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The New Year has certainly started with a bang, with the sudden decision of Jacinda Ardern to resign from her role as Prime Minister and Member of Parliament. Whatever your political leanings may be, or your personal views on her policies, one thing I think we can all agree on is that she has significantly raised the bar on how New Zealand politicians are viewed on the world stage.
Whether it has been her addresses to the United Nations, leadership on the Christchurch call, or appearances on US talk shows, Jacinda Ardern has represented the country extremely well. Her passion, empathy, and willingness to take the tough decisions reflect on the people of New Zealand, and we get to feel a small bit of collective pride in New Zealand’s place in the world. Internally, I am not so sure that this has been the case, as we have also witnessed a large amount of negative social media activity pointed in her direction.
My takeaway from her years in power is all about the old saying ‘it’s not what happens that matters, it is all about how you react’. During her leadership she has had plenty of challenges to react to, and most of it unforeseen. I think that her responses have been dignified, well considered, and always tackled head on. The banning of assault rifles was a major piece of hazard elimination which has significantly reduced the risk of such an event ever occurring again.
My focus for the new year is to try concentrate more on my responses and less on what happens.
My question for the health and safety industry is we can we react in a similar way. If an accident or serious injury occurs on one of our sites, would we rush to assign blame or instead rush to understand why the event occurred, and what we can do to stop those conditions occurring again. If we faced another serious risk (like covid) to both our wellbeing and economic livelihoods, would we learn from our previous responses and try and do better?
If we observe unsafe physical or mental behavior, do we stand up and say something, or do we leave it for someone else to deal with? If we know that we have some challenges in our workplaces, do we proactively seek out knowledge and training to help solve them? In short, are we part of the problem, or part of the solution?
In this respect our choices are simple. Do we accept the status quo or make a conscious effort to do things better. The status quo in New Zealand is currently two construction deaths per month.
My New Year resolution is to try and raise the bar in what I do.
Paul Duggan, General Manager
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