First set of changes for health and safety reform

The changes are part of the wider health and safety system reform and deliver on the ACT-National Coalition Agreement commitment to reform New Zealand’s health and safety laws and regulations.

This initial set of changes aim to help reduce compliance burden and clarify health and safety duties, including by:

• limiting the health and safety obligations of small, low-risk businesses to providing basic workplace facilities and only managing critical risk,
• sharpening the primary purpose of the Health and Safety at Work Act to focus on critical risk,
• addressing overcompliance due to overlapping health and safety duties by clarifying the boundaries between the Act and regulatory systems that already manage the same risk,
• cutting compliance costs by reducing notification requirements to the regulator to only significant workplace events,
• providing a hotline for the public to report excessive road cone use, and for WorkSafe to confirm and provide guidance on instances of overcompliance,
• freeing up private and public land for recreational use and ensure health and safety duties for landowners and land managers are reasonable and proportionate, 
• clarifying the distinction between governance and operational management health and safety responsibilities to reduce directors’ fear and risks of overcompliance, and
• changing the Approved Codes of Practice model to increase business and worker certainty about what they need to do to comply with their health and safety duties.

There will be further announcements this year on other changes as part of the reform.

Read the Minister’s announcements:

Going for growth: cutting health and safety red tape(external link) — Beehive.govt.nz

Freeing the great outdoors from health and safety scope creep(external link) — Beehive.govt.nz

Health and safety governance and management change coming(external link) — Beehive.govt.nz

Reducing ambiguity about what is reasonably practicable for health and safety compliance(external link) — Beehive.govt.nz

Find out more in our health and safety reform section:

Health and safety reform