Health and Safety Law Progress

The legislation will come into effect later in the year, to give people time to become familiar with the changes.

Guidance on the new law (which will be known as the Health and Safety at Work Act) will be published soon afterwards and include:

A comprehensive Guide to the Act, covering what everyone needs to know about general workplace health and safety

Factsheets on key topics including:

What is a PCBU and what are its duties?

Who is an officer and what are their duties?

What are the notification requirements for workplace incidents?

What does “reasonably practicable” mean?

An Approved Code of Practice (ACOP), outlining the Worker Engagement, Representation and Participation requirements in the Act.

A Good Practice Guide (GPG), explaining how workplace risks can be managed, and the requirements under the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations.

Guidance on major hazard facilities and the changes to the hazardous substances regime.

Factsheets to support the ACOPs and GPGs.

In the meantime, WorkSafe New Zealand has set out 10 key concepts to understand the provisions of the Bill in its current form.  

1. The PCBU… allocates duties to the person or entity in the best position to control risks to health and safety, as appropriate to their work place – the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU).

2. Duty of care … talks about the PBUB’s primary duty of care with regards to health and safety at work.

3. Overlapping duties ... Where there are overlapping health and safety duties (such as multiple contractors on a site), each PCBU has a duty to consult and co-operate with the other PCBU’s to ensure health and safety matters are managed.

4.  Upstream duties … provides for health and safety for upstream PCBU’s in the supply chain such as suppliers of workplace plant, substances and structures.

5. Workers and others …defines a worker and the other duties they owe and are owed, and the duty of others at a workplace.

6. Due diligence duty … places a due diligence duty on officers of a PCBU (such as Company directors or partners) to actively engage in health and safety matters to ensure that the PCBU complies with its duties.

7. Volunteers … applies to volunteers in certain circumstances.

8. Workplace engagement … strengthens worker engagement and participation in health and safety matters.

9. Enforcement … allows for a wider range of enforcement and education tools for inspectors and the regulator, and for increased penalties for contraventions.

10. Regulations and guidance … will be followed by a comprehensive framework of regulations, approved codes of practice and guidance.

Whilst the new Act makes it quite clear about the duties of Directors, it will also place a substantial duty of due diligence on senior officers of a PCBU that they don’t currently have under the present legislation.  Directors and senior managers already plan for turnover, profit, marketing, growth and product development.  

Health and safety can’t be left to chance; it needs to be actively managed like any other aspect of a business operation.

Penalties will be significantly increased and will mirror the Australian model.  There are three categories of offences and individuals will be charged.

Category 1 Reckless conduct exposing an individual to risk of death or serious injury or illness

Category 2 Failure to comply exposing an individual to risk of death or serious injury or illness

Category 3 Failure to comply with their health and safety duty

The first legal charge against a manager over the death of a worker under new occupational health and safety (OH&S) legislation in Australia has significant implications for New Zealand - the Health and Safety Reform Bill is closely modelled on Australia’s legislation.  One question about the Bill is to what level within a PCBU, can the term ‘officer’ be applied.  The outcome of this Australian case could provide an indication as to the answer to this.

The new Act will require a new Attitude from employers as for too long there have been serious gaps between what is required and what has been done.  

All employers must take some action now - evaluating their systems and improving their processes - in order to be prepared for the introduction of the new Act and this area of business compliance.  “As the business owner, manager or company director it’s your legal obligation to make health and safety part of the day to day running of your business.” [WorksafeNZ] ν

Paddy Battersby, Battersby HR Consulting, 09 838 6338, www.battersbyhr.com