HASANZ Brings World Authority on Risk Communication to NZ

HASANZ Brings World Authority on Risk Communication to New Zealand

The Health and Safety Association of New Zealand (HASANZ) today released the programme for its first conference being held from 7 to 9 September in Wellington at Te Papa. Organised by the industry for the industry, HASANZ CONFERENCE 2016 is for all workplace health and safety professionals and the businesses that use them. The conference is well timed; six months after the arrival of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

“We want everyone to leave the conference with a new awareness that the approach to health and safety in New Zealand is now different; they will be better informed and more confident about the difference that health and safety professionals can make in this new order,” says HASANZ Chair Craig Smith.

The programme is deliberately provocative, inspiring people to see health and safety in a new light. Leading the line-up of keynote speakers is world authority on risk and change management communication Dr Vincent Covello. Dr Covello runs the Centre for Risk Communication in New York City and has 35 years of experience advising governments and organisations on handling communications in a wide range of crisis situations, including the Ebola pandemic and the Zika virus outbreak. His first address in New Zealand will focus on managing change in the new workplace health and safety environment through a communication lens.

“We’re delighted to bring someone of Dr Covello’s calibre to our conference. Following feedback that he was an outstanding speaker at a conference in Perth last year, we decided we wanted him here”, says Craig Smith. “Every time you talk to Vincent, he’s on a mission in a world hot spot – in the Mojave Desert in California, in the jungle in Brazil or in Fukushima where he’s working with United Nations on the recovery stage. His presentation promises to be fascinating.”

Delegates will have the opportunity to attend a masterclass with Covello, as well as with international expert on workplace fatigue management, Professor Drew Dawson, Director of the Appleton Institute in Adelaide.

Other keynote speakers at HASANZ CONFERENCE 2016 include award winning journalist and author Rebecca Macfie, Australasian advertising guru Peter Biggs, outgoing WorkSafe NZ CE Gordon MacDonald and GM Health and Safety at Melbourne Water, David Tregoweth.

In addition, there are more than 25 presentations from other high quality speakers.

For more information, go to the HASANZ CONFERENCE 2016 website

www.hasanz.org.nz/conference

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