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Building and construction consultations
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Work with engineered stone and materials containing crystalline silica
- Minister's foreword
- Executive summary
- Introduction
- Current risk requirements
- Problem definition
- Options for working with engineered stone and materials containing crystalline silica
- Closing remarks
- Summary of all consultation questions
- Glossary
- Annex I: Silicosis and engineered stone background
- Annex II: Overview of the health and safety regulatory regime
- Annex III: Revised Workplace Exposure Standard
- Annex IV: Further information on the status quo
- Annex V: Australia’s amendments to its regulatory settings in response to the risks posed by RCS
- Making it easier to build granny flats (2024)
- Building Code fire safety review discussion document
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Summary of submissions: Building Code fire safety review
- Executive summary
- Submitters
- Outcomes of the fire safety review
- Effectiveness of fire safety measures in the Building Code
- Keeping pace with new technologies and new fire challenges
- Certainty, clarity, and consistency
- Suggested priorities
- Contributing issues from the background paper
- Other comments
- Appendix A: List of submitters
- Appendix B: Comments related to individual outcomes and issues
- Summary of submissions: Improving efficiency in the inspection process
- Review of the building consent system (snapshot)
- Proposed amendments to the BuiltReady Scheme Rules public consultation
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Building consent system review: Options paper summary of submissions
- Introduction
- Key themes from submissions
- Promoting competition in the building regulatory system
- Removing impediments to product substitution and variation
- Strengthening roles and responsibilities
- New assurance pathways
- More efficient and streamlined delivery of building consent services
- Better performance monitoring and system stewardship
- Better responding to the needs and aspirations of Māori
- Addressing the interface between the building and resource consent system
- Submitter details
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Improving efficiency in the inspection process: Discussion document
- Use of information
- Minister's foreword
- Introduction
- Increasing the uptake of remote inspections
- Section one: Options to increase the uptake of remote inspections and improve efficiency of inspection processes
- Section two: Increasing inspection capacity through the use of Accredited Organisations (Building)
- Appendix one: Full list of consultation questions
- Appendix two: Summary of options for feedback
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Consultation document: Insulation requirements in housing and other buildings
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Insulation in housing and small buildings
- 3. Insulation in large buildings
- Appendix A: Proposed changes to Acceptable Solution H1/AS1 Energy Efficiency for all housing, and bu
- Appendix B: Proposed changes to Verification Method H1/VM1 Energy Efficiency for all housing, and buildings up to 300m squared
- Appendix C: Proposed changes to Acceptable Solution H1/AS2 Energy Efficiency for buildings greater than 300m squared
- Appendix D: Proposed changes to Verification Method H1/VM2 Energy Efficiency for buildings greater than 300m squared
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Work with engineered stone and materials containing crystalline silica
Annex II: Overview of the health and safety regulatory regime
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Health and Safety at Work Act 2015
The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSW Act) provides a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces. A guiding principle of the HSW Act is that workers and others should be given the highest level of protection against harm to their health, safety and welfare from work risks so far as is reasonably practicable.
The HSW Act places a primary duty on a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, and workers whose activities in carrying out the work are influenced or directed by the PCBU while carrying out the work.
It also requires PCBUs to follow a hierarchy of controls when managing risks to health and safety. Where reasonably practicable, the risks must be eliminated, and where it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risks, they must be minimised.
The HSW Act and supporting regulations include a range of subordinate duties and processes to ensure PCBUs manage risks to workers and others. These may apply to practices in all workplaces, specific types of workplaces or sectors, and particular risks.
The HSW Act is designed to be supported by regulations and other legislative tools to provide any necessary additional detail on how duty holders can meet their duties.
HSW Act legislative framework
The HSW Act provides for a range of tools that can specify controls for managing work-related risks, as shown below.
HSW Act
- Performance-based general duties
- Broad coverage of work and work places
- Has legal effect
Regulations
- Mandatory controls for specific risks
- Can set an outcome or process with flexibility for duty holders, or can be prescriptive
- Have legal effect
Safe work instruments
- Detailed and technical matters that may change relatively frequently
- Have the legal effect given to them in regulations
Approved codes of practice
- Guidance about best practice usually developed with industry and workers
- Practical and usually giveprescriptive detail
- Establish accepted way of complying with HSW Act - do not limit ways of complying
- Can be reiled on in court as evidence of compliance3
Other types of guidance
- Can take various forms and cover a range of information, including general explanatory information about duties or the regulators' position on best practice
- Cannot be relied on in court as evidence but relevant to compliance with HSW Act
In practice these tools are not mutually exclusive, but work together to ensure duty holders have the appropriate obligations underpinned and supported by the necessary detail and guidance at the right level, so they can effectively manage the risks arising from work:
- The HSW Act has performance-based general duties – these specify the outcome required, that duty holders must protect workers and others from work-related harm, rather than specifying the specific actions duty holders must take. This provides both flexibility for duty holders and broad coverage of New Zealand work and workplaces.
- Industry- or risk-specific regulations, approved codes of practice and guidance underpin the general duties in the HSW Act when further clarity is required.
- Regulations are most appropriately used where they are needed to effectively address risks – the riskier something is the more likely it is to need mandatory controls through regulations.
- Safe Work Instruments are most effective where prescribing controls for more detailed requirements, or technical matters that may change frequently. They do not have legal effect on their own, but only to the extent they are referred to in regulations.
- Approved codes of practice and guidance do not provide mandatory controls. They provide further support to duty holders in meeting their general duties, and are appropriate, for example, where there might be a range of effective ways of managing a particular risk.