Katherine Rich: BusinessNZ Chief Executive praises Brooke van Velden's new workplace reforms

Small businesses will have less health and safety obligations under new reforms. 

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden has revealed her first changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act. 

She says small businesses will only need to manage risks relating to death or serious injury to reduce compliance costs. 

BusinessNZ Chief Executive Katherine Rich says it will bring a sigh of relief from small businesses - who are able to just focus on their success.

"Safety is still paramount, but what we're seeing here is a clarification of what the responsibilities are."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brian Brad Workplace Health and Safety getting a big shape up,
shake up this afternoon, I should say, and we're going
to go to Business en Z Chief Executive Captain rich
On this for reaction Catherine, Good evening, Good evening, you're
glad to be out of politics.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, yes, it's the world of business. Advocacy is a
really good one, and so I'm really pleased by the
announcements today, Ryan, because I think the government's making some
progress to pair back some of the silly rules and
we've got ourselves into over a period of years. I
think the announcements today many small businesses will breathe a

(00:37):
sigh of relief because they're going to have to just
concentrate on the critical issues that cause death, serious injury
and illness and not get into the endless paperwork and
tick box exercises that makes them fearful about running their businesses.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, they're taking small businesses out of the general requirements
under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Can you
just give us a couple of examples from businesses you're
aware of, what are some of the things that they
have been having to deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, for a lot of businesses, particularly when they get
fearful about not doing the right thing, might overcompensate and
then bring in rules because they think they just want
to absolutely eradicate risk rather than manage or minimize it.
And it's that kind of environment if you get fearful,

(01:30):
which means more road cones, means things like being concerned
about lolly scrambles at community events or farmers being nervous
about having people on their properties. The announcements today, I
think will go a long way to remind small businesses
that their job is very successful in their businesses and

(01:50):
not to have to worry about things that are not serious,
stuff like you've still got to have a safe environment.
You've still we've got to do a whole bunch of
things to the workers. Safety is still paramount. But what
we're seeing here is a clarification of what the responsibilities
are because over a period of time, individual small mistresses

(02:12):
have been worried about doing something wrong and being the
one in the dock.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Catherine, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate that.
Katherine Rich, who's the business MS chief executive.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
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