"Business leaders slam 'disgraceful' lack of workplace health and safety", 10 June 2024

A damning report by senior business leaders says New Zealand's history of health and safety failings and poor progress is "disgraceful", and calls for better regulation and enforcement.

The 'Been There. Done That' report ... into New Zealand's repeated health and safety failures ....

...

The report outlined five key recommendations, which the taskforce believed could be done within six months:

• Rewrite and relaunch the 2018-2028 Health and Safety Strategy....
• Review and implement priority regulatory changes to ensure the most appropriate mix of regulations, codes and guidance to clearly specify business' accountabilities and expectations.
• Apply the rules clearly and fairly and oversee them expertly to ensure poor or negligent business practices are consistently held to account, and leading performance is incentivised.
• Establish an independent oversight function....
• Establish and maintain a coherent, credible and current body of government and industry data and insights to inform and focus WorkSafe NZ and business health and safety efforts.