Job deaths spike despite law
Progress after new rules but concern over spate of fatalities.
WorkSafe New Zealand has issued more than 3400 prohibition, improvement and infringement notices to employers in the first year of the Health and Safety at Work Act..
April marked the one-year anniversary of the new act — and despite the legislation, seven people have died in work-related deaths in the past three weeks.
WorkSafe chief executive Nicole Rosie said the fatalities were worrying.
“It does raise a concern about whether people are continuing to keep their focus, and focus on the right stuff.
“People have done a lot of work on health and safety, and awareness has improved a lot.
“What hasn’t yet happened is we haven’t systematically seen change in some of the activity, behaviours and risks that cause deaths and serious harm.”
The new act was introduced after the Pike River Mine tragedy, in which 29 men died after an explosion ripped through the remote West Coast mine.
Figures released under the Official Information Act revealed 11 companies and organisations have been issued infringement notices since the legislation came into play, including:
● Palmerston North City Council, for directing and allowing a worker to use a skill saw on material containing asbestos in an uncontrolled manner.
● An employer that allowed a worker to remove asbestos at height, without suitable gear to protect them from airborne fibres or the risk of falling.
● A landscaping firm, for chainsawing without a suitable helmet or chaps.
● A number of companies, for failing to use harnesses and other fall-prevention gear.
Human resources manager for the Palmerston North council, Wayne Wilson said the council accepted it did not meet the standard required by law.
Under previous legislation, 3395 infringement, improvement and prohibition notices were issued in 2015.
In 2014, 3112 notices were issued to workplaces.
The spate of workplace deaths in recent weeks has brought the number of work-related fatalities this year to 28 — on pace to exceed last year’s total of 49.
Among the seven killed were father-of-four Hamani Topui, 35, who died in a forklift accident in Penrose last week, and 59-year-old Dayal Parbhu Patel, who died on June 9 after being trapped under a beam at Pegasus Engineering in Rolleston.
Rosie said the challenge was how to reduce or eliminate high-risk activities.
“Yes, people are now aware of the risks, yes they are putting in systems to manage them but fundamentally the higher-risk activities like the use of quad bikes, or tractors — they are still doing those tasks and they are still doing them in effectively the same way, so the inherent risk is still there.”
According to Rosie, there had been a major improvement in the agriculture sector since the new legislation.
Since 2011, 119 agriculture workers have been killed on the job.
Rosie said changes included a new industry forum to improve health and safety and a number of groups, such as Federated Farmers, working with WorkSafe.
A review of WorkSafe’s prosecution policy under the new act has been pushed out a year to March 2018. According to information released by WorkSafe, a large number of prosecutions needed to have taken place under the legislation to ensure a “robust review”.
Pike River families spokesman Bernie Monk, who lost his son Michael in the mine, said if the legislation was introduced earlier the tragedy would not have happened.
“Everyone was trying to make [workplaces] safe but no one listened at a government level.”
Monk said the 2010 disaster led Pike River families to put pressure on the Government to act. He believed New Zealand had come a long way.
“We haven’t systematically seen change.” Nicole Rosie