete. All too often WorkSafe finds itself investigating serious and even fatal incidents where work-ers are crushed by falling building materials or struck by forklifts.

Whether you are shifting materials by hand or with a vehicle you can make things a whole lot safer with a bit or forethought and planning. Before you start ask yourself if there are heavy items such as roof trusses, kerbstones or con-crete lintels that could cause problems if you move them by hand. If there are, can you:• choose lighter materials?• use trolleys, hoists, telehandlers or other

plant or equipment to minimise the need to lift heavy objects manually?

• order your materials such as cement and ag-gregates in units that are at a manageable weight, say 25kg bags?

• avoid the repetitive laying of heavy building blocks or other masonry units? (weighing more than 20 kg)

The best way to avoid injury from shifting heavy items by hand is to reduce the need to do so in the first place. But realistically that’s not always going to be possible. So make sure that everyone on site who might need to do heavy lifting has been trained to do so safely. You should also ensure they’ve been instructed on how to use lifting aids properly.

All that training will come into play from the moment any building materials arrive on site on the back of a truck – in fact even before that, if you or your crew have been involved in load-ing the materials for transport in the first place. Loading and unloading goods is another time to think about managing your risks.• have you checked that the load has not

moved or destabilised in transit?• is there an exclusion zone around the load-

ing/unloading area to keep people who are

not involved away from the work?• have you planned your method of unloading

and picked a safe spot to do so?• have you picked the right lifting equipment

for the job and does it have a current annual certificate?

Of course, the best kind of risk is one you can avoid altogether. Working on the back of a truck creates risk – do you have to access it at all or can the preparation work be done from ground level?

If it can’t:• do you have a safe way to get up and down

from the back of the vehicle?• what are you doing to prevent workers from

falling off the back of the truck?• are you providing sensible safety footwear

with a good grip for your employees?A lot of construction jobs will also include ex-

cavation work. You’ll be digging out and clearing away soil, rock and lots of different fill material in-between. You may be using some pretty seri-ous machinery. It is inherently risky work.

Take the time before you start to dig to think about those risks – such as collapsing walls, people or vehicles falling into your excavation site and how workers will get in and out safely.• is there a support system in place for the ex-

cavation, or has it been sloped or battered back to a safe angle?

• is a safe method used for putting in the sup-port, without the need for people to work in an unsupported trench?

• are there barriers in place to stop people and vehicles falling in?

• do you have adequate stop blocks in place to stop tipping vehicles falling in?

• think about neighbouring properties – could your work affect the stability of nearby struc-tures or services?

• are materials and plant stored well away from the edge of the excavation to reduce the chance of a collapse?

• is the excavation regularly inspected by a competent person with the results fully recorded?

Planning is the key to a safe worksite. Identify your hazards and take action to minimise the risk. Investing a bit of time at the start of a job could be the difference between a safe, smooth job and one where someone gets seriously in-jured or worse.

The Absolutely Essential Health and Safety Toolkit for Small Construction Sites is available on the WorkSafe New Zealand website. It does not cover legal requirements and is a guide only. There is also plenty more information at business.govt.nz/worksafe/construction.

Reduce the risk when moving materialsWe all know building sites are risky places. There are a hundred and one things that can go wrong and keeping on top of all those risks is no easy task

Forethought and planning reduces the risk when moving materials by hand or with a vehicle

E N V I R O N M E N T

www.isn.co.nz 7

The berms are used for a va-riety of applications such as mining and energy, oil and

gas sites, construction sites, farms, factories, public utilities including civil engineering plant and machin-ery wash down and maintenance facilities.

To ensure the best and most suit-able protection from berms there are a number of questions potential users should ask first, says leading safety technology supplier Enware Australia, which represents the globally recognised Enpac range of hazard reduction and spill contain-ment products.

“One of the first questions that should be asked is whether the particular item being sought is part of a comprehensive range of spill protection and containment

Careful berm selection for best spill protection and containmentSpill containment berms that prevent fuel and chemical leakage into the environment or onto workplace surfaces are increasingly being used by industry to cost-effectively prevent clean-up costs and minimise the risk of slip and fall accidents

products, because spill protection issues seldom arise in isolation,” says Enware Business Development Manager – Safety Allan Lane.

“More typically, a variety of spill protection and containment issues will arise across a site or across a company and they want to be able to get access to a range of safety-compliant technology that provides answers to a range of issues.”

Mr Lane says that berms range from those that will accommodate forklifts and drum pallets through to models that can enclose entire heavy trucks and tankers. “There is a big difference, and when you are sorting through the number of berms on offer there are a few ques-tions that should be asked before a particular berm is recommended.”

Enware Australia’s Snap-Up berm from Enpac features the chemical resistance required in an enormous variety of industrial applications

These include:• portability - is it a permanent

installation or is it going to be moved regularly such as a rail or road construction?

• does it require a true drive in/drive out capability with one-time set up?

• product to be contained - fuel,

chemical, acids, contaminated water etc.

• containment capacity – important for regulation compliance

• set up location – inside or outside?• ground type - rough, smooth,

sharp rocks etc• is a Tracmat or Ground Pad

required?

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A C C E S S


United Forklift and Access Solutions are introducing the ACTIV’Shield Bar Entrap-

ment Prevention System of one of the world’s leading manufactur-ers of powered access equipment, Haulotte Group.

ACTIV’Shield Bar incorporates an alert that warns the operator of po-tential entrapment situations and is unique in that it features a Safety Gap which prevents full entrapment in such situations. “This allows the operator to remove himself out of danger,” says United spokesperson Andrew Macdonald.

It is widely applicable to industries such as construction, civil engineer-ing, maintenance and installation engineering, local government and municipal works, including lighting and tree maintenance, mining, energy, oil and gas, infrastructure,

logistics, manufacturing, bulk mate-rials handling, electrical installation and maintenance, safety and trans-port and warehousing. Boom uses include installation, inspection and maintenance tasks as well as gen-eral access to elevated areas and machinery.

ACTIV’Shield Bar is available on all new Haulotte booms, with a retro kit also available that can be fitted to older Haulotte booms from 2008 onwards.

System features include:•the ACTIV’Shield Bar will auto-

matically stop the machine when activated from 18° and sounds an alarm alerting the operator and others nearby – if the bar doesn’t reach the full 18º, only the alarm will sound to warn of danger•Safety Gap allows operators to

place themselves out of danger, giving them opportunity to rescue themselves before serious situa-tions arise•only reverse/loweringmovements

are allowed after the alert if acti-vated, preventing more serious situations arising.“While incorporating the unique

and outstanding safety features of ACTIV’Shield Bar, Haulotte have maintained operator visibility of controls, which further extends safety, ergonomics and productivi-ty,” Mr Macdonald adds.

The system has been designed to preserve the machine’s working en-velope and to maintain easy access to controls, which means no change in working practice for the operator.

Following activa-tion of the system’s safety alert, reverse/lowering movements are permitted to allow the possibly panicked operator to get out of trouble without making the situation worse.

New system helps avoid entrapmentThe ACTIV’Shield Bar Entrapment Prevention System activates from 18º and sounds an alarm

After being triggered, the system is easy to reset and reactivate from the basket, which means there is no machine downtime – and if the operator is shaken up, he can bring the machine down safely and effi-ciently. “There is no need to wait for a person on the ground to bring the unit down,” says Mr Macdonald.

“With the innovative ACTIV’Shield system, Haulotte has gone much further than current industry requirements in Australia and worldwide, giving the operator the opportunity to not only potentially prevent a full entrapment situation, but also the means to self-rescue should one occur.”

Workplace safety with certainty.At Vertical Horizonz, we empower revolutionary change for industry, business and individuals by providing exceptional health & safety training experiences.

For us, it’s not just about ensuring workplace safety, it’s about results. Our mission is to provide real training that saves lives, and this is reflected in everything we do.

We like to think of ourselves as conscientious boundary-push-ers. We thoroughly assess your specific needs before we act, ensure all your bases are covered, and are empowered to push the limits to deliver exceptional workplace health & safety NZ industries can rely on. We don’t just offer our training services to New Zealand. Vertical Horizonz operate worldwide from Australia to the middle east in countries such as Qatar or the United Arab Emirates.

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www.isn.co.nz 9

3M Hearing Protection Solu-tions has released a hearing protector fit test system to

help combat noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), which routinely shows the highest number of recordable illness cases in private industry manufacturing.

The new 3M E-A-Rfit Dual-Ear Validation System measures the effectiveness of earplugs and ear-

muffs from inside the employee’s ear, providing accurate, quantitative results for both ears simultaneously. The system now tests both ears for all seven standard frequencies in seconds, generating a Personal At-tenuation Rating (PAR) to customise hearing protector selection.

“The 3M E-A-Rfit Dual-Ear Valida-tion System provides employers with the resources and confidence

needed to better protect their work-force,” says Luciana Macedo, Senior Occupational Hygienist at 3M. “The

dual-ear system enables compa-nies to quickly identify employ-ees at risk for noise-induced

hearing loss, and assist with training on the selection and use of hearing protectors.”

While other systems rely on the employee’s subjective response to test signals, the 3M fit-testing system measures sound pressure levels objectively. Therefore, the test can be performed in relatively high levels of background noise and is not affected by the hearing level of the employee.

Once the measurement is com-plete, the software displays the PAR along with a pass/fail indica-tor based on the worker’s noise exposure level. The system helps employers ensure proper use of

the hearing protection and helps identify earplug or earmuff models offering the best protection, such as the 3M E-A-R Classic Earplugs or the 3M PELTOR Earmuffs X Series.

The 3M™ E-A-Rfit Validation System includes all the hardware and accessories needed, including a speaker, software, stand, dual-el-ement microphones, cables and a trial quantity of probed test plugs.

A leader in hearing protection, 3M offers a complete solution including earplugs, earmuffs, sound detection and fit validation tools.

Its comprehensive, diverse portfo-lio of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) solutions includes fall protec-tion, respiratory protection, hearing protection, reflective materials for high-visibility apparel, protective clothing, protective eyewear, head and face protection, welding hel-mets, and other adjacent products and solutions such as detection, monitoring equipment, and active communications equipment.

Earplug effectiveness made simple

ACTIONSAFETY

H E A L T H & S A F E T Y


Improved workplace health and safety requires behaviour change and advises how to motivate

people to do things differently. It is common to rely on health and

safety systems and written policies and procedures to keep people safe, backed up by health and safety meetings, manuals and signage.

All of these will achieve some re-sults because employees in many organisations are used to being told what to do and will try to comply with instructions.

However far bigger improvements can only happen if employees un-derstand and see relevance in the health and safety processes and procedures they are expected to follow and then change their every-day safety behaviours accordingly.

Effecting significant behavior change requires employees to be involved in thinking and talking about safety to raise their awareness about the risks and hazards involved in their work. Employees and man-agers also need to understand how their own attitudes influence safety.

This is demonstrated in recent Australian research, which found a greater acceptance of risk taking and rule breaking among front-line employees in a number of high-risk sectors such as construction, mining and manufacturing.

The researchers found that em-ployees in small and medium-sized businesses were more likely to agree that not all health and safety instructions were strictly followed.

About a third of factory process workers thought that workplace conditions and management pres-sure stopped them from working safely and contributed to rule breaking.

These findings suggest that atti-tudes to safety are heavily influenced by workplace cultures, expectations and accepted behaviours.

The same is true in New Zealand and Workbase routinely encounters employees who put themselves at risk because they accept minor injuries as a normal part of the job and believe they are doing what is expected by their employer. This is

particularly so in workplaces and jobs where people are routinely under time pressure to get the work done.

This is important because pushing home a message that health and safety is a priority will achieve noth-ing if workplace expectations force people to cut health and safety corners.

Getting people to make the effort to change requires management commitment to safety and for man-agers to convince employees that it is not only necessary but will also make a difference. It is not just up to employees to change and manag-ers need to demonstrate their own commitment to health and safety and lead by example.

Effecting sustainable behavior change also requires employers to shift from compliance thinking to getting everyone in the organisa-tion believing in the value of good health and safety practice because they know how it matters to them-selves and their workmates.

Employers can start this process

by developing an in-depth under-standing about the nature and causes of the workplace’s risks and hazards. This will also help them to prepare for the upcoming law change that will broaden the focus from hazards, to risks and hazards.

Considering risk identifies the probability or likelihood that something could be harmful and the potential consequence of that harm. Considering hazards identi-fies sources of potential damage to something, or potential mental or physical harm to someone. For ex-ample, when carrying heavy items (the risk) there is a chance of sprains, strains and trips (the hazards).

Evolving thinking from purely hazards and controls to a risk man-agement approach means shifting the focus from inspection to enquiry and investigation.

Talking in a ‘no-blame’ way with employees who are responsible for the work activities and are conse-quently at risk of harm can reveal how they currently operate, their degree of understanding about what to do, and the work’s hazards and risks.

Employee involvementInvolving employees can also

show any differences between what is actually happening, and what is prescribed in health and safety policies or standard operating procedures.

Discussions should take into account scenarios such as shift handovers, tiredness towards the end of shifts and when there is pres-sure to complete tasks.

Non-standard situations also need to be reviewed because operators may be making judgements about what should be done without having all the information about the risks and hazards, for example when there is a breakdown or non-sched-uled maintenance.

Involving employees in hazard and risk identification will get them

How to change health and safety behaviours – and make it stickNobody goes to work intending to get injured or killed yet every year thousands of New Zealanders are harmed on the job, notes Katherine Percy

“Getting people to make the effort to change requires

management commitment to safety and for managers to

convince employees that it is not only necessary but will

also make a difference” - Workbase CEO Katherine Percy

www.isn.co.nz 11

thinking about the risks of tasks in more depth. In addition to help-ing employees to understand and manage risks, their involvement helps to shift thinking away from assuming health and safety is some-one else’s responsibility, to thinking ahead about potential risks and ac-tively managing them.

When discussing health and safety with employees, it is not helpful to tell them to be careful because people don’t deliberately set out to have an accident! Instead involve everyone in identifying and dis-cussing safe behaviours so these are known and are top of mind.

This will help managers and em-ployees to identify barriers to good health and safety practice and to understand why current behaviours exist. For example, safety equip-ment may be difficult to access or awkward to use, or people may be measured and rewarded on how well they meet time targets rather than whether they operate safely.

If a “she’ll be right” attitude pre-vails then encourage employees to talk about their near-miss and

injury experiences to help over-come assumptions that “it will never happen to me”.

Also talk with employees to:• identify reasons for changing

their behaviours • be aware of how bad the conse-

quences would be for them and their families if they were injured or killed at work

• consider how a significant injury would affect their income and what the consequences would be on their families

• think about the ways in which being in pain or being inca-pacitated would affect their happiness, relationships and abil-ity to do the things they enjoy.

Addressing employees’ accept-ance of risk-taking and rule breaking, and understanding people’s motiva-tions for change in relation to things that they care about, will help im-prove their willingness to put effort into good health and safety practice.

Even if employees are genuinely motivated to make changes, they will also need the right skills so em-ployers should identify all of the

practical skills and knowledge that people need to work safely.

Research shows that most em-ployees can read but may still need support to be able to manage un-familiar health and safety tasks and information, and complex proce-dures and systems.

This is significant because the upcoming health and safety law changes are expected to require that every employee who undertakes a potentially risky or hazardous activity has the necessary safety equipment, knowledge and skills to avoid harming themselves or others – or is supervised by someone who has that experience or knowledge.

It is important to ensure that writ-ten health and safety information and procedures are clear and con-cise because research shows that few people will read right through (or even understand) bureaucratic or long health and safety docu-ments, procedures, or hazardous material safety data sheets.

Training needs to be understood by the person receiving it and that includes knowing how to apply that

knowledge on the job.Supervisors also play a vital role

in engaging and upskilling employ-ees and can do so by involving their teams in discussions about what they know about specific risks, what caused hazards, how those hazards and risks could affect them and what could be done to prevent the hazards.

This is important because people inevitably take on and remember far more of what they discuss than what they are just told. Discussion also helps to raise everyone’s aware-ness about why incidents and near misses matter and gets them think-ing about preventative action that they can take.

Engaged employees who under-stand the causes of risks and hazards are more likely to make good safety decisions and take effective action should the unexpected occur.Katherine Percy is CEO of Workbase, a not-for-profit trust with over 20 years’ experience in developing adult literacy skills and helping organisations to work smarter and safer

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F O C U S > > H e a l t h a n d S a f e t y a t W o r k A c t


The forthcoming Health and Safety at Work Act that is slated to come into effect on

4 April next year has made several key changes to health and safety.

The first and most important is the introduction of a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking, or PCBU, who is judged to be in the best po-sition to control risks to health and safety in the workplace.

A PCBU will usually be a business entity such as a company rather than an individual person – though a person might also be a PCBU if they are a sole trader, a self-em-ployed person or a householder who operates a business in their home.

It replaces the current focus on the employer and employee with duties on carefully defined participants – employers, principals, the self-em-ployed, persons controlling a place of work and suppliers of plant.

Several workplaces and roles are, however, not defined as PCBUs:• those employed or engaged

solely as a worker, or an officer such as a company director

• a householder who engages or employs someone to do residen-

tial work on or in a home• a volunteer association if it’s for a

community purpose and none of the volunteers have employees.

All PCBUs have a primary duty of care in relation to the health and safety of workers and others affect-ed by the work carried out by the PCBU.

This requires all PCBUs to ensure,

so far as is reasonably practicable: • the health and safety of its work-

ers or those workers who are influenced or directed by the PCBU such as its workers and contractors

• and that the health and safety of other people is not put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking – for example visi-tors and customers.

Specific obligations include:• providing and maintaining a

work environment, plant and systems of work that are without risks to health and safety

• ensuring the safe use, handling and storage of plant, structures and substances

• providing adequate facilities at work for the welfare of workers, including ensuring access to those facilities

• providing information, training, instruction or supervision nec-essary to protect workers and others from risks to their health and safety

• monitoring the health of work-ers and the conditions at the workplace for the purpose of pre-venting illness or injury.

A self-employed person such as a householder working from home is a PCBU and must also ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, his or her own health and safety while

at work.PCBUs who manage or control the

workplace, fixtures, fittings or plant at workplaces do not owe a duty to people who are there for an unlaw-ful purpose.

Similarly, the duty of the PCBU only extends to the farm buildings and structures necessary for the operation of the business or under-taking and the areas immediately surrounding them – nor does the farm workplace include the family home.

Workers and workplacesA worker is a person who carries

out work in any capacity for a PCBU, which includes employees, contrac-tors, sub-contractors, employees of contractors or sub-contractors, outworkers, labour hire workers, volunteer workers, trainees and people gaining work experience.

A workplace is defined as a place where work is carried out for a busi-ness or undertaking, and any place where a worker goes or is likely to be while at work – including a vehicle, vessel, aircraft, ship or other mobile structure.

PCBUs have a duty, so far as is rea-

A change for the betterNew health and safety legislation recently passed by Parliament seeks to make New Zealand workplaces much safer

“There is a tiered penalty and fine regime, with graduated categories of offences, providing better guidance to the court about appropriate fine levels”

www.isn.co.nz 13

sonably practicable, to ensure that the health and safety of other per-sons, not just of workers, is not put at risk from the work carried out by the business or undertaking.

Toiling together PCBUs need to work together

when duties overlap – for example, there may be a number of differ-ent businesses working together or alongside each other on a single work site such as a construction site and through contracting or supply chains.

Overlapping duties do not auto-matically require PCBUs to duplicate efforts: instead, PCBUs will need to consult, co-operate, and co-ordi-nate activities to meet their shared responsibilities.

A PCBU that has less direct control and influence is more likely to fulfil its duty by making arrangements with the PCBU that is closer to the work and therefore has more direct influence and control.

For example, both a labour hire PCBU hiring out a worker to a host PCBU and the host PCBU itself owe a

duty of care to the worker and need to consult and co-ordinate activities to ensure the health and safety of the labour hire worker.

An important change with the new PCBU concept is that subcon-tractors on a site where they affect each other’s work or have a cross-over of work will also need to work with each other to meet their duties – even if they don’t have a direct contractual relationship with each other.

Risk reductionEnsuring health and safety re-

quires the duty holder to manage risk through eliminating or minimis-ing the risk, so far as is reasonably practicable in the circumstances.

Depending on the circumstances and the risk, minimisation may in-clude isolating the risk, coming up with engineering solutions, adapt-ing work methods and procedures, or providing personal protective equipment.

Upstream PCBUsPCBUs that are upstream from the

workplace (for example designers, architects and engineers, manufac-turers, suppliers or installers of plant, substances or structures) also have a role to play in managing risks to health and safety at work.

Specifically they have a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably prac-ticable, that the work they do or the things they provide to the work-place don’t create health and safety risks.

These explicit duties include en-suring the plant, substances, or structures are without risk to people who:• use the plant, substance or struc-

ture at a workplace• handle the substance at a

workplace• store the plant or substance at a

workplace• construct the structure at a

workplace• carry out any reasonably fore-

seeable activity (inspection, cleaning, maintenance or repair) at a workplace

• are at or in the vicinity of a work-place and who are exposed to the

plant, substance or structure at the workplace.

Due diligenceA new duty requires an officer of

a PCBU (such as a director, board member or partner) to exercise due diligence to ensure that the PCBU complies with its duties.

The officer duty will apply only to those who have a very senior gov-ernance role in the organisation – other than those holding specific roles such as directors or partners.

This governance role must exer-cise significant influence over the management of the business or undertaking, such as a chief exec-utive, but doesn’t include a person who merely advises or makes rec-ommendations to an officer of the organisation.

The definition of an officer is also clarified:• for a PCBU that is a company - the

officers are its directors• for a PCBU that is a partnership -

the officers are its partners (but

Continued on page 14



note in limited partnerships, only general partners are officers)

• for other types of business struc-tures or undertakings - people who hold a position comparable to a director of a company, such as board members.

Certain officers are exempt from prosecution if they fail in their due diligence duty:• volunteers• elected members of local author-

ities (councillors) under the Local Electoral Act 2001

• members of local or communi-ty boards elected or appointed under the Local Electoral Act 2001

• members of school boards of trustees appointed or elected under the Education Act 1989.

Officers must make sure they per-form certain due diligence functions to ensure the PCBU complies with its duties, including taking reasona-ble steps to:• know about work health

and safety matters and keep up-to-date

• gain an understanding of the op-erations of the organisation and the hazards and risks generally associated with those operations

• ensure the PCBU has appropriate resources and processes to elimi-nate or minimise those risks

• ensure the PCBU has appropriate processes for receiving informa-tion about incidents, hazards and risks, and for responding to that information

• ensure there are processes for complying with any duty, and that these are implemented

• verify that these resources and processes are in place and being used.

Volunteers valuedSeveral amendments have been

made with regards to volunteers,

recognising that volunteers con-tribute greatly to New Zealand communities and ensuring the new law will not negatively affect volunteering.

A purely volunteer organisation where volunteers work together for community purposes and which does not have any employees is known as a volunteer association – which is not a PCBU and therefore the Act will not apply to it.

A volunteer organisation which has one or more employees is a PCBU and will have the same duties as a PCBU to ensure, so far as rea-sonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers and others.

All PCBUs must engage with workers on health and safety matters

All workers may refuse to do unsafe work All workers have protections from adverse conduct

All PCBUs must have effective worker participation practices

PCBU may develop its own worker participation practices

The Act does not specify practices

Workers may request or PCBU may choose to have Health and Safety representatives (HSRs)

(with some exclusions)

Workers may request or PCBU may choose to have Health and Safety committees (HSCs)

(with some exclusions)

Continued from page 13

www.isn.co.nz 15

This is the same approach taken by the current law – the volunteer organisation will have to do what is reasonably practicable for it to do, and what is within its influence and control.

Where volunteers carry out work for a PCBU, the Act distinguishes between casual volunteers and volunteer workers – the latter are people who regularly work for a PCBU on an ongoing basis and are integral to the PCBU’s operations.

People volunteering for the following activities will not be vol-unteer workers under the new law:• participation in a fundraising

activity• assistance with sports or recrea-

tion for an educational institute, sports or recreation club

• assistance with activities for an educational institution outside the premises of the educational institution

• providing care for another person in the volunteer’s home.

Worker participationThe Act strengthens worker en-

gagement and participation in work health and safety matters by setting out two overarching PCBU duties for involving workers in work health and safety.

The PCBU must:• engage, so far as is reasonably

practicable, with workers who work for its business or under-taking and are directly affected, or likely to be directly affected, by a health and safety matter of the PCBU

• and have effective worker par-ticipation practices that allow workers who work for its business or undertaking to have an oppor-tunity to participate in improving work health and safety on an on-going basis.

Effective worker participation practice (s) include health and safety representatives (HSRs) and/or health and safety committees (HSCs), which bring together workers (including HSRs) and man-agement to develop and review

WorkSafe New Zealand is currently developing guidance to help people

understand and meet their obliga-tions and is working closely with key industry stakeholders from a number of sectors to make sure that all new guidance is clear, accurate and simple to use.

Guidance on the new legislation will include:• a comprehensive Guide to the

Act, covering what everyone needs to know about general workplace health and safety

• factsheets on key topics including:

• what is a PCBU and what are its duties?

• who is an officer and what are their duties?

• what are the notification require-ments for workplace incidents?

• what does “reasonably practica-ble” mean?

• an Approved Code of Prac-tice (ACOP), outlining the

Worker Engagement, Representation and Par-ticipation requirements in the Act

• an ACOP giving practical information for the Man-agement and Removal of Asbestos

• a Good Practice Guide (GPG), explaining how workplace risks can be managed, and the requirements under the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations

• guidance on major hazard fa-cilities and the changes to the hazardous substances regime

• factsheets to support the ACOPs and GPGs.

Once the regulations are finalised WorkSafe will start issuing formal guidance to support the Act and regulations in the New Year. Sign up to find out more about what guidance is coming by visiting www.worksafe.govt.nz

Get guidance


Working smarter.Our experienced team is dedicated to providing expert employment and health and safety legal advice with a strategic and commercial approach. We offer assistance and representation on all health and safety issues, investigations and prosecutions. ........................................... Sherridan Cook, Partner 09 358 2555 // [email protected] Kynaston, Partner 04 499 4242 // [email protected] Chemis, Partner 04 499 4242 // [email protected] Smith, Partner 03 379 1747 // [email protected] Rowe, Partner 03 371 3517 // [email protected]



workplace health and safety policies and

procedures.An HSC may be

requested by the workers or chosen

by the PCBU as an effective way to involve work-

ers in health and safety at the workplace. The Act sets out how HSRs and HSCs will work, including their functions and powers, and

the PCBU’s obligations to provide support.

It also continues the right for workers to refuse to do unsafe work, and expands protections for work-ers who raise workplace health and safety matters.

However, it doesn’t specify what types of worker participation prac-tices PCBUs must have – different types of practices will suit different workplaces and the important thing

is that workers can be involved in an effective way.

PCBUs with fewer than 20 workers that are in the low-risk sectors to be defined in the new Worker Par-ticipation regulation don’t have to initiate an election for HSRs or set up an HSC.

However, this doesn’t stop smaller, non high-risk PCBUs from voluntari-ly deciding to have health and safety representatives or a committee to meet their worker participation requirements.

Powerful penaltiesThe Independent Taskforce on

Workplace Health and Safety con-sidered that the current penalties under the Health and Safety in Em-ployment Act 1992 were too low and the range of compliance and enforcement tools available to in-spectors too limited.

The Act therefore provides a range of new and existing enforcement tools and compliance mechanisms

to the regulator, inspectors and the court that include in addition to prosecution:

Improvement noticesWhere an inspector reasonably

believes that a person is breaching (or is likely to breach) the Act or reg-ulations, they can issue that person with an improvement notice to remedy the breach.

The improvement notice will stip-ulate a reasonable time by which the person must comply with the notice (compliance period). An in-spector may extend the compliance period by written notice.

Prohibition noticesWhere an inspector reasonably

believes a workplace activity is occurring (or is likely to occur) in-volving a serious risk to health or safety of anyone arising from an im-mediate or imminent exposure to a hazard, they can issue a prohibition notice (including verbally).

The person given the notice must stop carrying out the activity, as di-rected, until the inspector is satisfied that the matter or activity giving rise to the risk has been remedied.

Where reasonable steps are not taken the regulator may take reme-dial action to make the workplace or situation safe.

Non-disturbance noticesAn inspector may issue a non-dis-

turbance notice to the PCBU who manages or controls the workplace requiring the PCBU to preserve the site at which a notifiable event has occurred (for a specified time) or prevent the disturbance of a par-ticular site (including the operation of plant) for a specified time that is reasonable in the circumstances.

Certain actions can still be taken even if a non-disturbance notice has been issued – for example, assisting an injured person.

Failing to comply with an improvement, prohibition or

Max. prison term

Max. fine

Offence of reckless conduct in respect of a health and safety duty (clause 42)

A person who has a health and safety duty, without reasonable excuse, engages in conduct that exposes a person to a risk of death or serious injury or illness, and the person is reckless as to the risk

Individual (e.g. a worker)

5 years and/or

$300,000

Officer of a PCBU or an individual who is a PCBU (e.g. self-employed)

5 years and/or

$600,000

Body Corporate (e.g. a company)

- $3 million

Offence of failing to comply with a health and safety duty that exposes individual to risk of death or serious injury or illness (clause 43)

A person who has a health and safety duty fails to comply with the duty and that failure exposes a person to risk of death or serious injury or illness


- $150,000


- $300,000


- $1.5 million

Offence of failing to comply with a health and safety duty (clause 44)

A person that has a health and safety duty fails to comply with that duty


- $50,000


- $100,000


- $500,000


www.isn.co.nz 17

non-disturbance notice is an of-fence and the person will be liable to pay a fine.

In certain circumstances, an eli-gible person is able to apply to the regulator to review a decision about a notice that has been issued (in-ternal review). The person can also appeal the outcome of any internal review to the court on the grounds that the decision was unreasonable.

Infringement noticesThe regulator can issue a person

with an infringement notice requir-ing payment of a fine for breach of an infringement offence.

Infringement offences will be breaches of specific health and safety obligations in the Act or in regulations. The amount of the fine for each infringement offence will be set out in regulations.

A person issued with an in-fringement notice only has limited grounds to have the court consider the matter.

Enforceable undertakingsAn enforceable undertaking is a

commitment by a person to address a failure or alleged failure to comply with the Act or regulations – failure to comply with an enforceable un-dertaking is an offence to which a fine applies.

Where a person fails to do what they have agreed, the regulator can apply to the court to obtain an appropriate order – for example, payment of the fine or an order di-recting that the person comply with the enforceable undertaking.

The regulator is not required to accept an enforceable undertaking and cannot accept one where the regulator believes the failure or al-leged failure would amount to an offence of reckless conduct in re-spect of a health and safety duty.

The Act specifically acknowledges that the giving of an enforceable undertaking does not constitute an admission of guilt in respect of the failure or alleged failure to which

the enforceable undertaking relates.Inspectors may also display a copy

of a notice in a prominent place where the work is being carried out, which ensures those affected are made aware of the notice.

Failing to comply with an im-provement, prohibition or non-disturbance notice (or inten-tionally removing or damaging a copy of a notice displayed by an inspector) is an offence and the person will be liable to pay a fine.

Several new kinds of court orders have been made available, includ-ing the ability to order a person to undertake a specific project for the general improvement of work health and safety or undertake training.

The court can also make adverse publicity orders requiring an of-fender to publicise or advise specific people of certain matters, including the nature of the offence, its conse-quences and the penalty imposed by the court. The Act also carries

over from the HSE Act the ability to bring a private prosecution.

There is a tiered penalty and fine regime, with graduated categories of offences, providing better guid-ance to the court about appropriate fine levels. The penalty and fine levels are tiered to distinguish be-tween individuals and corporate entities (such as companies).

There are three offences in re-lation to breach of a health and safety duty, graduated based on the conduct of the duty holder and the outcome of the breach with the maximum fine and penalty levels tiered based on who the duty holder is – an individual, an officer of a PCBU, or corporate entity.

The fine levels for breaches of other obligations under the Act are provided in the clause that creates the ob-ligation, and are also tiered based on who the duty holder is in the circumstances.

A series of regulations are being developed to sup-port the new Act, which

will replace the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and the Ma-chinery Act 1950.

These include:

information to help the workforce prepare for the forthcoming legisla-tion and will issue formal guidance once the regulations are finalised, starting in 2016.

The new health and safety law is based on that in force in Australia,

Regulation revision• general risk and workplace

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Although these matters are currently provided for in the Health and Safety in Em-

ployment Act 1992, the Act is more prescriptive in this area and will es-tablish new obligations.

The primary duty holder under the Act will be a ‘person conducting a business or undertaking’ (PCBU), who will assume new obligations when the provisions come into force next year.

PCBUs in the mining sector should also be aware that the Act will es-tablish further obligations for that sector (see Schedule 3 to the Act).

Worker engagement and participation

Under the Act, a PCBU will have a duty to:• …so faras is reasonablypractica-

ble,engagewithworkers•whocarryoutworkforthebusinessorundertaking;and•whoare,orare likely tobe,direct-ly affectedbyamatter relating toworkhealthorsafety.

The circumstances in which a PCBU will be required to engage with workers on health and safety matters are broadly defined. They include when a PCBU is identify-ing hazards and assessing risks in relation to its work, in developing health and safety procedures and worker participation practices (re-ferred to below), and in determining work groups (also discussed below).

Note that the Act’s definition of ‘worker’ is not limited to employees, and includes contractors, subcon-tractors, employees of a labour hire company, apprentices and trainees.

A PCBU’s duty of engagement will involve: • sharing relevant information with

workers • giving workers a reasonable op-

portunity to express their views, raise issues, and contribute to decision-making processes on health and safety matters

• taking workers’ views on health

and safety into account in decision-making

• and informing workers of the outcomes of work engagement in a timely manner (i.e. after consulting with workers on a particular health and safety matter, advising them what the decision is and the reasons for it).

In addition, PCBUs will be obliged to have practices that “provide rea-sonable opportunities for workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking to participate ef-fectively in improving work health and safety…on an ongoing basis” (‘worker participation practices’). In designing these, PCBUs must

comply with any industry-specific requirements, and take into account any relevant codes of practice.

Such practices could include es-tablishing or maintaining a health and safety committee and con-sulting with workers through that committee. Managers could also make health and safety a regular item for meetings, and workers could be given the opportunity to

provide their views about health and safety issues through a des-ignated email address or intranet space.

It will be an offence not to comply with the duties summarised above. A maximum fine of $100,000 (or $20,000 where the PCBU is an indi-vidual) may be imposed for a failure to comply.

Health and safety representatives and work groups

The Act provides a series of functions and powers for health and safety representatives. These include representing workers in relation to health and safety, inves-

tigating complaints, monitoring health and safety measures, in-quiring into potential risks, making recommendations, providing feed-back to their PCBU and promoting the interests of workers.

The Act will not require every workplace to have a representative. However, if a worker notifies a PCBU that they would like a representative to be elected, the PCBU will have to

respond to their request following the process set out in the Act (dis-cussed below).

Generally speaking, represent-atives will only represent workers in their own ‘work group’. Where a worker requests the election of a representative, the relevant PCBU will have to determine the work groups that make up the business or undertaking (and engage with workers in doing so).

Determination of work groups The default position provided for

in the Act is that a work group is made up of all of the workers of a business or undertaking. However, a PCBU will be able to determine alternative work groups if it consid-ers that the default position “would be inappropriate having regard to the structure of the business or undertaking.”

This might be the case where, for example, various different types of work are carried out in the PCBU and health and safety issues could better be addressed by having a work group for each type of work, or where work is carried out at dif-ferent locations and this makes it impracticable to have one work group for the PCBU.

If a PCBU decides to determine an alternative work group or groups, it will have to ensure that the

New commitments for worker involvementThe long-awaited Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 that will come into force on 4 April 2016 includes a series of obligations concerning worker engagement, participation and representation

“If a worker notifies a PCBU that they would like a representative to be elected, the PCBU will have to respond to their request following the process set out in the Act”

alternative arrangement groups workers in way that “most effec-tively enables the health and safety interests of the workers to be represented”.

A PCBU will also have to take into account the need for representa-tives to be accessible to the workers they represent.

Two or more PCBUs may also be able to agree to a ‘multiple PCBU work group arrangement’.

Where such an arrangement

exists, individuals carrying out work for different PCBUs may be part of the same work group.

This type of arrangement may be suitable where more than one PCBU has duties for the same work or workers (e.g. a construction project involving employees, contractors and subcontractors from various PCBUs working together).

Obligation to initiate an election How a PCBU must respond to a

worker requesting the election of a representative will depend on: • how many people are carrying

out work for the business or un-dertaking; and

• whether the work carried out falls within the scope of any ‘high-risk sector or industry’.

High-risk sectors or industries will be listed in regulations. Draft regu-lations are expected in a few weeks.

If a PCBU’s work is carried out by fewer than 20 workers and falls out-side the ‘high-risk’ categories, the PCBU will be able to (but does not have to) refuse a request to initiate an election for a health and safety representative. In this event, the PCBU will have to provide written

notice to the worker who made the request within a reasonable time.

If the work of a PCBU’s business or undertaking is carried out by 20 workers or more, or is ‘high-risk’, a PCBU who receives notification from a worker will be required to ini-tiate an election for a representative. Time limits and other requirements for elections will be set down in regulations.

If a PCBU fails to comply with any of these obligations, it will be liable for a fine of up to $25,000 (or $5,000 if the PCBU is an individual).


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Health and safety committees Health and safety committees are

another form of worker representa-tion found in the Act. Their functions will include facilitating cooperation in relation to health and safety mat-ters, helping to develop health and safety “standards, rules, policies, or procedures” for the relevant work-place, and making health and safety recommendations.

Where a committee has been es-tablished in a PCBU, that PCBU will be required amongst other matters to consult with the committee about health and safety (so far as is rea-sonably practicable), to provide the committee with the information it re-quires to carry out its functions, and to adopt health and safety recom-mendations made by the committee or explain in writing why a recom-mendation will not be adopted.

Establishing a committeeAs with representatives, the Act

will not require every workplace to have a committee. A PCBU may however be requested to establish a committee either by a representa-tive, or by five or more workers at the

workplace. Where the work of the business

or undertaking is carried out by fewer than 20 workers and is not within a ‘high-risk’ sector or indus-try, the relevant PCBU will not be required to decide whether to establish a committee. Where a request to establish a commit-tee is not considered by a PCBU for this reason, the persons who made the request must be given written notice to this effect within a reason-able time.

If work is carried out by 20 workers or more, or is ‘high-risk’, a PCBU will have two months to decide whether it will establish a committee for all or part of the business or undertaking. Written notice of the PCBU’s deci-sion will need to be made “as soon as practicable” to workers with an interest in the decision.

A PCBU will be able to decide not to establish a committee where it is satisfied that the worker partic-

Changes to the Health and Safety Reform Bill will help small businesses, farmers

and others provide safer workplac-es, BusinessNZ Chief Executive Phil O’Reilly says.

The draft legislation continues to require those controlling a work-place to do everything reasonably practicable to keep it safe.

However, among other areas, it now clarifies that:• the area where work is being

undertaken on a farm will be cat-egorised as a workplace, while areas where work is not being un-dertaken will not be categorised as a workplace – this addresses

the concern of farmers being liable for people such as hunters or trampers present in non-work-ing areas of a farm

• small businesses with fewer than 20 employees, in lower risk occu-pations, will not be required to have safety reps.

Mr O’Reilly says the amended pro-visions helped address concerns about unfair liability and compli-ance for small business. “The new draft Bill also makes clearer the issue of control over a workplace,” he believes.

The ‘person conducting a business or undertaking’ (PCBU), with the pri-mary duty for safety under the new

ipation practices it has in place already provide workers with reason-able opportunities to

“participate effectively in improving work health and safety in the business or undertaking on an on-going basis”.

A PCBU will need to give written notice of a deci-

sion not to establish a committee,

together with the reasons for the decision and advice that the refusal may be raised as an issue under the conflict resolution provisions of the Act (see Subpart 6 of Part 3).

Again, not meeting these obli-gations will be an offence, and will give rise to liability for a fine of up to $25,000 (or $5,000 if the PCBU is an individual).

Ella McLean is a Law Clerk and Joss Opie is a Senior Associate in the national employment team at Buddle Findlay, one of New Zealand’s leading commercial law and public law firms with offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Either can be contacted for advice on the Act, or health and safety more generally


New safety bill more practicalNew legislation for health and safety is being made more practical says the country’s leading business advocacy group

them to consider this serious charge when sentencing.

“It is positive that the new legisla-tion has been drafted from a sound base and has been further improved in responding to issues raised by business,” he adds. “It will also be im-portant for WorkSafe to work with business in a non-bureaucratic way to put in place systems to ensure business can actually comply with the new rules.”

law, will usually be a business entity, such as a company, but may be an individual in the cases of sole trader or self-employed person. “This makes it clearer where the primary duty for safety is.”

The new Bill also responds to con-cerns about the weight of penalties where an accident results in death, Mr O’Reilly maintains, with provi-sion for guidance to courts requiring

A major step forward


www.isn.co.nz 21

The passing of the Health and Safety Reform Bill marks a major step in addressing

New Zealand’s unacceptable work-place death and injury toll, says Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse.

“This is the first significant reform of New Zealand’s health and safety laws in more than 20 years. It deliv-ers a system that strikes the right balance between safe workplaces for workers and unnecessary red tape on businesses,” Mr Woodhouse says.

“Under the new law, the duty for all businesses, regardless of size and risk level, to have effec-tive worker engagement and participation practices has been strengthened. However there will be some flexibility in how a busi-ness can choose to do this, to suit their size and need.”

The new law emphasises that everyone in the workplace is re-sponsible for health and safety. “It recognises the complexity of modern working arrangements, moving away from the narrow em-ployer/employee focus, to ensure that everyone has an appropriate level of responsibility to make sure their health and safety, and that of others, is protected at work,” he believes.

Every worker deserves to come home safely each day and this new law will help reach the goal of a 25 percent reduction in workplace deaths and injuries by 2020, Mr Woodhouse adds.

“But it will also require leadership and commitment from business-es and workers alike to change our culture and attitude towards health and safety in every day work practices.”

[email protected], 0800 629 464 6637

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The Pike River tragedy creat-ed a chance in a generation when seemingly everyone

agreed that New Zealand’s appall-ing workplace safety record must change.

The government had the mandate and authority to say to all New Zea-landers: you know we must change, we will take the decisions needed for real change, and we will support you in that change. It will require change in the way the regulator, businesses and everyone in them think and act. But it will pay off in less pain, fewer grieving families and more productive workplaces.

The new law was to have been the cornerstone of change. Instead it will be remembered as a farce about worm farms and paper hang-ing being higher risk than quarries, explosive handling, sheep, cattle or dairy farms.

The government has lost its moral authority and risks squandering this unique opportunity. Rather than hear the message that change is essential, people will see the law as a result of powerful interest groups clamouring for exceptions – “every-one has to change except me, no matter how many people have died in my industry”. How can our health and safety culture change in such an environment?

It didn’t have to be like this. The government commissioned an In-dependent Workplace Health and Safety taskforce, of which I was a member along with three business representatives, two safety experts and an experienced secretariat, to design a new health and safety system that would bring down our terrible toll of death, injury and disease.

Its report recommended a bal-anced and comprehensive set of actions saying: “It is our firm con-viction that the government must adopt the full range of recommen-dations made in this report if we

are to deliver the outcomes that all working New Zealanders deserve.” Picking it apart is folly.

All the government had to do is follow the recommendations of its own taskforce. As time has dragged on it has piece by piece weakened many recommendations, often on scant evidence. Some have margin-al detrimental effect, others more substantial. However the current debacle is over a crucial element: the participation and engagement of workers in their own health and safety.

The taskforce found that “Worker engagement in health and safety is generally ineffective and often virtually absent. New Zealand falls well short of the strength of worker

representative legislation and levels of engagement operating in compa-rable jurisdictions.” As with many of its findings, this was consistent with those of the Royal Commission.

Health and safety is about min-imising risk to people in the workplace. But Pike River showed there is another risk: the failure of the health and safety ‘system’ itself – laws, regulations, regulator, businesses’ and workers’ practices, education and support.

The system itself must be de-signed to be fail-safe. It is sometimes described as a three-legged stool. If one leg fails, the stool will collapse. The three legs are the government as regulator, businesses providing leadership and management sys-tems, and workers participating in designing and monitoring work-place systems and safeguarding

themselves and their co-workers.

Multiple failuresSystem failure is not just a the-

oretical possibility: the Royal Commission found all three legs failed at Pike River. When all three are acting effectively with a degree of independence, however, if one starts to fail another can sound the alarm and take action.

At Pike River, the employer failed in multiple ways including exces-sive focus on production, financial problems and attracting investors rather than safety. Lack of expertise and cost reduction was described as “innovation” – such as putting a vital extractor fan in the bottom of the mine where it would be destroyed by the explosion.

Inspectors had been starved for re-sources for years and worked under the principle that employers should be relied on to do the right thing. This was brought about by lack of funding and political support from successive governments for the stronger stance that was needed. The inspectors had lost both the ability and the independence to act. Worker participation was weakened by non-enforcement, employer hostility, and production pressures reflected in pay systems.

The taskforce, and the Bill when introduced into Parliament, recom-mended that workers should have the right to elect Health and Safety representatives if they wished. This was not mandatory for all workplac-es: it was only if a worker requested it, but the right to request applied to all firms and industries without exception.

The recommendation should not be controversial: since 2003, work-ers in New Zealand have had the right to request such elections in all workplaces. For firms larger than 30 employees, representatives have by law been the default worker partici-pation system, and in smaller firms, workers have the right to them on request. Not all have them.

The new law is based on an Aus-

When farce becomes tragedyThe farce created by the government’s ham-fisted changes to the Health and Safety Reform Bill is a tragedy according to CTU Policy Director and Economist Bill Rosenberg

“The government has lost its moral authority and risks squandering this unique opportunity” - CTU Policy Director

and Economist

Bill Rosenberg

www.isn.co.nz 23

tralian model law which requires representatives on request. The UK and many European countries with much better workplace health and safety records than us have similar systems.

Leading researchers includ-ing David Walters in the U.K. and Michael Quinlan and Richard John-stone in Australia have found that health and safety representative systems are effective in raising health and safety performance. No other research-backed worker par-ticipation systems were found by the taskforce, though good worker participation practice may well exist in other forms in some firms.

Health and safety representatives have specific duties and powers not available to all workers, must receive training to carry out these responsibilities, are protected from reprisals if they act in good faith and can be removed for using their powers improperly (though Aus-tralian regulators say they have not had such problems). Representa-tives can therefore bring important knowledge and commitment to the workplace.

The government’s changes have drawn a line at 20 workers in the workplace. Below that number, the rules will apply only to “high risk” workplaces. There are multiple problems with this. Most important-ly, it is wrong in principle to exclude arbitrarily hundreds of thousands of New Zealand workers from being able to choose effective worker par-ticipation practices.

It is also inconsistent: why should small firms (which are known to have poorer health and safety per-formance than larger firms) have a ‘risk’ criterion applied to them when it is not applied to large firms? Why is a representative a burden when many small firms desperately need the training they bring? If cost is an issue the government should sub-

sidise the training, which I estimate would cost well under $1 million a year.

Practical problemsBut there are also severe practical

difficulties with the amendments. It is impossible in practice to deter-mine risk on an industry basis with sufficient reliability for such crucial policy purposes. As the taskforce found, our data on workplace health and safety is poor. Where data exists it is largely about injury whereas occupational disease is a far greater killer (estimated at 600-900 deaths per year) and is an essential con-sideration in safeguarding workers’

health and safety. The minister says the high0risk category will be extended to include asbestos and silica dust, but there are many other possible sources of exposure.

The data also suffers from un-der-reporting (two-thirds did not make an ACC claim on reasonably serious injuries according to one study of farming) and there are many other problems. Wide indus-try categories may have passably good data for injuries (but not oc-cupational disease) but inescapably include some subsectors with low risk and some with high risk, creat-ing the kinds of absurdities we have seen.

The data at a sufficiently narrow subsector level is unreliable and not fit for critical decision-making. In any case annual injury or fatality rate data does not tell the whole story. For example, rates may be unacceptably high in some seasons (such as during calving) but low at other times, giving a below-thresh-old annual average. Ultimately it is impossible in practice to identify ‘high risk’ without drawing arbitrary lines. It becomes political risk rather than risk to workers.


There is a simple way for the government to regain higher moral ground: implement what its own Taskforce recommended and was in its original Bill, receiving widespread support”

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The Health and Safety Reform Bill has grabbed many recent headlines because of what is

deemed a high-risk industry - and what is not.

Because most farming indus-tries fall on the low-risk side, many people seem to have rushed to a judgement that farmers are excluded from these reforms.

This is simply not the case.The reforms are designed to

improve the safety of every indus-try and every workplace. Farms included.

What’s more, the bill passed by Parliament is welcomed by Feder-ated Farmers for the very reason it will further help our members to address the high level of workplace incidents and fatalities on our farms.

Farmers know this performance is not good enough. They – and Fed-erated Farmers – accept there is a problem, and the changes being brought about by the Health & Safety Reform Bill are just some of the ways that we’ll continue to ad-

dress this.Federated Farmers’ focus to date

has been on gaining acceptance by the sector of its poor track record and raising awareness of the key risks on New Zealand farms. Some-thing we’ve found very effective is sharing the circumstance and causes of safety incidents within the sector.

Another key initiative has been to team up with WorkSafe and industry associations to identify and share best practice safety management.

Most farming industries falling outside the classification of high risk, and therefore not requiring an employee safety representative if under 20 employees, does not mean the reform Bill will not force further changes on our farms.

Its reforms are much broader than that.

This legislation is about support-ing all industries to provide a safer environment for all workers. It strengthens the current regulatory framework in a number of ways and

will incentivise everyone who has an ability to influence the risks faced by workers to ensure they do their part.

For farmers, that means a legal ob-ligation to manage the risks within their control for all contractors and staff. The application of legal duties has also been expanded to include any person who holds a governance position in a business like a partner, trustee or director. In many cases that will mean farmers’ family mem-bers, as well as farm owners.

All this is backed by significant-ly higher maximum fines and strengthened regulator oversight,

whether you’re working in a high-risk industry or not.

These are not small or insignificant implications for farmers; nor are they the only thing being done to make our farms safer. Together we will continue to work hard to make this a reality.

Katie Milne is a Board Member of Federated Farmers, a membership-based organisation consisting of 24 provinces and seven industry groups encompassing some 26,000 members

Other practical hurdles include determining the position of firms covering multiple sectors (such as a farm engaged in cropping, cattle farming and tourism) and how and when workers are counted given that the threshold is for a ‘business or undertaking’, not a firm.

Workers may be perma-nent employees, contractors, temporary employees or some types of volunteer. A farm with a handful of permanent workers may have well over 20 during the year, including seasonal peaks with contractors or temporary staff carrying out shear-

ing, harvesting and other jobs. The minister says that the em-

ployers in small firms still must have effective worker engagement if they do not have a representative system. But there is an almost iden-tical duty under the current law and the evidence is that far too many employers don’t effectively engage their workers.

Such a vague requirement is very difficult for inspectors to enforce. But also think of the three-legged stool. A worker participation system that depends on the skills, knowledge and goodwill of the employer is sub-

ject to failure if the chief executive or other key manager changes or if the firm comes under financial or production pressure (like Pike River).

It lacks the independence that is essential for each leg of the stool: if the employer fails in its duties, then almost certainly an employer-creat-ed worker participation system will fail with it.

The representative system is es-tablished good practice. Employers have the option to persuade their workers that they have a better system, but a fallback must be avail-able to all.

There is a simple way for the gov-ernment to regain higher moral ground: implement what its own taskforce recommended and was in its original Bill, receiving wide-spread support. Make health and safety representatives available to all workers who request them.

Bill Rosenberg is Policy Director and Economist at the Council of Trade Unions


Farmers not sidestepping health and safety reformThe rural community is committed to workplace safety says Katie Milne

www.isn.co.nz 25

The final passage of the Health and Safety Reform Bill through the legislative

process in Parliament at the end of August was accompanied by drama and farce – and the raw grief of fam-ilies of loved ones who had lost their lives at work.

Their grief was raw and a stark re-minder to politicians of our duty to create laws that protect our citizens. The parents, partners and children of men who had died in forest-ry accidents and in the Pike River mine tragedy came to Parliament to ask the government to pass a law stronger than the 1992 Health and Safety in Employment Act – and for a law that would keep all workers safe in whatever industry they worked. They were very disappointed.

When the Bill was introduced in

March 2014 it received cross-party support. Although it was complex it started off with a clear vision of what needed to be done to achieve the goal of reducing workplace acci-dents by 25 percent by 2020 – and the government’s interim measure of a 10 percent reduction by 2016.

The Greens fully supported this target as we acknowledge that our country’s health and safety record has been woeful. Just under 300 people were killed at work over the last five years and according to the 2013 Independent Taskforce on Health and Safety, the annual death toll is around four in every 100,000 workers.

Between 500 and 800 more people die every year from chronic diseases


A missed opportunityDenise Roche believes that the Health and Safety at Work Act isn’t as strong as it could and should be


“New Zealanders are twice as likely to die at work as Australians and

three times more likely than workers in the UK,” says Green Party spokesperson for Industrial

Relations Denise Roche


caused by workplace conditions and ACC receives about 200,000 claims annually for work accidents.

New Zealanders are twice as likely to die at work as Australians and three times more likely than work-ers in the UK. The stark truth is that citizens in those countries are safer at work than in our own.

Sadly, I predict that this Bill, wa-tered down by the National Party, will not deliver the desperately needed change in culture required. It won’t change the culture in many workplaces from a ‘she’ll be right’ at-titude to one where employees and employers keep health and safety on the job front foremost on their minds.

It won’t because, as the Transport and Industrial Relations committee heard from various experts during the hearings process, there are three essentials necessary to create a workplace culture of safety: • businesses need to show

leadership• we need a strong regulator • and, crucially, we need a system

where workers are able to par-ticipate in their own health and safety systems in the workplace.

Crucial compromiseAnd while this Bill does make some

improvements (extending responsi-bility to PCBUs, higher penalties for breaches, etc) the third essential element – worker participation – is compromised in the law. Where worker participation is outlined in this legislation, it is essentially par-ticipation on the bosses’ terms.

Employers are essentially able to determine the work groups that Health and Safety Representatives will cover, and for workers in busi-nesses deemed to be ‘low risk’ with fewer than 20 employees the right to request a Health and Safety Rep-resentative has been removed. This barrier to employee representation sends a signal that the concerns of the staff can only be raised with the approval of the employer.

The government’s determina-tion to ensure there is a loophole for small and medium-sized busi-nesses saw the Minister Michael Woodhouse release a ludicrous set of criteria to determine ‘high risk’ and ‘low risk’ industries.

It excluded occupations and activ-ities like tree pruning, demolition, beef, sheep and dairy farming from

Continued from page 25being ‘high risk’. However, it deemed worm farming, installing curtains and breeding cats as ‘high risk.’

The dairy farming sector alone em-ploys around 28,000 staff, and many, if not most, would have fewer than 20 workmates. And over the last five years there have been 104 deaths in

the agriculture sector, so it’s hardly a low-risk sector. As if to sheet home the dangers, the day after the Bill was passed another farm worker was killed on a quad bike.

According to the Ministry of Busi-ness, Innovation and Employment, 97 percent of New Zealand busi-nesses are small businesses and small businesses are 35 percent more likely to have accidents than larger businesses.

Yet the workers in small busi-nesses are not entitled to elect a workmate delegated to look out for their health and safety. Many of the men who died in the Pike River trag-edy worked for small businesses.

Certainly, businesses can and should lead health and safety im-provements, but I remain sceptical that that will happen voluntarily on

the scale needed if small to medi-um-sized businesses are excluded from some of the provisions in the Bill.

I acknowledge that many indus-tries have been working really hard to reduce accidents. It has been heartening to see the reduction in fatalities in the forestry sector over the last two years – but this follows on from a very public campaign led by the NZCTU and a subsequent independent health and safety in-quiry and several high-profile court cases.

As an aside, I guess we have to wonder about how effective Work-safe NZ is in its compliance role, given that there have now been two successful private prosecutions where the regulator declined to take the cases.

The Health and Safety Reform leg-islation was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to radically improve our effective health and safety laws. The Greens are disappointed that the National government wasted that opportunity, and that more workers will continue to be killed or injured at work than if National had supported best practice legislation.

Denise Roche is Green Party spokesperson for Industrial Relations

“Sadly, I predict that this Bill, watered down by the National Party, will not deliver the desperately needed change in culture required”


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www.isn.co.nz 27

One of the most direct ways to cure noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) issues in

commercial and industrial build-ings is to cut the problem off at its source.

Factory and processing plant owners and facility owners and managers can now install relative-ly inexpensive simple inflatable or solid rubber mounts to isolate the source of the trouble before invest-ing in extensive sound-deadening materials or requiring staff to wear personal protection equipment in affected areas.

Inflatable Airmount Air Springs and complementary solid-engi-neered fabric and rubber Marsh Mellow springs are already proven globally in applications, ranging from extreme isolation of operating tables in hospitals and comput-er and electronics installations through to effective dampening of the din and shaking created by

huge and heavy shakers, crushers, metal stamping, compressors and generators in Industrial plant.

Isolation efficiencies of up to 99 percent have also been attained beneath common sources of NVH in buildings, ranging from emer-gency electricity generators and HVAC plants in high-rise buildings through to a swimming pool in an exclusive hotel that was mounted on air springs to ensure its glassy surface was isolated from disruptive trains in nearby tunnels and other heavy vehicle traffic.

The NVH problem is almost uni-versal throughout the design, engineering and construction of industrial and commercial build-ings – it’s a workplace hazard to the human occupants of buildings, disrupting employee comfort and safety.

Airmounts are available in an ex-panded range of sizes which can individually support weights ex-

tending from under 100kg up to more than 40,000kg. Models range from palm-sized to nearly a metre across, which have been used as actuators to lift mining draglines for maintenance.

Airmounts contain no internal moving parts to wear, or metal

springs or surfaces to corrode or break, says James Maslin, National Marketing Manager for isolation and actuation specialist Air Springs Supply Pty Ltd, the Australian dis-tributor of Firestone industrial products.

“They are extraordinarily tough, being manufactured by Firestone in exactly the same way as the Air Springs used in the suspensions of luxury coaches, heavy trucks, and express trains such as NSW’s XPTs and France’s TGVs.”

In essence, Airmounts are highly engineered balloons which are carefully constructed and perma-nently installed to deliver a range of performance demanded across a very broad spectrum of needs ranging from suspension of a 30kg computerised control panel to total suspension of the entire 100-tonne bulk of a huge motor, crusher, press or production line or entire genera-tors and HVAC plants.


Air Springs eliminate noise, harshness and vibration

A broad variety of commercial and industrial plant can be mounted on Firestone Airmount isolators, ranging from vibrating HVAC units and generators through to motors, shakers, crushers, compressors and computerised and telecommunications technology



Nelson Pine Industries Ltd faced an intriguing dilemma when it came to updating

an aging plant that operated 24/7, processing the radiata pine grown in the Nelson region’s plantation forests.

One of the world’s largest single site producers of medium densi-ty fibreboard (MDF), the company was determined to keep pace with industry-wide improvements in quality, recovery rates and safety.

Control and safety were of para-mount importance in a plant that never stops, according to Nelson Pine Industries Automation Engi-neer Ian Craw.

“To upgrade the chip mill we decided to start at the whole back-bone of control to take advantage of advancing technologies and meet current safety standards.”

The chip mill is a large part of the site where logs are unloaded from trucks for processing, its two pivot cranes and drum debarker handling 300 tonnes of logs per hour.

Control and safety are critically important in the chip mill so the

first stage of the upgrade involved replacing the existing PLC-5 hard-ware platform with a GuardLogix Integrated Safety System.

GuardLogix offers integrated safety, discrete motion, drive and process control in the same control-ler, explains Rockwell Automation Account Manager Sean Doherty.

“Nelson Pine was particularly innovative in their approach,” he

adds. “We often see safety systems bolted on to the control systems that may meet safety requirements but impact other business objec-tives, such as production rates and downtime.”

This type of solution was discount-ed early in discussions with Nelson Pine and the chip mill building was split into two geographical safety zones, using some of the latest safety guard locking switches with RFID technology for controlling and monitoring zones.

The first safety zone incorporates a

large drum debarker, which rotates the logs, removing bark before they enter the chipper.

Out-dated variable speed drives were replaced with eight, 90kW PowerFlex 753 drives in a master/slave configuration, receiving their speed/torque reference via the DLR and achieving a Stop Category 0, (via safe torque off) to Cat3/PLd.

“The integrated safety provided

by zone control allows the plant to shut down one zone while the other is still operating as usual, delivering improved production rates,” Mr Do-herty says. “The goal is zero harm but we also wanted to minimise impact to production schedules so we suggested a solution that helps achieve this.”

The second safety zone incorpo-rates safe speed monitoring of the main 1.8MW chipper motor and safe position monitoring of the 11kV motor breaker to confirm lockout/tagout (LOTO) has been performed

before access is granted into the hazard zone.

“When upgrading equipment it was a priority to meet current safety standards,” Mr Craw empha-sises. “We are well on the way to complying with the Machine Safety Standard EN ISO 13849, with the goal to achieve PLd across most of the site in the coming years.”

The site contains many hundreds of metres so an Ethernet/IP net-work was used to reduce both the amount of cabling required and the installation times, with fibre running the longest legs.

Utilising Device Level Rings (DLRs) achieved complete integration of the control and safety system, the ring topology providing high avail-ability of the safety network with high resiliency.

Various DLRs were run to different parts of the site connecting with field safety devices, bringing the information back to one centralised safety processor that monitors the various processes.

One of the huge benefits of the solution is being able to have visi-

Combining control and safety to minimise production downtime

One of the world’s leading single-site producers of medium density fibreboard found a state-of-the art solution that emphasised control and safety when it updated its aging plant

“When upgrading equipment it was a priority to meet current safety standards”

www.isn.co.nz 29

bility remotely, Mr Craw adds. “We use PanelView Plus as the operator interface for fault-finding and mon-itoring equipment out in the field,” he notes.

“We had to use multiple software systems to try to diagnose an issue in our previous system, but now both the control and safety code are easily accessed and visible through ControlLogix.”

ControlLogix systems use a common control engine with a common development environ-ment to provide high performance in an easy-to-use environment.

Tight integration between the pro-gramming software, controller, and I/O modules reduces development time and cost, both at commission-ing and during normal operation, while providing standard and safety

control in the same chassis.In addition to the PowerFlex 753

drives used on site, Nelson Pine is also using PowerFlex 525 drives with safe torque off and ethernet capabilities, reducing both commis-sioning and fault-finding time.

The advantage of using Guard-Logix is the ability to edit and modify code on the run, Mr Craw says. “Trying to reduce production downtime during commissioning was a key outcome from my point of view because there are several as-pects of the plant that run 24 hours a day, seven days a week almost every day of the year,” he explains.

“Machinery in the chip mill op-erates 24 hours a day, so once we had GuardLogix up and running, we were able to add hardware and edit safety code on the fly, which gave us significant production advantages.”

Nelson Pine also used the Safety Automation Builder tool to facilitate the planning of safety systems to achieve the required safety perfor-mance level.

This tool leverages the industry’s most complete offering of safety

products, utilising widely accepted best practices to help companies build a complete safety solution.

“For years everyone has been saying that system control and in-tegration is going to become more plug and play but now ControlLogix is really bringing it to that level,” Mr Craw adds.

The new control and safety solu-tion in the chip mill has proved so successful that Nelson Pine is plan-ning to roll-out the solution across the entire plant.

“Ultimately I have used other safety hardware previously and be-cause they only focus on safety it makes it difficult when you are look-ing at the bigger picture,” Mr Craw admits.

The Nelson Industries plant in-volves a multitude of safety inputs/outputs and a lot of other systems aren’t built to that type of scale, he notes. “We have not only achieved a suitable performance level rel-atively easily, but also minimised production downtime, which is of paramount importance to our plant,” Mr Craw says.

The safety zone control provides integrated safety that allows plant to be shut down in one zone while the other is in operation

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M A N A G E M E N T


The Ministry of Business, In-novation and Employment (MBIE) is the latest organisa-

tion to enter the app race, having issued a request for proposals (RFP) in June for the development of a mobile app and web service that will allow emergency services in New Zealand to better respond to those in need of urgent help.

The RFP differs from traditional requests for proposals because two or three respondents will be select-ed, based on their qualifications, to participate in a proof-of-concept process.

The RFP did not specify the re-quirements for the service or focus on price – selected respondents will work alongside emergency service provider subject matter experts to develop the services’ requirements and to create a technical prototype and service proposal.

The respondents will then inde-pendently develop their proof of

concept and present their tech-nical prototype and proposal for evaluation, with each shortlisted re-spondent receiving a $75,000 grant from MBIE to undertake this work.

MBIE will then select its preferred partner and, if an agreement is reached, that partner will develop its solution – if agreement cannot be reached with the preferred partner, MBIE may negotiate an agreement with the other partner.

MBIE’s initiative follows the NZ Transport Agency’s (NZTA) award-winning development of its Zero Harm Reporting App to help with the reporting of health and safety incidents.

Developed together with an in-dustry working group, the app allows for real-time reporting of incidents that happen in the office, on the network, or on a project site, regardless of employer.

NZTA Manager Zero Harm Martin McMullan identified the barriers to

achieving a good health and safety reporting culture and then devel-oped the app in collaboration with the Transport Agency’s Zero Harm Industry Group, ensuring it met the needs of industry during the various development, testing and review phases.

The NZTA needed a solution that:• allowed one way for all NZTA

staff to report incidents as well as those from the organisation’s supply chain

• was available to all for free• provided actionable intelligence

for the Transport Agency to ef-fectively carry out its statutory responsibilities

• would let the NZTA test how the organisation’s risk assessments were performing.

“The NZ Transport Agency is committed to leading the industry towards zero harm in the workplace so that all employees and contrac-tors go home safe and healthy every

Adopting a safety app-titudeHealth and safety is going viral as more and more organisations develop apps designed to take advantage of the seemingly endless advances in mobile technology

day,” Mr McMullan insists.“Reporting of health and safety

incidents is a key pillar to helping us understand the areas we can im-prove – it provides greater visibility of what is happening on the trans-port network, in our offices and on our projects at any given time.”

Through proactive benchmarking of health and safety performance, the reporting tool helps to paint a true picture of health and safety trends over time, Mr McMullan says.

“The consistent reporting helps identify and address the root cause of incidents and then assess the ef-fectiveness of corrective actions – a first for the New Zealand roading industry,” he explains. “The data provides non-identifying industry trends that demonstrate where we are performing well, those areas we need to improve.”

A simple-to-use reporting app that allows for real-time reporting of incidents that occur in the office or on a project site regardless of em-ployer, the tool is cloud-based so it can be accessed through a range of mobile and tablet devices.

The app was launched in January 2015 and was an immediate success, with more than 5,674 downloads to date and the subsequent develop-ment of an additional reporting app for Civil Contractors New Zealand (CCNZ).

Launched to industry during the CCNZ Conference in August, the CCNZ reporting app allows small-to-medium businesses direct access to an award-winning health and safety reporting tool at no cost and has already been downloaded more than 528 times.

It’s therefore not surprising that the Zero Harm Reporting Tool app won the Impac Best Significant Health and Safety Initiative by a large organisation at the New Zea-land Workplace Health and Safety Awards recently held at Auckland’s Sky City. “We are delighted that our focus on improving health and safety for all our people has been given national recognition,” Mr Mc-Mullan says.

Organisations have access to an information portal

Dashboards are configurable to individual users to produce bespoke information

Uses geo-location functionality to provide mapped incident information down to street view level

Comparisons can be made for effective benchmarking

Dashboards are available showing lead and lag indicators

Users can access all reports relevant to their interests


www.isn.co.nz 31

Solar Bright has come up with groundbreaking icy-road warning technology with

solar-powered blue road markers that flash blue when conditions are icy to warn motorists and prevent crashes, replacing old 20th century static signage which many motor-ists don’t take any notice of.

The flashing blue markers are a world-leading development that is helping prevent crashes and they are attracting interest from all over the world. Solar Bright, a 2015 Champion Canterbury Business Award finalist, holds patents and trademarks for the blue markers in 96 countries.

At least 800 blue road markers are already installed on state highway one around Dunedin, on state high-way eight and in Central Otago.

Solar Bright Managing Director Nicola Martin says after installing

the road markers in Dunedin and Central Otago 82 percent of traffic slowed down when the markers were activated.

Questionnaire respondents sup-port the markers and want to see more blue markers in ice-prone areas, Ms Martin maintains. “We have had a lot of serious interest from other New Zealand cities and regions, insurance companies, St John, police, shopping malls, air-ports, councils, companies, blue chip companies, hospitals, fire de-partments and companies around New Zealand,” she says.

Ms Martin adds that the company is trialling with the Tasmanian gov-ernment on their roads and also talking to people in the UK, the US, Canada, Russia, Europe and Japan. “We soon hope to introduce a smart intelligent marker with telem-etry capabilities, able to count,

read traffic, monitor carbon dioxide emissions and light levels, which will become invaluable for roading maintenance, police, government and transport statisticians.”

She believes Solar Bright’s blue markers can help the New Zealand economy and reduce gov-ernment spend relating to hospital bills. “Road accidents in New Zea-land are enormously costly and we are sure we have reduced the acci-dent rate as we have overwhelming evidence that the markers slowed drivers down in black ice conditions and we have no doubt saved lives.”

Solar Bright’s Pat Martin invent-ed the technology in response to a request for a sustainable device to warn motorists of road ice. Nation-al data shows about 84 percent of motorists exceeded speed limits in general, and about 79 percent do so in icy conditions.

Transport figures show that loss of control is a factor in about 40 percent of road deaths and almost 40 percent of serious injuries. The Solar Bright illuminated blue mark-ers significantly helps raise driver awareness of the dangers of upcom-ing black ice.

The Solar Bright blue markers could go viral globally as nearly 1.3 million people are killed on the world’s roads each year, up to 50 million people are injured and many remain disabled for life, costing developing countries at least $100 billion a year.

Flashing blue lights saving lives in icy conditionsAward-winning New Zealand company Solar Bright is lighting the way in providing health and safety markers to help reduce the winter road toll

Solar Bright’s shining stars Nicola and Pat Martin have developed revolutionary solar-powered blue markers that warn drivers of icy road conditions

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M A N A G E M E N T


The safety check provisions came into force on 1 July 2015 at the same time as the

Regulations that set out the safety check requirements.

All State services and all organ-isations that they fund to provide ‘regulated services’ (including those that only receive partial or indirect funding) now have to:• carry out safety checks on all

new ‘children’s workers’ that they employ or otherwise engage (A ‘children’s worker’ is defined in section 23 of the Act; essentially, a children’s worker is a person whose work involves regular or overnight contact with children without parents or guardians being present)

• carry out safety checks on exist-ing children’s workers

• continue to carry out periodic safety checks every three years.

The list of regulated services set out in Schedule 1 of the Act is very broad, encompassing welfare, sup-port, justice, health, education, transport and policing services.

TimingThe requirements to safety check

new and existing children’s workers are being phased in over time: • from 1 July 2015 all new ‘core

workers’ must be safety checked before their employment or en-gagement commences (A ‘core worker’ is a children’s worker who, in the course of their work, will be

alone with children or has prima-ry responsibility for, or authority over, children)

• from 1 July 2016 all new children’s workers (i.e. core and non-core) must be safety checked before their employment or engage-ment commences

• by 1 July 2018 all existing core workers must be safety checked

• by 1 July 2019 all existing chil-dren’s workers (i.e. core and non-core) must be safety checked

• Organisations must also ensure that children’s workers are re-checked every three years.

Safety check requirementsThe safety check requirements set

out in the new Vulnerable Children (Requirements for Safety Checks of Children’s Workers) Regulations 2015 require organisations to confirm the identity of children’s workers and whether they have any criminal convictions. They will also have to collect and consider other specified information including ref-eree checks.

Identity confirmation An effective safety check depends

on individuals being who they say they are. Organisations must con-firm an individual’s identity either through an electronic identity credential, or through original iden-tity documents (the individual must provide both a primary and sec-ondary identity document). If the

identity documents do not contain a photograph of the individual, the in-dividual must provide further proof that the documents relate to them. If the individual’s name is different from that on an identity document, name change documentation is also required. The list of acceptable identity documents is set out in the Schedule to the Regulations. The organisation must also search its personnel records to ensure no other person connected to the or-ganisation uses that identity.

Previous convictions A Police vet of a children’s worker

from the New Zealand Police Vetting Service is required unless: • the organisation has obtained a

Police vet for that individual in the past three years

• the individual belongs to a professional organisation that conducts Police vets of all its new members and of existing mem-bers at intervals of not more than three years, or

• the individual is currently licensed or registered by a licens-ing or registration authority that is obliged to obtain a Police vet for the people it licenses or regis-ters as well as for those holding a licence or registration at intervals of not more than three years.

Other specified information Organisations that seek to employ

or otherwise engage new children’s

workers must conduct interviews with candidates (this can be face to face, by telephone, or by using other communication technologies). They must consider the work history of candidates and must require candi-dates to provide a summary of their previous five years of employment (if any). Organisations must also require at least one referee that is not related to the individual or part of their extended family, and must contact at least one of the referees provided.

For both new and existing chil-dren’s workers, the organisation must establish whether the individ-ual has obtained a relevant licence, registration or practising certificate from a licensing or registration au-thority or is otherwise a member of any relevant professional organ-isation. The organisation must seek information relevant to the assess-ment of that individual from at least one of these bodies.

Once the details above have been checked, organisations must use this information and any applicable risk assessment guidelines to assess whether the individual poses any risk to the safety of children (and, if so, the extent of that risk).

Organisations who do not meet these requirements will commit an offence and will be liable for fines up to $10,000 (for each offence). Organisations will need to carefully consider who at their organisation is a children’s worker and build the safety check requirements into their recruitment and HR processes.

Useful guidance material, includ-ing a copy of Safer recruitment, safer children, is available from the Chil-dren’s Action Plan website.

This is the latest in a series of topical legal updates produced by Buddle Findlay, one of New Zea-land’s leading commercial law and public law firms with offices in Auck-land, Wellington and Christchurch

This is the latest in a series of topical legal updates produced by Buddle Findlay, one of New Zealand’s leading commercial law and public law firms with offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch

Children’s worker safety checks introducedThe Vulnerable Children Act 2014 requires organisations that provide services to children to conduct safety checks on staff

Those who work with children now have to undergo safety checks

A C C E S S

www.isn.co.nz 33

The Rollgliss Rope-Mate pro-vides a safe and reliable tamper-proof mechanical

prusik that eliminates the use of knots or hitches that could be tied incorrectly.

Manufactured from a single self-contained unit without pins or components to lose or work their way loose, its compact and light-weight design ensures excellent handling and performance with no protruding bolts or pins that get in the way.

Part of the Rollgliss Technical Rescue range of products, the Rope-Mate mechanical prusik is load rated for up to 250 kg on a variety of kern-mantle ropes.

The non-invasive cam locks down onto the rope when required and ensures no rope damage while

maintaining maximum hold. If overloaded, the Rope-Mate is engi-neered to slip to avoid damage.

Constructed from anodised alu-minium with a stainless steel axle, the device meets the toughest of conditions and demands provid-ing superior corrosion resistance, strength and durability.

“The Rollgliss Rope-Mate pro-vides a simple to rig mechanical prusik that is strong, convenient and ready for use when and where a rope connection is required,” says Oscar Ratalino, Research and Devel-opment Manager for Capital Safety Australia & New Zealand. “Its slim profile ensures there are no annoy-ing catch points that can get in the way.”

The Rope-Mate mechanical prusik is safe and easy to use. Simply de-

press the locking button, swivel open the cover, insert the rope and slide the cover down till it locks into place.

The Rope-Mate can easily and safely be removed or installed at any

Perfect prusik for haul or climb

point on the rope without the need to remove the device from the kara-biner connected to its attachment point, therefore reducing the risk of an accidental drop.

Capital Safety has launched the DBI-SALA Rope-Mate Mechanical Prusik, which has been designed and certified to meet an array of local and international standards

For the latest on health and safety in the workplace, visitwww.isn.co.nz

M A N A G E M E N T


These lessons could be par-ticularly useful in the sectors of business and industry that

are undeniably underperforming. Underperformance is often clear-

ly illustrated through occurrence of serious accidents and lack of management control from an occupational health, safety and en-vironment (HSE) risk perspective.

It is most often also found that in such underperforming compa-nies employees have a tendency to ignore the HSE rules that are intend-ed to protect them in the workplace.

The history or the origins and developmental stages of safety management over the years is well documented. Stage one was when companies reacted to accidents as and when they occurred in a purely reactive manner.

By stage two, legislation was cre-ated to prescribe minimum legal requirements and related penalties for non-compliance. By stage three, formal HSE management systems were developed to incorporate legal requirements, worldwide HSE practices and principles as well as company or site specific standards.

However, businesses soon real-ised that even with all of the above in place accidents still occurred. Legislators even tweaked the leg-islation further to incorporate further requirements such as for formal hazard and risk identifica-tion – also further risk management requirements.

To complement this, further training was prescribed to increase awareness of occupational hazards and risks and control measures that needed to be taken before, during and after the activity. This simultaneously culminated in be-haviour-based safety initiatives and drive.

NOSA client-user forums globally and companies that were earnestly serious about environmental re-sponsibility and the occupational health and safety of their employ-

ees reported that these needs were often not met by international oc-cupational health and safety (OHS) management systems alone. The companies that were really seri-ous about HSE reported that their principle objective was to create a workplace that is healthy and safe to work in.

All first-world countries have com-prehensive OHS legislation in place. These regulations are periodically revised and updated, as is presently happening across New Zealand with the Health & Safety Reform Bill.

However, such revision of law alone cannot make a workplace any safer unless employers identi-

fy all the changes, then adopt and implement the changes and new requirements into their OHS man-agement systems as a starting point.

Legislation provides positive guid-ance to some employers whilst for others it may act as a deterrent. In its written form alone, it has no positive impact at all on the workforce.

The New Zealand Health & Safety Reform Bill squarely places the main duty of care and legal responsibility liability for the health and safety of workers on the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). A similar amendment has been in sev-eral other countries’ OHS legislation for years.

It is absolutely imperative and critical that the revised and/or new legal requirements and OHS claus-es are interpreted accurately and correctly. Unfortunately, employers sometimes read it and interpret it

differently from the lawmakers in-tentions when writing that piece of legislation.

After correctly interpreting the requirements, convert the laws into actions and system requirements where necessary. In a formal HSE management system this would be done by creating related objectives and targets.

The required corrective action on the objectives and targets may include procedures, work instruc-tions, designation of responsibility or training. All relevant and affected current and new employees need to be aware and informed of the changes. Underpinning principles of

modern OHS laws globally include health and safety leadership, worker engagement and a partnership ap-proach to build safer workplaces.

Further failureA further failure identified by cli-

ents that have certified systems such as OHSAS18001 and ISO14001 is that these systems are assessed and audited with limited outcomes. They are either told that they are certified because they meet the re-quirements sufficiently or that there were findings made, and once ev-idence is presented that the major findings are closed out they will retain their certification for another year.

The feedback received by the NOSA global client network feed-back indicates that clients would prefer far more detailed specific feedback on the real status and

maturity of their HSE systems and compliance to the related system requirements, such as provided by NOSA star grading audits.

Simply put the four key areas are:• completion and incorporation of

company-specific risk register• a management system in-

corporating minimum legal requirements

• compliance by company staff – and contractors – to the OHS system requirements

• the effectiveness of the overall OHS management system.

The trends in first-world com-panies are that they already have well-documented and developed management systems, and their risk registers are regularly being reviewed and updated when there are either changes in legislation or through operational changes in the company.

It is important to acknowledge that a risk register on its own has little value to a company. Although the identification of hazards and risks forms the foundation of a HSE management programme, the true value is derived when determining the necessary control measures, some of which may already be in place, to mitigate each identified risk effectively.

Further control measures may

International experience provides local lessonsSix decades of servicing business and industry over five continents has taught a major multinational numerous client lessons applicable to New Zealand

“Revision of law alone cannot make a workplace any safer unless employers identify all the changes, then adopt and implement the changes and new requirements into their OHS management systems,” says NOSA Vice President, Asia-Pacific Region Lance Hiscoe

“Although the identification of hazards and risks forms the foundation of a HSE management programme, the true value is derived when determining the necessary control measures, some of which may already be in place, to mitigate each identified risk effectively”

www.isn.co.nz 35

need to be implemented to elim-inate and manage the risks more effectively. Provision of these addi-tional measures should be managed through the system of HSE objec-tives and targets.

The NOSA HSE management system has comprehensive guide-lines to assist in providing and managing effective measures of control. Thereafter, the client’s main concern is consistent compliance on a day-to-day basis, relating the workplace hazards to the risk con-trol measures that have been put in place. The strength of the system ultimately rests with all those who apply and comply with the stand-ards and procedures which need to be followed when conducting haz-ardous activities.

Thereafter, the common thread among those companies that achieve an excellent level of safety performance each year is effective communication by management across the business.

This is further broken down to two-way communication, firstly from those with the most experi-

ence of a particular task or job – for example the employee/operator. He/she should be consulted on what their thoughts and opin-ions are when a new or a revised standard or procedure is written or applied to the activity, process or machine. Secondly, employees have a wealth of knowledge and experi-ence and it is often very surprising how helpful they can be when their opinion or advice is requested. The influence of the safety culture in a company should never be under-estimated. Safety culture is the way in which safety is managed in the workplace, and often reflects the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in rela-tion to safety. In other words it can be stated as “the way we do safety around here”.

It’s a change in Attitudes and Values that will help change the Culture required for real sustaina-ble impact. Changing attitudes and values is not easy, especially when people do not see the need, but changing behaviour is the starting point to achieve this.

In summary, to achieve a safe and healthy work environment, man-agement of the business need to accept and create an awareness that safety is the responsibility of every-body in the workplace and not only the safety manager. Safe practices should never be compromised – not ever! Unsafe practices should not be tolerated irrespective who the trans-gressor may be.

There is no magic pill or quick fix to safety management. It is some-thing that needs to be continuously worked at, after all our businesses are run by people. Safety manage-ment is not an “add on”. In fact safety should be treated as an integral part of everything that the business does.

Many surveys conducted across a diverse range of industries highlight the fact that effective safety leader-ship and specifically the role of the individual leader as an area needing improvement.

The remedy is to work on build-ing a safety leadership model that focuses on person’s attitudes, be-haviour and workplace conditions;

all relating back to the leader/man-agers and how they influence safety.

Risk assessments are helpful, but the most effective risk manage-ment system will be the ones where everyone within the organisation understands the risks in their oper-ation, and what needs to be done to report and control them.

Through their honest and meaningful involvement and com-mitment, owners of any business can add value and demonstrate true respect for their most important assets, their people.

Lance Hiscoe is Vice President, Asia-Pacific Region of NOSA, one of the world’s leading brands in safety, health, environmental and quality (SHEQ) risk management that specialises in creating a healthy and safe environment for the workforce in enterprises ranging from small businesses to large corporations

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Judges’ Special Award for Safety Leadership

Two individuals emerged as keen and avid advocates for excellence in health and safety at Sky Mason Developments, an innovative small company of less than 20 employ-ees in Tairua that operates in many fields including building, sub devel-opment and construction.

Andre Caleb, Francis Te Manu Wright and Tony Paraire Cameron of Thames Coast Contractors Ltd were contracted to supervise and com-plete the felling of more than 200 fully grown pines on a steep hillside that Sky Mason Developments pur-chased to sub-develop and build houses.

“We take health and safety very seriously, which in turn has con-tributed to our excellent minimal incident rate,” company owner Sky Mason says. “We foster a healthy safety environment in which every member of staff takes ownership of health and safety in the work place.”

The company incorporates Site Safe polices in all its work places and many members of staff have com-pleted their courses, he adds. “Tony and Manu fully embraced the Site

Safe Health and Safety Policy adopt-ed by our company and applied all standards and policies with dili-gence and enthusiasm,” Mr Mason explains. “Not only did they em-brace the company principles, but they implemented and supervised other health and safety standards as the need arose.”

Their expertise from the arbori-culture industry ensured Sky Mason Developments also benefited from their knowledge. “They were able to share and implement the safety standards required to successfully and safely fell a magnitude of pines in what is commonly recognised as a dangerous trade.”

More than 200 fully grown pines were dropped in hazardous ter-rain where it is steep and slippery in places, but there was only one recorded minor injury during the entire tree-felling operation. “An incident report was raised and re-sulted in Tony and Manu accessing the risk analysis for the tasking and incorporating new procedures to ensure all additional workers were fully trained and competent for the roles they held,” Mr Mason recalls.

Tony and Manu regularly updat-

ed their task analysis and called toolbox meetings frequently where workers could discuss potential haz-ards and safety for the area. “They both worked well with all employ-ees who at times assisted them with tree extraction and chain sawing,” Mr Mason explains.

They also ensured everyone signed the Hazard Register daily and were fully aware of any potential hazards and the safety requirements, ensur-ing all potential hazards were clearly defined and displayed for fellow workers and any visitors.

“Within our company they were leaders in developing safety culture,

systems and behaviours and their willingness to help other workers to achieve the same standards is to be commended,” Mr Mason says.

Their hard work and dedication to health and safety within Sky Mason Developments saw the company sponsor Manu to attend a Site Safe Gold Card Course in September. “Regardless of being contractors to Sky Mason Developments, Tony and Manu shared industry and passion for safety in the work place and have made our company as a whole really step up and drive improvements in all areas of our operations,” Mr Mason maintains. “They were role

Small companies, big achievementsThe initiative shown by two small companies in winning awards last year clearly demonstrates that site safety is a major priority in organisations of all shapes and sizes

Sky Mason (centre) celebrates Sky Mason Developments winning the Judges Special Award for Safety Leadership with team members Manu Wright and Tony Cameron

This year’s Site Safe Construc-tion Health and Safety Award winners will be announced at

Site Safe’s Evening of Celebration at Alexandra Park in Auckland on 11 November.

A great way to achieve national recognition for health and safety innovation and leadership, the Site Safe Construction Health and Safety Awards acknowledge people, sites or companies/organisations who have demonstrated innovation and leadership in helping to improve health and safety in the construc-tion industry and related trades and sectors.

Various awards will be presented at the Evening of Celebration, along with graduates in the Certificate in Construction Site Safety:

1) The Unitec Safety Innovation Award Small to Medium Business (Small to medium organisation up to 20 employees)

This award is for a site or company demonstrating the best new idea or initiative to drive improvements in health and safety systems or behav-iours, address or manage a specific hazard, create a design solution to address a problem, or to improve productivity.

2) The AWF Group Safety Innova-

tion Award Large Business (Large organisations over 20 employees)

This award is for a site or company demonstrating the best new idea or initiative to drive improvements in health and safety systems or behav-iours, address or manage a specific hazard, create a design solution to address a problem, or to improve productivity.

3) The Safety Leadership Award (Small, medium or large business)

This award is for a site or company where an initiative has been imple-mented that involves organisational leaders in developing safety culture, making safety positive, encouraging

engagement in health and safety and demonstrating leadership at the highest level. This award is open to organisations of all sizes. Organ-isational leaders can be from the CEO and senior managers through to site managers, supervisors and foreman.

4) The WorkSafe NZ Safety Con-tribution Award (Individual or small team)

This award is for an individual or small team who has demonstrat-ed an outstanding contribution to health and safety in construction. This award acknowledges those people (or teams) who light the spark in other people’s minds and inspire positive change and action.

Salute this year’s winners!

www.isn.co.nz 37

models for our other site managers with regards to implementing and adhering to site safety and embrac-ing its culture.”

The Unitec Institute of Technol-ogy Safety Innovation Award – Small to Medium Business

Rupp Consulting Ltd used exist-ing affordable technology to solve access challenges underfloor, within walls, and at height; allowing struc-tural assessment without putting the engineer at risk.

Managing Director and Prin-cipal Engineer Marc Rupp had undertaken many structural build-ing inspections since starting out on his own nearly three years before the 2014 awards, mostly in relation to earthquake damage and assessment.

“Whilst undertaking these I found many incidences where I would have to climb up a ladder or need to view under floors or within roof spaces,” he explains. “I also needed to access areas where a ladder was too small and in order to get to these areas I would have to arrange

access via a cherry picker or similar device, which is time-consuming and expensive for the client.”

Mr Rupp therefore decided to find something that would help him un-dertake surveys, reduce falling and confined space risk, without costing the client significant sums. “I re-searched available technology and found that a GoPro action sport re-cording camera could record video

and photographs, was small and lightweight and could be controlled wirelessly by a smart phone or smart device,” he recalls.

Inexpensive, they can be attached to the end of a GRP extendable painter’s pole with a mountain bike LED lamp which can also be re-motely controlled, providing access ceilings, roofs, subfloor and other normally difficult-to-access places

without having to leave the ground.“I hope from showing my experi-

ence of applying new and emerging but existing technology for a dif-ferent purpose, that others can use this already available technology and benefit like I have from a safer working environment, which also benefits the client in time and cost,” Mr Rupp concludes.

Rupp Consulting Ltd Managing Director and Principal Engineer Marc Rupp with his innovative solution to access challenges underfloor, within walls, and at height

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But what underpins safety attitudes and behaviour? What can organisations do to drive safer attitudes and behaviours, not

only in ensuring employee safety but also meet-ing their increasing responsibilities under the reformed health and safety legislation?

Recent research has investigated the influences on the formation of safer attitudes and workplace behaviours. One of the most interesting findings is a link between the psychological contract for safety and safer workplaces.

The employment relationship consists of two contracts – the formal employment contract and the psychological contract. The psycho-logical contract refers to the unwritten set of expectations and obligations shared between the employee and the employer.

Basically it is the expectations an employee has about the employment relationship that makes them think certain actions will be matched by the employer. The psychological contract has long been seen as an important component in deter-ring employee attitudes and behaviours.

Furthermore, research has shown that employ-ers and employees think about the psychological contract in similar ways and that when they do it benefits the organisation. For example, when employees and supervisors agree on how supportive and caring the supervisor is, their expectations are in alignment, and employees perform better. The same principles apply when it comes to safety.

How does the psychological contract apply to safety?

Safety is often seen as a reciprocal relationship between the employer and employee – the em-ployer has a role in providing a safe workplace in

terms of a commitment to safety and the estab-lishment of safety systems and practices, and the employee is required to minimise risk and uphold the organisational safety standards.

However, research demonstrates the presence of a psychological contract of safety in the think-ing of employees and that these underpin the development of safety attitudes and behaviour. This contract refers to often deeply held ideas about the safety obligations and responsibili-ties that can be inferred from implicit or explicit promises between the two parties.

For example, research found there was an unwritten expectation that employees should report safety incidents, and that employers should manage them calmly and non-punitively. This was based on findings that employees might be more willing to report incidents if manage-ment did not overreact to them.

Another interesting finding is that sometimes management would fail to investigate the haz-ards and risks reported by employees who in return do not feel an obligation to do so. The inference is that if an employee reports a risk or hazard, the employer should follow it up.

In addition, it found that if employers do not treat injured staff well, then employees will re-ciprocate by taking more time off work than required. A mutual obligation emerged that employers should treat injured employees with compassion, and employees should not take ad-vantage of sick leave. It is clear that there is an unwritten expectation about obligations that de-termine safer attitudes and behaviours.

What should organisations do?What organisations can do is note that a

common understanding of the psychological

contract of safety between employees and em-ployers makes a difference to safety behaviours. Consequently, organisations need to invest time and effort into creating an open work environ-ment where dialogue around safety expectations can take place.

This discussion around the elements of the psychological contract needs to begin when the relationship is first formed, when the employee is hired, or first partnered with their direct manager or supervisor.

Although people do not talk about the “psy-chological contract” per se, they do discuss issues around safety and what is expected. Line managers and supervisors need to be aware that employees perceive them to embody the employer’s policies and procedures about health and safety in terms of acting through on obligations.

If line managers and supervisors have a central role in the development of safety practices and the health and safety induction of the employee it helps build the mutual trust and sense of obli-gation. Supervisors are then more able to live up to the expectations of the employee and have their expectations returned.

Employee expectations of employer obliga-tions do not just come from the policy manual and procedures but from a deeply held under-standing of the obligations between the two, and that these ideas contribute to a safer workplace.

Moira Howson is a Senior Consultant at PeopleCentric, a team of industrial and organisational psychologists who work with a variety of organisations to maximise employee potential and promote the value of psychology in driving business performance

Why the psychological contract is important to safetyA strong safety climate is usually associated with a safer workplace, and a safety climate is hard to achieve without strong employee safety attitudes and overtly safe behaviour

“The psychological contract refers to the unwritten set of expectations and obligations

shared between the employee and the employer”

C O M P L I A N C E > > T e l a r c

www.isn.co.nz 39

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Recently the news media communicated, somewhat inaccurately the notion that

the soon to be amended Health and Safety legislation was con-templating the incorporation of Manslaughter charges in cases where employees had died in or around a company’s environment.

This communication was very quickly rebuffed, but what became abundantly clear is that the new Health and Safety legislation is

designed to catch senior business leaders attention.

Directors and companies are liable for fines up to $600,000 if it is proved they could have or should have done more to prevent serious injury. In addition if a company, and or its leader/s, are found to be negligent in their duties and an employee was critically injured then a jail term of up to 5 years may be incurred.

Recent well-publicised events where loss of life, or serious injury

eventuated, has resulted in some stiff penalties being enacted under the new legislation. For senior leaders having verbal or written as-surances that their organisation is complying with the requisite Health and Safety standard is not going to be enough. It is imperative that organisations have visible proof that their Health and Safety policy is alive and well in the organisa-tion, but more importantly is being adopted, embraced and managed by all levels of the organisation, not just the shop floor.

Being independently certified to a standard that is globally recognised is a solution that many companies are moving towards. It provides business leaders with an independ-ent verification that the company is on top of it its game and is putting its best foot forward to minimise or mitigate risks that might result in a serious or fatal injury being sustained.

New Zealand’s leading Manage-ment System Certification body, Telarc, has recently noticed a sig-nificant increase in enquiries to

evaluate and audit New Zealand businesses against an internation-ally recognised Health and Safety standard such as AS/NZS 4801. The belief in the market is that because of the new Health and Safety legis-lation organisations need to have in place a management system with international recognition to mini-mise the potential for transgressions and or subsequent legal action.

As organisations look at ways to mitigate risks and protect them-selves and staff, it makes sense that preventing injury or death is smarter than possibly facing a time consuming, expensive and poten-tially crippling legal action. More and more New Zealand organisa-tions are looking closely at their social and corporate responsibilities to not only protect workers but to identify and actively manage and minimise risk. It is a fact that certi-fication reduces risk considerably and provides comfort and peace of mind at all levels that the organisa-tion is doing everything in its power to protect their employees and business.

Are you and your business at risk?

industrial safety news september-october 2015

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