David Birkett: Federated Farmers' health and safety spokesperson on the Government's plan for farm health and safety rules

Federated Farmers is welcoming new Government proposals to make farm health and safety rules more practical - and grounded in real-world standards.

The Government will spend two months consulting with farmers to determine whether farm kids are safe to do certain chores, including feeding animals, watering plants and collecting eggs.

Federated Farmers' health and safety spokesperson David Birkett says farmers have raised questions - and the clarification would be useful.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The rural reports with the MSD Animal Health home of
rotoved Corona ends it's leading calf scarers vaccine.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
So, as we've been discussing, the government is having a
look at those over zealous health and safety rules on
farms and one of the things that they're wandering about
is where the farm kids should be allowed to collect eggs,
feed animals, water plants and stuff like that under health
and safety rules. Now Jamie McKay has taken a well
earned break, so in his place we have David Burkeett,
Federated Farmer's Health and Safety spokesperson.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey David, Yeah, you have a hair game.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm very well, thank you. Do you reckon kids should
be able to go collect the eggs, feed the small animals,
water the plants.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, look, I think this is sort of blowing up
as to be something which is a bit bigger than
what it should have been. But you look, it's the
one that some farmers have asked questions around, is where
do we draw the line around where the workplace starts
and finishes, Because, as you know, for family farms at
workplaces quite often the home end of workplace as well,

(00:55):
and so there must have been some questions ask around
clarification of the lines where those chores became part of
the workplace and what is chores as part of home life.
So some clarification that would be useful, But you know,
it's certainly not a big area that we've had concerns around.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
So farmers aren't farmers aren't particularly stressed about these rules
or obeying them by the sounds of things.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well know what we're saying. There is the other areas.
If you look at the release by the banister, there's
some areas around codes of practice for roles and responsibilities
and machinery, and the are the areas we were seeing
the most harm and damage and deaths. So they are
the areas that we believe we should be targeting to
get the best return on time spent on these areas.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay, so is this more about farmers trying to figure
out if the kids can actually ride the machinery or
use the machinery. Is that what it's about?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, a little bit will be around that as to
you know, what are the ages that are appropriate? But
these ones seem to be around the chores that family
are doing, you know, as you say, like the collecting
of their and ordering the plants which really aren't farm
type operations. You can do that on any lifestyle block
or any local residential dwellings as well. So I think

(02:12):
it's it's just some clarification that obviously has come through
and the feedback from the review of the Health and
Safety Act.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
How about instead of them clarification, David, why don't we
just scrap the dumb rules and write good ones.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, this is what the approved Code of Practice, which
is the second part of the Minister's recommendation, is going
to do. So it's going to be rules which is
written by work Safe, but we'll be helping them to
make sure that they have a rural leans over them
and making sure that they're a practical.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So are we, David, So are we accepting that the
existing rules suck and we're going to get some better ones?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well it looks like that way. These codes of practices
what we will be judged on. So if you're achieving
the codes of Practice, what it says is that we
will be achieving the expectations of work Safe. We know
exactly where the line is drawn on the sand. Websites
have been produced and it makes it a clearer for
farmers to understand their responsibility under health and safety.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Now, can you tell me, are there any rules around
kiddies being on quad bikes?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yes, there are rules around ages and there. Oh yeah,
So the quad bikes is one which is covered under
farm vehicles and that is where we have our worst accidents.
You know, we still continue to lose people who have
both experienced and young people as well. So right across
the spectrum, we've got some working groups which have been

(03:34):
working for quite some time now, but we haven't found
that ability to pull those numbers back downs, and we
we'd like to see them. Okay, So that's an area
in which one of these codes of practices will be
focusing on around farm machinery, good vehicles.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah cool, all right, David, best of luck with everything.
David Burke att Federated Farmers. For more from Heather Duplessy
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