Source: Radio New Zealand
The new Bill is being championed by Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Workplace safety law changes risk bringing in a two-tier system – one for small businesses, the other for large – according to a business leaders’ forum.
A parliamentary select committee is hearing submissions on the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, which is being championed by Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden.
It would be the biggest reform of workplace safety rules in a decade.
Paul Goodeve is on the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum and heads Clarus, which subcontracts to smaller firms.
He told MPs on Monday that the Bill would make it harder for him to ensure the small operators met his big-operator standards, set under the new bill.
“Everyone wants people to go home unhurt and that requires the entire system to work in alignment.
“Different cars driving on the road, some having to stop at the traffic lights but others not, it just creates problems with the whole health and safety system.”
Under the Bill, small businesses must manage only risks defined as “critical”, while all others must manage all risks and prioritise critical risks.
The Bill adds a new definition of ‘critical risk’, covering hazards which could lead to death, serious injury, notifiable incidents or occupational disease – but does not create an offence for failure to prioritise critical risks.
Its proponents say it will cut compliance costs and reduce uncertainties, while reducing deaths, injuries and illness at work.
But Goodeve’s colleague and forum chair Sheridan Broadbent told the committee the carve-out covered small businesses, even though they had a 24 percent higher injury rate than the others.
It was out of step with global good practice, and by their assessment would increase ACC costs and lower productivity, said Sheridan, an independent director of companies.
“In checking in with our colleagues at the UK regulator, they are really scratching their heads to understand why we would go down this path.”
But another lobby group BusinessNZ told the committee the Bill “right -sizes” health and safety duties for small businesses.
Chief executive Katherine Rich said the current law was too complex, creating uncertainty and “real fear” of getting it wrong.
Small business owners had told them this led to overcompliance, the use of consultants and lots of paperwork, she said.
They backed the Bill and had seen no evidence that the duties of the small would conflict with the large, as in practice, such as an architect adhering to a big construction site’s health and safety duties when they went on the site, Rich said.
Critics have voiced worries that bullying and other psychosocial risks would be managed far less under the bill.
Young Workers Resource Centre director Matariki Roche told the committee that young workers were over-represented in small businesses, and were worried about psychosocial issues taking a real back seat.
But Rich said all good employers worked hard to manage such risks.
The current law was passed in 2015 in response to the fatal Pike River mine disaster five years earlier.
Many submitters to the select committee have said they liked the Bill’s stress on using ‘codes’ more to show industries “what good looks like”.
Van Velden has led the push for more reliance on the Approved Codes of Practice.
However, some submitters warned the codes can take a long time for industries to agree on, and the process had to be well resourced.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand