Chris Peace: Victoria University Workplace Health and Safety Lecturer on the Pike River mine tragedy and health and safety injuries

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Pike River mine disaster that killed 29 men. 

Despite reforms following the incident, New Zealand's workplace health and safety record remains poor, with fatality and injury rates among the highest in the developed world. 

Workplace injuries and illnesses cost the country an estimated $5 billion each year. 

Victoria University workplace health and safety lecturer Dr Chris Peace told Kerre Woodham that putting ACC in place has taken away a lot of stress and angst, but a strong regulatory system needed to be put in place and wasn’t.  

He says that the legislation imposes a duty of care on businesses, but the problem is that most people don’t understand what that amounts to.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Mornings podcast from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hed b as I mentioned today marks the fifteenth anniversary
of the Pike River mind disaster that killed twenty nine men.
Despite reforms following Pike River, New Zealand's workplace health and
safety record remains poor, with fatality and injury rates among
the highest in the developed world. Workplace injuries and illnesses
cost the country and estimated five billion dollars each year.

(00:33):
Victoria University Workplace Health and Safety Senior Lecturer, doctor Chris
Peace joins me. Now, a very good morning to you.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
And hello, then be with you.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
We just had a caller who said, look, we're not
comparing apples with apples when we look at the per
capita stats. A lot of Britain is not doing manufacturing anymore.
They don't have their same agricultural and primary industries that
we have. It's mainly service industries, so they're less likely

(01:04):
to have accidents. We need to find a bitter way
of looking at the numbers. Is there some merit in it?

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Not?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Really, no, Just to deal with the first point there, Yes,
it's right about comparing per one hundred thousand workers and
that means that what could look like very low numbers
here are actually quite large numbers when you look at
the UK stats. For some reason, I think it's still

(01:33):
the same. For some reason, in Scotland more people die
in the construction industry than England and Wells. I haven't
seen an explanation for that. Jet we kill more people
per one hundred thousand in the construction than the UK does,
and it just you roll it through all of the
areas farming, fishing, construction, agriculture, generally forestry, while in more

(02:01):
per one hundred thousand than the UK.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Right, so you are comparing industries industries. Yeah, yeah, okay,
well that clears that up. Why why are we so
bad at it?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I've got to answer that question. We've got to make
a statement, a categorical statement. I think New Zealand is
very fortunate that fifty odd years ago we put acc
in place. I think that's taken away a lot of
stress and angst. But we've now got a low fault
liability system where employers don't have to worry about being

(02:39):
sued because of their alleged negligence resulting in somebody being
harmed at work. When we went that way, when we
went to acc There was a kind of social bargain
that was struck that if we took away the right
to sue, then instead there would be a strong regulatory
system put in place. Well, the right to soon went,

(03:02):
but we never got the strong regulatory system to place it.
And at the same time you have to say you
can't have inspectors everywhere all the time. What we've now
got is legislation that imposes a duty of care on
all businesses, whether they're white collar or terrorism or manufacturing

(03:25):
or whatever. They are a duty of care to workers
and I think the problem we've got is that most
people don't understand what that duty of care amounts to.
It isn't the minister talked about children going out collecting
eggs on the farm, and we're not talking about that.
We're talking about farm workers who go on quad bikes

(03:49):
and they don't come back because they rolled the quad bike.
There wasn't a role bar. We're talking about, Yes, the
Plip River disaster. People who go underground and are overcome
by fumes which need not be me fame as it
was with pipewin. It could be internal combustion engines. The

(04:10):
one that I read recently that really really upset me.
A guy was mangled to death in a conveyor system.
Two years or so before that happened. The employer had
been told by a consultant that it needed more guarding,
but the employer didn't put the guards in place, and

(04:30):
the guide was mangled. And there's no other word for it.
It was mangled. When this happens with machines that should
be guarded, I was early on in my career and inspector,
and you see things like that happen. It's distressing for.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
I mean, you can't get sued as an employer, but
you can certainly have some monumental finds. In the case
of a business that has ignored safety advice. I don't
think there'd be any fine big enough. You know, you
still regularly see five hundred thousand, four hundred thousand, three
hundred thousand. They're not in substantial fines for failures.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, but they're not keeping up the ventation. I've been
here since nineteen eighty. It probably told from the accent.
I didn't grow up here, but I went back to
the UK in the early nineties and I was there
when the government changed the legislation that the Health and
take it worked out to increase the fines and penalties,

(05:35):
and the fines in if it went to the crowd Court,
which is a bit like our High Court, the fines
could be unlimited. That really took a little while to
sink in. I was working there and one of my
clients had a series of misfortunes in one of the
supermarkets and they were threatened with twenty three charges in

(05:57):
the Crown Court. The boards on the chief executives to
never let that happen again. So fines and penalties have
app They should give the message without prosecutions. They should
give the message to the board of directors and to
business managers that this could be serious if something goes wrong.

(06:20):
But what we're not doing also is flipping over to say, well,
what's the health and safety at workout actually require? And
a long time ago a guy who was an eminent
safety engineer in Britain argued that the British Health and
Safety workout, which ours is based on, should be renamed
to be the Wealth and Safety at workout, because when

(06:44):
you start reading the important bits that tell an employer
and what they've got to do, they're really about how
you improve the management of a business. For example, there's
in our section thirty six, subsection three, there's a requirement
that every worker is given information, change, instruction and supervision

(07:08):
to make sure they can do their job so far
as it's reasonably practicable safely. Okay, So dissect that now.
As I'm talking to you, I'll bet that somebody, at
some stage in your job that you have now gave
you some information about how to do your job. They
maybe trained you in how to use the system that's

(07:30):
in the studio there. They might have given you some instruction,
further information, and maybe there's a producer sitting there who's
directing you there, supervising you. Well, that's exactly what the
health and safety work out says. So what's wrong with it?

Speaker 2 (07:51):
I guess you. And this is something that I was
just going to bring it up, but a Texter has
put her own personal case. My husband works in a bakery.
It's very common for staff to remove the safety mechanisms
and bypass safety to make their jobs just a little
bit easier, to do the job, just a little bit quicker.
It's not that the protocols aren't in place, it's just

(08:12):
that the staff find them annoying. And I've heard of
other cases too where terrible injuries have occurred because staff
step over the conveyor belt rather than walk around it
the long way round it.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yep, I know what do we do about it? With
guards on machines that are properly interlocked, you try to
open the guard up to make putting that. If I
think of a bakery, you want to load some dough
into a machine that will then extrude and that will

(08:44):
go through a series of roles to make whatever the
bakery is making. And there's a guard somewhere in the
shoot down which the lead dough is going to be dropped,
and it's the dough gets jammed in there, So take
the damned thing out and then you can clear the
blockage by putting your hand down there only and then

(09:05):
gets grabbed the august crew and your hand is made. Yeah,
So what's wrong? Why isn't that guard interlocked to stop
the machine when the guard is removed? Right, that's the
responsibility in the employer to make sure that machines are tougherly.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Guarded so that you override human frailty. Yeah right, okay,
because people will I mean, you know, there are you
know when people are smoking underground. You know it's a
recipe for disaster, and yet they will still do it.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
What do I say? Yes, so many little things that
are easily put in place. I don't have a particularly
modern card. I think it's fifteen years old. But if
I forget to put the seat belts on as I
up driving, or if my wife gets into the passenger seat,
which are the way around, it is no help you.

(10:12):
The warning noise that is irritatingly loud enough to remind
you the cars moving your seat belt isn't on. Put
it on. In some very modern cars, I think there's
an override that would stop you moving the car. It's
a safety feature.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Thank you very much
for your expertise. Doctor Chris Peace, Victoria University Workplace Health
and Safety Senior Lecturer.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
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