Executive Summary
The Coalition Agreement between ACT and the National Party committed to reforming work health and safety law and regulations. New Zealand’s work health and safety record remains worse than other comparable countries and has been slow to improve. Government has heard that businesses are struggling to understand their work health and safety obligations, and are unsure how to comply, which creates risks for workers.
On this page
To better understand where to best focus efforts for addressing these issues, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden (the Minister), led a Government consultation seeking feedback on what is working well, and where improvements can be made.
This consultation featured the Minister undertaking a series of roadshow meetings across 11 towns and cities, 23 meetings and 15 site visits, inviting discussion and feedback from over 600 attendees.
A consultation document and online survey was also released, seeking feedback on the purpose and performance of the work health and safety regulatory system, across five focus areas covering different parts of the work health and safety system. 487 submitters responded, from across a broad range of sectors, regions, workers and employers, and small and large organisations.
Key themes from the roadshows and consultation survey
Feedback from the survey submissions tended to be relatively evenly split between positive and negative views across the system, and with less consensus about specific issues for improvement. Feedback from the roadshows was stronger in terms of the issues and themes emerging in relation to specific issues. High-level themes from the consultation surveys and roadshows about areas for improvement are as follows:
There is need to increase certainty within the system, and reduce unnecessary compliance and red tape
There was a broad view that while the Act is generally working well, issues within the system are causing problems by creating uncertainty about what steps businesses should take, and driving costs (particularly for small businesses). In particular, the submissions highlighted outdated regulations such as the Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017, up-to-date guidance and Approved Codes of Practice, and ambiguity within Part 2 of the Act (such as in relation to officers’ duties and landowner liabilities). The Roadshows highlighted that this ambiguity has contributed to a proliferation of complex and costly work health and safety consultancies and paper-based systems, regardless of whether they are practical, useful or proportionate.
Discrete problems within the Act require attention
At a broad level, Submitters were sharply divided about whether the work health and safety regulatory system’s settings are correctly balanced. In addition to the need for improved guidance and certainty relating to certain parts of the work health and safety system, overlaps with other regulatory systems were identified as an issue.
There is need for improvements to WorkSafe
Submitters’ experiences with WorkSafe were highly variable, and sharply divided between both negative and positive responses. Roadshow feedback was much stronger, highlighting a need for more consistency, clarity and support for businesses regarding their work health and safety obligations. Roadshow feedback indicates that the status quo is driving costs and complexity for businesses as they look elsewhere for certainty (such as ‘off the shelf’ measures and consultants), or is driving fear of engagement.