Kerre Woodham: There's got to be a happy medium in health and safety

The war on road cones has ratcheted up, with the coalition government setting up a hotline for people to report the overzealous use of road cones and no, it's not an April Fool's joke. The hotline is part of a first tranche of measures introduced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden, designed to reform the country's health and safety laws so businesses can focus on the necessary and the essential - not on the “senseless and superfluous” as Brooke van Velden told Mike Hosking this morning.  

“One of the things I heard from travelling from Whangarei to Bluff, talking to small business and workers, was that most of them don't know what to do to comply. We're going to make it a lot clearer, so you only need to focus on your critical risks. Things that will actually cause people harm, rather than posters saying warning hot water or warning here is a staircase. We've got to bring some common sense back to New Zealand and to business.   

“A lot of it is companies finding they're spending a lot of money on over compliance because they are fearful of prosecution. You know, and we've heard it even in the case of traffic management that sometimes some companies are spending nearly half of their project cost on temporary traffic management. So, we're bringing some common sense back and saying look, in some cases you're doing too much and in some cases, we need to focus less on the paperwork and making sure that WorkSafe has a paper trail and more on how you actually reduce harm in your workplace. Let's go back to what you can recognise as things that could cause death or serious illness and injury and not sweat the small stuff.” 

So businesses will now only notify WorkSafe when significant events occur, such as death, serious injury, and illness, which is a good thing. I remember coming out of the studio door a couple of years ago and a bit of loose metal cut the top of my foot. Not seriously, I required a Band-Aid, not stitches, but I had to fill out a workplace health and safety form. It was an incident.  

However, the Opposition spokesperson Jan Tinetti says the Government is weakening workplace health and safety reforms and is being reckless. She says health and safety is not a political game, and everyone must get home safely. And whenever I think of the words “getting home safely”, I think of Jahden Nelson. The 28-year-old scaffolder had to have both of his arms amputated after a metal pole he was carrying touched a live overhead power line. The workplace he’d been working on had been given a Close Approach Consent – that's required when work is being done near overhead power lines. The consent required the crew that put up the scaffolding to be the same crew that took it down for safety reasons, so they knew where the power lines were, they knew they were live – it makes sense.  

However, WorkSafe found none of the four man dismantling crew, including Jahden, had been involved at the outset. The initial crew received a safety briefing – not the dismantling crew. So the company was sentenced, and the fine was reduced to nothing because they couldn't pay it. And you know, ultimately it doesn't really matter what sort of fine they got or what sort of punishment they got because Jahden’s the one who is living without his arms. A 28-year-old man, fit, strong, healthy, goes to work, spends six months in hospital, his life has changed forever because some numpty didn't bother to assess the critical risk and tell the dismantling crew ‘make sure the overhead power lines are switched off’. Or you don't go near them, or they're insulated. And that, I guess, is what Brooke van Velden is talking about, that if firms are focused on the critical risk factors involved in the business it makes much more sense than saying be careful of the Zip, the water's hot.  

We have an

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News
talks'd b.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The war on road cones as a ratcheted up, with
the Coalition government setting up a hotline for people to
report the overzealous use of road cones and no, it's
not an April one joke. The hotline is part of
a first tranch of measures introduced by Workplace Relations in
Safety Minister Brook van Valden, designed to reform the country's

(00:34):
health and safety laws so businesses can focus on the
necessary and the essential, not on the senseless and superfluous.
As Brook van Walden told Mike Costing this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
One of the things I heard from traveling from Fangoda
to Bluff talking to small business and workers was that
most of them don't know what to do to comply.
We're going to make it a lot clearer, so you
only need to focus on your critical risks, things that
will actually cause people harm, rather than posters saying warning
hot water or warning here is a staircase. We've got

(01:08):
to bring some common sense back to New Zealand and
to business. A lot of it is companies finding they're
spending a lot of money on over compliance because they
are fearful of prosecution, you know, and we've heard it
even in the case of traffic management that sometimes some
companies are spending nearly half of their project cost on
temporary traffic management. So we're bringing some common sense back

(01:32):
and saying, look, in some cases you're doing too much,
and in some cases we need to focus less on
the paperwork and making sure that work safe has a
paper trail and more on how you actually reduce harm
in your workplace. Let's go back to what you can
recognize as things that could cause death or serious illness
and injury, and not sweat the small stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
That was workplace relations and safety. Ministic Van Valden talking
to my costing this morning. So businesses will now only
notify work safe when significant events occur, such as death's,
serious injury and illness, which is a good thing. I
remember coming out of the studio door a couple of
years ago and there was a bit of loose metal
cut the top of my foot, not seriously, it required

(02:16):
a band aid, not stitches, but I had to fill
out a form, a workplace health and safety form. It
was an incident, I mean really, However, the opposition spokesperson
Jantinetti says the government is weakening workplace health and safety
reforms and is being reckless. She says health and safety

(02:37):
is not a political game and everyone must get home safely.
And whenever I think of those words getting home safely,
I think of Jardin Nelson, the twenty eight year old
scaffolder had to have both arms amputated, both of his
arms amputated after a metal pole he was carrying touched
a live overhead power line. The workplace had been working on.

(03:02):
Had been given a close approach consent that's required work
is being done their overhead power lines, So the consent
required the crew that put up the scaffolding be the
same crew that took it down for safety reasons, so
they knew where the power lines were, they knew they
were alive. Makes sense, however, works They've found none of

(03:23):
the four men dismantling crew, including Jardin, had been involved
at the outset. The initial crew received a briefing, a
safety briefing, not the dismantling crew. So the company was
sentenced and the fine was reduced to nothing because they
couldn't pay it. And you know, ultimately it doesn't really
matter what sort of fine they got or what sort

(03:46):
of punishment they got, because Jarden's the one who is
living without his arms. Twenty eight year old man, fit, strong, healthy,
goes to work, spent six months in hospital. As life
has changed forever because some numpty didn't bother to a
set the critical risk and tell the dismantling crew make

(04:10):
sure the overhead power lines are switched off, or you
don't go near them, or they're insulated. And that, I
guess is what Brook van Walden is talking about. That
affirms are focused on the critical risk factors involved in
the business. That makes much more sense than saying be

(04:32):
careful of the zip the water is hot. But we
have an absolutely shocking record of work related deaths and
estimated ten thousand people ten thousand people men, women, and
in some cases children have died from occupational ill health

(04:52):
or workplace fatalities since twenty ten. That's in fifteen years,
ten thousand people have died. And then you've got you know,
Jardon didn't die, as has life changed?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
You bet you?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Four hundred and twenty thousand people were injured at work.
So I think some of these dumb rules came as
a result of people just desperate to ensure that workers
went to work and came home safely. I think they
were trying everything, throwing everything at it. The International Labor

(05:30):
Organization ILO has data from twenty twenty two and it
allows comparison between countries that use a risk management framework,
which we've done since Pike River since twenty ten. According
to this, almost three times as many people die at
work in New Zealand than in the UK. So more
rules the word soup haven't made us safer. What will

(05:57):
What is it going to take to prevent the deaths
of ten thousand more people over the next fifteen years
and having four hundred and twenty thousand people's lives changed
some irrevocably fewer rules in thinking for yourself, Well, that

(06:19):
was a very lay safe, fair attitude. That was a
she'll be right attitude that some of the old timers
still have. Surely there's got to be a balance between
the she'll be right and the word soup. This is
a staircase, be careful walking down it. There's got to
be a happy medium that sees workers go to work

(06:39):
and come home safe.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
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