Annex II: Overview of the health and safety regulatory regime
On this page
Health and Safety at Work Act 2015
The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSW Act) provides a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces. A guiding principle of the HSW Act is that workers and others should be given the highest level of protection against harm to their health, safety and welfare from work risks so far as is reasonably practicable.
The HSW Act places a primary duty on a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, and workers whose activities in carrying out the work are influenced or directed by the PCBU while carrying out the work.
It also requires PCBUs to follow a hierarchy of controls when managing risks to health and safety. Where reasonably practicable, the risks must be eliminated, and where it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risks, they must be minimised.
The HSW Act and supporting regulations include a range of subordinate duties and processes to ensure PCBUs manage risks to workers and others. These may apply to practices in all workplaces, specific types of workplaces or sectors, and particular risks.
The HSW Act is designed to be supported by regulations and other legislative tools to provide any necessary additional detail on how duty holders can meet their duties.
HSW Act legislative framework
The HSW Act provides for a range of tools that can specify controls for managing work-related risks, as shown below.
HSW Act
- Performance-based general duties
- Broad coverage of work and work places
- Has legal effect
Regulations
- Mandatory controls for specific risks
- Can set an outcome or process with flexibility for duty holders, or can be prescriptive
- Have legal effect
Safe work instruments
- Detailed and technical matters that may change relatively frequently
- Have the legal effect given to them in regulations
Approved codes of practice
- Guidance about best practice usually developed with industry and workers
- Practical and usually giveprescriptive detail
- Establish accepted way of complying with HSW Act - do not limit ways of complying
- Can be reiled on in court as evidence of compliance3
Other types of guidance
- Can take various forms and cover a range of information, including general explanatory information about duties or the regulators' position on best practice
- Cannot be relied on in court as evidence but relevant to compliance with HSW Act
In practice these tools are not mutually exclusive, but work together to ensure duty holders have the appropriate obligations underpinned and supported by the necessary detail and guidance at the right level, so they can effectively manage the risks arising from work:
- The HSW Act has performance-based general duties – these specify the outcome required, that duty holders must protect workers and others from work-related harm, rather than specifying the specific actions duty holders must take. This provides both flexibility for duty holders and broad coverage of New Zealand work and workplaces.
- Industry- or risk-specific regulations, approved codes of practice and guidance underpin the general duties in the HSW Act when further clarity is required.
- Regulations are most appropriately used where they are needed to effectively address risks – the riskier something is the more likely it is to need mandatory controls through regulations.
- Safe Work Instruments are most effective where prescribing controls for more detailed requirements, or technical matters that may change frequently. They do not have legal effect on their own, but only to the extent they are referred to in regulations.
- Approved codes of practice and guidance do not provide mandatory controls. They provide further support to duty holders in meeting their general duties, and are appropriate, for example, where there might be a range of effective ways of managing a particular risk.