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New Zealand Workplace Health and Safety Reform: New Regime for HazChem in Workplace

The New Zealand Government has initiated its most significant reform of New Zealand’s workplace health and safety system in 20 years. The reform was announced on 7 Aug 2013 by Labour Minister Simon Bridges. “The working safer package represents a major step change in New Zealand’s approach to meet our target of reducing the workplace injury and death toll by 25% by 2020,” introduced Mr Bridges.

Overview of the Workplace Health and Safety Reform Package

Each year, around 600-900 New Zealand workers die from occupational illnesses. Hazardous substances are the contributing factors of the vast majority of these deaths (between 400 and 670 people). This fact emphasizes the necessity to take seriously the occupational health hazards, especially those related to dangerous chemicals. As the current substance-oriented management approach seems to lack  efficacy to satisfy the workplace-centric health and safety needs, here is where the reform comes in.   

The reform will take four years from 2013 to 2016 with an extra cost of $17.7 million on top of the current level of funding for the regulator (i.e. $53.7 million/year) in 2013/2014. From 2017 an extra $25.3 million to $79.3 million of funding will be further added. 

The reform package is comprised of the following key aspects:

  • New legislations developed and implemented to provide clear and practical information to keep workers under appropriate protection;

  • WorkSafe New Zealand to be established and take over the health and safety regulator funtions from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE);

  • Stronger focus will be placed on occupational harm and hazardous substances;

  • Stricter criteria including higher penalties, stronger enforcement tools and court powers will be adopted.

The timeline below shows the key points of the reform: 

New Legislation and Regulator

The most significant change under the reform is that a new law, namely the Health and Safety at Work (HSW) Act, will be in place by the end of 2014 to replace the existing Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. The Health and Safety at Work bill will be formulated in alignment with the model Australian Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act 2011 with the aim to emphasize and enhance work safety.  

As the supporting documents of the WHS Act 2011, the WHS Regulations 2011 have come into force on 1 Jan 2012 and will be mandatory in all states of Australia 5 year from the effective dates. According to the timeline of the reform, supporting documents of the New Zealand HSW Act such as regulations, Approved Code of Practices (ACOPs) and guidance are expected be released and implemented by mid-2015.

During the reform, the governance of health and safety related issues in the workplace will be transferred from the MBIE to the WorkSafe. In addition, upon establishment of the new legislations, the use of workplace hazardous substances with health hazard to humans will be regulated by the workplace health and safety framework by the regulator WorkSafe. All hazardous substances relevant activities (i.e. importation, manufacture, classification, and setting of basic controls that apply regardless of setting) in New Zealand are currently governed by the overarching Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 (HSNO Act) and its related Regulations (e.g. HSNO Regulations 2001: identification) under the Environment Protection Authority (EPA).

Stronger focus on occupational harm and hazardous substances

Effective reduction and prevention of occupational harm require collaboration between government, business, workers and experts. Better coordination between government agencies related to workplace health and safety is anticipated. For instance,  Accident Compensation Scheme (ACC) and WorkSafe are going to develop a joint injury prevention programme in workplace.

The concept of “a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU)” will be introduced under the new law to ensure the responsibility lies with those that are most responsible and capable of dealing with health and safety issues. The reform sees more rigorous health and safety obligations imposed on the PCBUs such as workers are covered no matter the working relationship (broader than employer-employee).

The workers and experts are highly encouraged to take part in the workplace health and safety issues. All duty holders will be obligated to create a worker participation system where the workers can have their say about their health and safety concerns. The Health and Safety Professional Alliance (HaSPA) will also be established to represent qualified health and safety professionals.

Changes of requirements are also seen in management of major hazard facilities and hazardous chemicals. New regulations will be developed, in line with sophisticated international practice, to classify and manage major hazard facilities. The classified major hazard facilities will be required to

  • Prepare a safety case

  • Prepare and implement an emergency response plan

  • Investigate any dangerous occurrence

A simplified hazardous substance management system is expected as the HSNO regime will also be overhauled. The changes include:

  • Simplified control process for better communication for safety requirements between concerned parties

  • Quality assurance mechanism will be adopted to ensure delivery of proper safety requirement to users

  • Helpful tools will be provided to facilitate safety requirements compliance

Stricter Enforcement

The proposed new HSW Act adds two powerful tools to the current enforcement system, they are:

  1. Accept enforceable undertakings from duty holders given in connection with a contravention or alleged contravention

  2. Issue infringement notices without prior warning

New powers of the courts are also proposed under the new law, including

  1. Enable judges to make adverse publicity orders

  2. Compliance or restoration orders can be made for not only the cause of a failure but also the consequences

Additionally, a significant rise in the penalty levels will also be seen in the reform. The proposed new punishment approach will be developed based on the Australian tiered model where the highest category of offense (i.e. Category 1 Reckless conduct) carries a maximum penalty of $600,000 or five years’ imprisonment or both for individuals, and $3 million for a body corporate. In comparison, the maximum penalty for similar offence under the current New Zealand Law is only a fine up to $500,000 and 2 years imprisonment or both. 

Tags : New Zealand
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