Minister says WorkSafe has ‘strayed from the path’
WorkSafe lacked oversight under the previous government, Workplace Relations and Safety minister Brooke van Velden has told the Education and Workforce select committee.
“Worksafe has strayed from the path over the past few years,” van Velden said. She said she would be setting strategic performance measures for the country’s safety regulator, but expressed confidence in WorkSafe’s new chief executive Steve Haszard.
Van Velden also signalled the Government would be reforming health and safety law to simplify it, but would not say how.
“It was too hard for employers to know what they should be doing to keep their workers safe,” she said.
“It’s really important people come home at the end of the day.”
She was pushed by Labour’s Camila Belich on whether WorkSafe needed more funding, which prompted National’s Carl Bates to push back who criticised the concept that “the only way to achieve outcome is to spend more money”.
WorkSafe had had “fingers in too many pies”, van Velden said.
The agency is funded by levies, but van Velden would not be drawn on whether these would rise.
She would also not respond to Belich’s question on whether WorkSafe had been asked to reduce its spending by 6.5% and 7.5% like other government departments.
Haszard told the select committee there was a “wide gulf” in workplace fatality rates between New Zealand and Australia.
‘‘Our fatality rate is currently down, but it’s nowhere where it needs to be,” he said.
Work-related accident fatalities are only the tip of the iceberg, with Worksafe data showing a worker is 15 times more likely to die from a work-related disease than from a workplace accident.
In 2022, Worksafe said 59 people died in workplace accidents, but work-related health deaths were estimated to be 750 to 900 each year.
Labour MP Jan Tinetti pressed van
Velden on whether the Government would ban engineered stone for things like kitchen counters. A WorkSafe investigation last year found the majority of employers, overseeing a workforce of about 1000, were ignoring safety guidelines and failing to keep staff safe.
“I’m still awaiting advice from MBIE on silicosis,” van Velden responded.
The minister used the hearing to restate her economic philosophy.
“My starting point is that it is not the role of Government to micromanage the economy. Our role is to set clear rules, and then get out of the way to let businesses and workers thrive.”
The Government’s job was to make sure the country had employment and safety laws that were simple and effective, she said. The Government’s first steps had been to repeal the Fair Pay Agreements, reinstated 90-day work trials, and increase the minimum wage by 2%.
Van Velden characterised these as being good for business, and for workers, prompting Labour MP Ginny Anderson to disagree that the moves were motivated by putting workers first.
She indicated more reforms were to come, but did not say what reforms were on the cards.
She did, however, criticise the previous government for increasing statutory sick leave to 10 days, bringing in an extra public holiday, and minimum wage increases of nearly 50% over the past seven years when the CPI only increased by around 25%.
“There’s been a lot of additional costs placed on businesses, which then flow onto the economy.”