HEALTH AND SAFETY REFORM BILL “Chronic Unease” Presented by Scott Ratuki and Karina McLuskie.

HEALTH AND SAFETY REFORM BILL

“Chronic Unease”

Presented by

Scott Ratuki and Karina McLuskie

• First reading – 13 March 2014

• Submissions received – over 230

• Select Committee Report – 24 July 2015

• Expected to pass into law start to mid 2016

• Expected to come into force in mid 2016

Parliamentary Process

Pike River Mine disaster and Royal Commission of Enquiry – a catalyst

for reform• Creation of Worksafe NZ with more resources• 115 – 151 inspectors• Aiming for 200 by 2016

• 75 people killed each year• 600 – 900 deaths from work related

diseases• 200,000 ACC claims• Estimated overall costs $3.5 billion

• Risk based, not injury based

• Focused on prevention

• Safe Work Australia last year had 82,000 visits to

check on work practices

• 55,000 responses to injury events

Our reforms based on the Australia

Model Laws

Primary Focus is on securing the health and safety of workers and

providing a high level of protection against harm to their health, safety and welfare from hazards and risks

arising from work.

Enforcement

Company Individual as an officer

Individual as a worker

Category 1(Reckless conduct)

$3 million $600,000OR five years in jail,OR both

$300,000OR five years in jail,OR both

Category 2(Failure to comply with a duty exposing to risk of death or serious injury)

$1.5 million $300,000 $150,000

Category 3(Failure to comply with a duty)

$500,000 $100,000 $50,000

Category 4 Breaching other specific requirements – various fines of lesser amounts• e.g. section 52 requirement to maintain records of

notifiable events - $25,000

Four categories of offences

Key Changes and DefinitionsPCBU

• Person conducting a business or undertaking• Primary duty to ensure as far as is reasonably practicable the health

and safety of workers at work• Currently duties are on these controlling a place of work• The definition of PCBU is wider than “employer”• “Business” – a business is usually an enterprise conducted with a

view to making profit and having a degree of organisation, systems and continuity.

• “Undertaking” – an undertaking may have some degree of organisation, systems and continuity, but it is not profit making or usually commercial in nature.

PCBUs

• PCBU is not:o A workero An officer of the business or undertakingo a volunteer organisationo An occupier of a home employing someone in the home

• PCBU can not be for profit – if it hires staff e.g. admin staff will be a PCBU

Work

• What is “work” helps inform when it is a business or undertaking

• Involves physical or mental effort

• Activities for which people are usually paid

• Activities that are part of a process

• Where control is exercised

• Less likely where

o it is purely domestic, recreational or social

o the activity is ad hoc or unorganised

The organisation is a PCBU and will owe duties, including to all its workers, (paid or volunteers)

The organisation is a VOLUNTEER ASSOCIATION. It is not a PCBU and does not owe any duties under the Bill.

PCBU or Volunteer Association?

Are you and all others involved in the business or undertaking acting on a voluntary basis?

Are you working for a community purpose?

Do any of you employ someone to carry out work for the business or undertaking?

NO

NO

NO

YESYES

YES

• Primary duties all on PCBUs who:

o Manage or control a workplace

o Manage or control fixtures, fittings or plant at workplaces

o Design plant, substances, or structures

o Import, supply, install, construct or commission plant or

structures

• Duties also fall on officers, non-officers and workers

Duties

Workers• Workers are a wider group than employees

• Employees

• Contractors or subcontractors

• Employees of a contractor or subcontractor

• Outworker

• Apprentices or trainees

• Persons undertaking work experience or work trials

• Volunteers

Duty holders are required to comply with key principles:

• Eliminate risks as far as is reasonably practicable

• “Reasonably practicable” means what is or was reasonably able

to be done at a particular time to ensure health and safety,

taking into account and weighing up all reasonable matters”

• Replaces the concept of “all practicable steps”

• If you cannot eliminate, then minimise. Gone is the other

option – to isolate

Key Principles

Duties of Officers

• If a PCBU has a duty or an obligation under the Act, an officer must

exercise due diligence to ensure the PCBU complies

• Gone is Section 56 which placed duties on officers only when

officers participate in health and safety management

• Duty is now to be proactive

If PCBU is:

• a company, then the directors

• a partnership, then any partner

• a body corporate or an unincorporated body or person in a role

comparable to a director

• a board then its board members

Includes any other person who makes decisions that affect the

whole or a substantial part of a business or undertaking, i.e. Chief

Executive, Chairperson etc

Acquire and keep up to date knowledge of health and safety matters

Gain an understanding of the risks and hazards associated with the conduct of the business

Due Diligence duty

Ensure the PCBU has appropriate resources and processes for responding to information regarding incidents, hazards and risks in a timely way

Ensure the PCBU has, and uses, appropriate resources and processes

Ensuring the PCBU has, and implements processes for complying with duties under the legislation

A Main Focus of the Legislation

Practical Considerations for Officers

• Policy and Planning

• Delivery of Objectives

• Monitoring the PCBU’s Policies

• Effective Review at Board Level

In Practice

• Cannot insure for penalties

• Cannot transfer a duty or contract out of a duty

• Strong paper trail of compliance steps essential

• First thing WorkSafe inspectors will look at

• Proactivity, not acquiescence

Delivery of Objectives

• Does your health and safety management system reflect best practice?

Outside appraisal

• Systems for risk identification

• Consideration of full range of risks

• Keep tabs on organisational change

• Sufficiency of processes when there is an emergency

• Right people at all levels of delivery

• Sufficiency of plant and equipment