Workplace Health and Safety Strategy for New Zealand to 2015

Rautaki mō te Haumaru me te Hauora o te Wāhi Mahi mō Aotearoa ki te 2015

Snapshot of Progress 2005/06

Highlights the first year

The Workplace Health and Safety Strategy to 2015 was launched in July 2005 together with an Action Plan 2005/6 outlining detailed actions and deliverables for the first year.

The Workplace Health and Safety Strategy (the Strategy) aims to lift New Zealand’s workplace health and safety performance. This will enhance the productivity of New Zealand businesses and reduce New Zealand’s work toll.

The Strategy is a framework for action intended to:

raise awareness about workplace health and safety
coordinate and prioritise workplace health and safety activities across Stakeholders
improve the infrastructure that supports workplace health and safety.

The first year of the Strategy in action has been positive, with government agencies and key industry and community groups progressing health and safety activities that contribute to the strategy vision: healthy people in safe and productive workplaces. There is a strong foundation in place for the Strategy to be implemented over the next 10 years.

Government Leadership and Practices

The Government Leadership focus is twofold: it is about government leading policy and practices to promote a high level of workplace health and safety performance in New Zealand workplaces; and it is about government ensuring it ‘walks-the-talk’ in promoting its own workplace health and safety performance in the public sector.

Highlights under Government Leadership and Practices

Establishing a governance structure to oversee the Strategy.

The Workplace Health and Safety Council, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ have agreed on the terms of reference for the Workplace Health and Safety Council. It is anticipated that the Council will be up and running by the end of this year.

Building the Department of Labour’s capability to facilitate and progress the strategy.

The Department is the administrator of the Strategy and retains an overview of progress, with support and input from the Government Agency Group and other key stakeholders. A dedicated team within the Workplace Health and Safety Policy unit has now been established to facilitate and progress the Strategy, through building awareness, aligning actions across government agencies and partnering with key stakeholders. This will include aligning the Department’s health and safety activity with the government’s Economic Transformation Agenda of innovative and productive workplaces.

Work to improve legislative interfaces is underway.

Government agencies Department of Labour, Accident Compensation Corporation, Ministry for the Environment and the Environmental Risk Management Agency have been working together to look at how to improve the interface between the Health and Safety in Employment Act, the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. This review is happening as part of the government Review of Regulatory Frameworks, which seeks to ensure that New Zealand’s regulatory environment is effective in meeting its objectives and does so at the least cost to the economy. A final report on the review will be prepared by 31 July 2007.

The Department of Labour’s occupational health leadership has been a priority over the last year.

Key achievements in this area include: increasing our occupational health capability through the appointment of a Chief Advisor Occupational Health; production of Occupational Health Tools to provide guidance on dealing with occupational health issues; and a research funding partnership between the Department of Labour and the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

The Department of Labour has upgraded health measurement and monitoring equipment and trained staff in its use.
A successful interagency emergency response training exercise has been held.

The training exercise, held in Taupo last year, tested and improved the coordination of responses to emergencies in the workplace, especially where hazardous substances are stored.

Research funding partnership between the Department of Labour and the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

The partnership has awarded three career development awards in the form of post-graduate research fellowships, including two PhD research projects and one Master of Science project.

The National Occupational Health and Safety Council has released two reports in the past year.

The reports consider the surveillance of occupational disease and injury, and the social and economic costs of occupational disease and injury.

The Department of Labour has published a report that stock-takes 100 of New Zealand’s largest employers for frequency and quality of workplace reporting practices.

This information will be used to promote better practice in the monitoring, reporting and management of health and safety.

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) small business incentive programme continues to develop to an advanced level.

Work is progressing in five sectors (construction, agriculture, forestry, road freight and motor trades), and training got underway in July 2006.

The Ministry of Transport and the Ministry for the Environment are examining the procurement of vehicles by government.

This work was initiated as part of the Govt3 programme on government vehicle fleet operation and procurement. Other agencies including ACC and the NZ Defence Force also include health and safety conditions in their procurement processes.

In the transport sector, the Ministry of Transport (MoT) has consulted on rail safety targets, and is looking to develop a rail safety strategy.
Maritime New Zealand in association with the fishing industry and ACC, has released the FishSafe programme.

The programme includes incentives, a guideline on safety in the fishing industry and an internet site.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has engaged with the New Zealand Agricultural Aviation Association and the Agriculture Safety Council to produce a guideline on safety on farm airstrips.

As a result, CAA has noted a marked decline in agricultural aviation accidents related to airstrip conditions since drafts of this guideline first started being circulated amongst farmers and agricultural aviators.

Preventive Workplace Cultures

Workplaces that have values, attitudes, practices and systems that prevent harm to people at work are described as having “preventative workplace cultures”. This outcome provides the most important link to the Strategy’s vision. In the first year of the Strategy it has been important to gain a better understanding of workplace activity that supports good health and safety.

Highlight under Preventative Workplace Cultures

Research has been carried out for the Department of Labour on the links between health and safety, and productivity in workplaces.

Preliminary results indicate that workplaces showing the best performance in health and safety were also the ones that had the clearest idea on what productivity meant to them. Promotion activities based on this research will start in 2006-07.

Industry Leadership and Community Engagement

This outcome recognises the key role industry plays in leading improvements to health and safety practices in workplaces, and also recognises the importance of community engagement - creating a positive and supportive environment for improvements in workplace health and safety.

Highlights under Leadership and Community Engagement

The Construction Industry Council is showing real leadership in the health and safety area.

The Council has released its own health and safety strategy for the construction sector. In addition, the Council has also published a report, Principles of Best Practice - Construction Procurement in NZ, including a section on health and safety.

The Department of Labour’s Small Business Information Unit is now operating in Waitakere, Manukau, Tauranga, Nelson and Christchurch.

This specialised unit works through local business intermediaries, such as Chambers of Commerce, in order to distribute information to small businesses in their locality.

A primary focus of the Workplace Health and Safety Strategy’s public education promotion has been through television.

During May and June 2006, Television New Zealand screened the Special Investigators series featuring investigations of accidents by Department of Labour, Civil Aviation Authority and Maritime New Zealand staff. This has been a popular series, and has given the community a valuable insight into the work of these organisations. A second series has been completed.

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