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In the big scheme of things, an organisation like the Safety Charter is somewhat small potatoes. We are a regional entity, set up for a specific purpose, and the period for that purpose has come and gone. There are now a whole plethora of health and safety organisations operating in the same space as the Charter, and the HSWA legislation of 2015 cemented many of the original aims of the Charter into legislation.
But the Charter provides something unique. I know of no other organisation like us in either New Zealand or Australia. We connect people both vertically and horizontally, in that we can have a CEO and a worker in the same room, or a group of health and safety advisors from a range of organisation’s. We provide a ‘safe’ forum for robust and honest discussion about the challenges facing all stakeholders in health, safety and wellbeing.
We also pride ourselves in engaging with the people on the ground, those who are doing the work in improving health and safety outcomes for workers. I have never met a collective group as passionate about the work that they do as health and safety managers, advisors and representatives. These people are at the heart of the Charter and are the ones who must successfully manage health and safety both up and down the chain.
They have the unenviable task of having to implement policies that come from top down and be the channel of communication of concerns from the bottom up. The skills required to be a successful HSA are many and varied, but each one of them has a desire to improve the safety and wellbeing of their colleagues.
During my time with the Charter, we have run multiple events on leadership, culture, HSR’s, mental health, Covid, Musculo-skeletal diseases, long term health effects, communication skills, BIMSafe, conferences, risk assessments, psycho-social risks, technology, SME’s etc etc. I have written numerous articles on contemporary health and safety issues and asked many questions of the industry.
However, the big question remains. Ten years since the introduction of HSWA, why is New Zealand’s health and safety record still lagging behind our OECD equivalents, and why are New Zealand’s workplace death rates still so high? Two recent reports by the Business Leaders Health and safety Forum (Thriving Nation, and Been there, not done that) provide some in-depth analysis of our failure to improve our collective health and safety performance.
I believe that the answer lies somewhere in the fractured nature of the oversight of health and safety in New Zealand. WorkSafe, ACC, and MBIE all seem to play a significant role, but no one seems to be ultimately accountable. The saga of the proposed changes to mobile plant and structures regulations is a good example of this. I think the process began in 2019 with a briefing paper to Cabinet, followed by industry consultation, and a draft set of proposed changes in 2021. Since then, there has been radio silence, although I note that a new consultation process on health and safety has been instigated by the workplace Relations minister, the Hon. Brooke van Velden.
The most successful organisation’s are the ones that ultimately do themselves out of a job, that through the work that they do, their reason for existence has been extinguished. For the Safety Charter this is partly true. We were established so that no more people died during the rebuild of Canterbury following the earthquakes. In this goal we were very successful, and a review conducted in 2017 found that the earthquake response returned between $3 and $6 for each dollar invested through reduced ACC claims, and lost work time. This is a phenomenal return and reflects the value that these types of initiatives can produce. For comparison, WorkSafe spent $15 million annually over the last several years on injury prevention initiatives and generated a return of just 18 cents in the dollar.
The Safety Charter could never have existed without the collective work of a large number of volunteers. They all shared the Charter’s vision and were willing to give their time and expertise in the name of a very special cause. There are too many to name, but they know who they are, and I sent a very sincere thank you to all of them.
Finally, a big thank you to the person who has really kept the wheels on during her time at the Charter, Jocelyn started in 2018 and has remained at the coalface doing the hard work of every aspect of the Charter’s existence. She prefers to remain in the background, but there is nothing that has happened here that does not bear her signature.
Everything in the Universe, and I literally mean every single thing, has a beginning, and an end.
And each ending also marks the start of a new beginning.
Paul Duggan, General Manager
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