Hon Brooke van Velden
Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety

Health and safety regulations for laboratory work are not fit for purpose, and regulatory relief is coming, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden confirmed today.

“Nonsensical health and safety compliance was identified as a major pain point for research laboratories during my roadshows and in feedback through submissions. I’m pleased to back scientists to use their expertise to assess risks and put in place effective controls targeted to these highly specialised environments,” says Ms van Velden.

Currently, those working in research, teaching and testing laboratories are subject to the same regulatory requirements as industrial operations that use hazardous substances, such as petrol refineries.

“Research laboratory work is typically smaller-scale and often use a larger range of hazardous substances than industrial operations, whereas the current regulations are more easily applied to situations using a few substances in large quantities.

“Not only are the current rules impractical, in some cases they could end up making laboratory work more dangerous. Some of the examples I heard included:

• Laboratories with self-reactive substances are required to be on the ground floor of buildings. But locating laboratories on upper levels makes more sense from a safety perspective because it allows people to get out if there is a fire.
• Cabinets used to store certain amounts of flammable substances must be separated by three metres. To meet this requirement, laboratories would need to be made significantly larger, or the hazardous substances would need to be moved frequently from outside the laboratory, which increases handling risks.
• Some flammable substances must be managed in workrooms that meet specified fire-resistance ratings. Many research laboratories were not constructed to those standards. Fire risk can be effectively managed in other ways, including storage in industry-standard cabinets and the use of ventilation or sprinkler systems.

Universities New Zealand and the Independent Research Association of New Zealand estimate that the costs of compliance, unless changes are made, is likely to be between $1.5 billion to $3 billion.

“Research laboratories used to be treated differently, with their own compliance pathway under a code of practice. Today’s issues have arisen because that pathway was removed by regulatory amendments in 2017. The Government at the time intended to replace the pathway with a better mechanism for laboratories, however, that did not happen, so research laboratories have been bound by overly restrictive rules for nearly a decade.

“This Government will deliver what laboratories have been waiting for since 2017. There will be new tailored regulations for the sector and an Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) that will set out clear guidance on how to manage these risks.

“This is part of my wider health and safety system reform focused on making regulations workable so Kiwis can get on with their work safely without over-zealous rules holding them back,” says Ms van Velden.

The amendments to the Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017 are expected to come into force in 2026.

Notes:

• The Cabinet paper

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