Say urged on workplace safety strategy
DUNEDIN South MP Clare Curran has urged Dunedin people to make submissions on a draft strategy for improving the health and safety of workers, including potential changes to health and safety legislation.
Speaking at an International Workers Memorial Day event in in the city on Saturday, Ms Curran praised Unions Otago organisers and participants for keeping the ‘‘flame alive’’ of awareness about workrelated safety issues.
About 25 people attended a ceremony at the Otago Workers Memorial at the Market Reserve, at which more than 60 small white crosses were placed in the grass, in memory of Dunedin and Otago people killed through workplace accidents since the early 1990s.
Ms Curran said more action was needed to counter New Zealand’s ‘‘diabolical record’’ of workplace deaths and serious injuries, including in the fishing, forestry, construction and farming sectors.
The Government’s draft strategy for improving the health and safety of New Zealand workers over the next 10 years had just been released, and submissions were due by June 8, she said.
Unions Otago life member Sandra Bishop highlighted continuing concerns about workplace safety issues.
Dunedin city councillor Lee Vandervis urged greater efforts to raise workplace safety awareness, including through the use of safety videos.
Cr Aaron Hawkins said he had long known about the loss of life resulting from the construction of the Manapouri power scheme, and at one stage such losses may have simply been ‘‘factored in’’ to some thinking about such projects.
Mr Hawkins said attitudes had since changed, but it was ‘‘really sad’’ that problems remained, including in the case of the more recent death of a Housing New Zealand worker, through suspected suicide, after workplace bullying, he said.