Grant Nicholson: Health and Safety Lawyer on the new regulatory reforms

An opinion new health and safety regulatory reforms is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. 

The Government's change makes clear landowners won’t be responsible if people are injured on their property, while doing recreational activities. 

Fault will lie with the organisations running them. 

It used the prosecution of the company that grants access to White Island after it erupted as one reason for the change. 

Health and Safety Lawyer Grant Nicholson told Mike Hosking that's the only example of the law getting muddy. 

He says ultimately the court did its job —with the company later acquitted— and the law worked as intended. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Remember Brook van Velden. She told us so on the
program the other day. There was a suite a plethora
of change coming this week under her watch. The latest
is that landowners will no longer be liable for recreational accidents.
This is for you know, Hunter's Fish's kai because that
sort of thing. You may strike a bit of trouble
on your land and you being held responsible. Currently White
Island actually might be a very good example of this.

(00:20):
Health and safety lawyer Anthony Harper of Grant Nicholson is
with us. Oh sorry, but Anthony Harper's the company, Grant
Nicholson is the person grant my sincere apologies.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Good morning mart and a very good morning to you.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Is the law crying out to be reformed.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
No, not at all. This is a solution in search
of a problem.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Okay, So what about White Island? Would that not be
a good example of where things got a bit muddy?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yes, I think that's fair, and it's probably the only
example where we've seen things good a bit muddy. But
ultimately the court did its job and in the High
Court for Current Management Limited was acquitted. So the law
actually worked as intended. And if you look into our
history this reform is really going to if I take

(01:04):
you back to Cave Crack in so the nineteen nineties,
it's going to give a free pass to landowners when
there's actually something arising out of their land, like platforms,
like bridges, like other things of that nature which might collapse,
and say you're going to get a free pass. The
law is already not involving farmers and public bodies routinely

(01:27):
getting prosecuted for the activities of other people on their land.
It's just not something that works Outing zeal And. The
regulator does right.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
So this is my next question. How much of this
is about a White Island or aka preak and therefore
doc or some public entity versus Bob on his farm
letting some fisher people through who then go and hurt themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, the examples that the Minister gave were firstly, if
you had farmers working on a farm property and then
you've got a horse tracking business working on the farm
or already the health and safety work out deals with
that because there's a card out for farmers except where
they're actually doing the farming activities. So a farmer already
would not be liable for the horse tracking activity. Business.

(02:11):
It's also intended then to be wider, so you're write
the likes of councils, dock schools, anybody else where there
might be recreation activities occurring on their properties. But I've
acted for a wide range of public sector organizations, including
schools actually after fatal accidents on their grounds, and they're

(02:32):
not getting prosecuted now. So really this is not something
where the major impetus from the business or the health
and safety community was Minister, we need you to change
these things. There were lots of things that the consultation
exercised last year for the Minister told her we do
want change, but she hasn't picked those up. She's just

(02:53):
running with things like this and the new road cones hotline.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Are you are you trying to play this down to
the extent so you're a lawyer and this stuff doesn't
bother you. But so I think of the school example.
If something happens on your school, people are devastated and
they worry and they fret, and over a sustained period
of time, because the wheels of justice turn extremely slowly,
you might be able to at the end of it go, hey,
don't worry, it all worked out well, meantime, my life
has been wrecked and I'm you see what I'm saying.

(03:21):
I mean, just because the law sorts of stuff. So
if I can say, look, it's not my fault and
I know that, then that's better for me, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yes it is. But we've already got limitations in the law,
which says that you're only required to act so far
as is reasonably practicable, And that word reasonably has to
do some heavy lifting here, So the law already doesn't
actually impose any obligation on organizations more than what is
independently if there's reasonable Does that mean that sometimes pefore

(03:48):
go to be a risk averse? Sure, yes it does.
But if we say the school as an example, I
would say that we do want schools to be cognizant
of the risks that are arising from their grounds. You know,
we don't want them to be leaving equipment out overnight
for example, that children can climb onto or have topple

(04:09):
over onto them and crush them to death, which is
a real life example that I had to act for
a school when that happened.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Okay, so it's ideology that's driving this is a knacked ideal,
just get the state out of people's lives.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, I think it is okay.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Grunt appreciate it very much. Grunt Nicholson, who's health and
safety lawyer at Anthony Harper.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
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