Unsafe, unwieldy and unworkable: The Government further mangles the health and safety law

Today the Government has released the draft list of 57 industries that it considers high risk. In industries which aren’t on the list, workers won't have the right to request health and safety representatives in small-to-medium businesses. The Minister suggests the exemption will cover around a quarter of the whole workforce- more than half a million workers.

Jeff Sissons CTU General Counsel says “this approach is unsafe, unwieldly and unworkable.”

“The ‘high risk’ industry list is based on an arbitrary cut-off of 25 fatalities per 100,000 workers since 2008 or a serious injury rate of more than 25 per 1,000 workers since 2008.

Sissons says “This random cut off signals that health and safety is less important in some industries than others. We know that New Zealand’s health and safety performance is much worse than comparable countries (twice the fatality rate of Australia, more than three times that of the United Kingdom). Our poor record is across all sectors and industries not some."

"International evidence is clear that worker reps keep workers safe. Small businesses are more dangerous than larger ones. Why does Minister Woodhouse favour weaker health and safety protections for workers in the most dangerous businesses?”

Ends.

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