First phase of new Health and Safety Act released

Cabinet has made initial decisions about the first phase of regulations to support the new Health and Safety at Work Act, following public consultation on proposals last year.

You can now read the Cabinet papers on the MBIE website at http://www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/workplace-health-andsafety-reform/development-of-regulations-to-support-the-newhealth-and-safety-at-work-act

Some of the content of the papers has been withheld in order to protect the confidentiality of the Select Committee process for the Health and Safety Reform Bill. The Select Committee is due to report the Bill back to Parliament by the end of May.

A key decision made by Cabinet was to allow the release of exposure drafts of the various phase one regulations, and these will be made available on the MBIE website as drafts become ready.

The purpose of the exposure draft process is to give interested parties an opportunity to see how the new regulations will look and get stakeholder feedback on whether the decisions taken by Cabinet are accurately represented in the regulations as drafted. Expert industry input is also needed on technical aspects of the regulations, to make sure they are accurate.

At this stage, the following draft regulations will be ready for release in early April: • General risk and workplace management. • Asbestos. • Major hazard facilities. • Redrafted regulations recently made under the HSE Act: º Petroleum exploration and extraction. º Mining. º Adventure activities. Later in April an exposure draft of administrative regulations will be released that detail infringement offences and fees in phase one regulations, and prescribe a standard infringement notice.

An exposure draft of the worker participation, engagement and representation regulations will be released after the Bill has been reported back to Parliament.

An exposure draft of the regulations for work involving hazardous substances is expected to be ready for release around November this year.

The first ‘batch’ of exposure drafts of these phase one regulations to support the new Act can now be viewed at http:// www.mbie.govt.nz/what-we-do/workplace-health-and-safetyreform/development-of-regulations-to-support-the-newhealth-and-safety-at-work-act/exposure-drafts-of-phase-oneregulations . Q CODE http://kaywa.me/iG7Sl

The exposure drafts are those for: • General risk and workplace management. • Major Hazard Facilities. • Recently-made HSE regulations covering the mining, petroleum and adventure activities sectors being transferred into the new regime.