RECENT NEWS

That appears to be the question of the day. We are getting asked this often. The question is always accompanied by – my client won’t let us on site unless we are vaccinated, my customers are saying they won’t use us unless we are fully vaccinated, the newspaper reports that The Warehouse is proposing compulsory vaccination. The answer is very complicated. COVID-19 is challenging enough from a health and safety perspective, but many of the issues need to be managed under HR. T

New Zealand, along with the rest of the world, has been through a unique experience, one we hope never to repeat. The craziness of panic buying hand sanitiser, toilet paper and PPE looms large in our memories. COVID-19 highlighted many positive aspects of humanity and identified other areas where we did not stand for the greater good. Like many others, I tried to buy, with limited success, hand sanitiser for my on-the-road workers to keep in their vehicles. If I were honest,

Have you ever come across roadworks and been confused by the traffic management? Maybe the gaps between the cones are large enough for a vehicle to move between, maybe there are conflicting arrows, maybe there doesn’t appear to be any reason for them. The risk of a vehicle incident is much higher when the traffic management plan appears confusing, both for the road users and for the road workers. Your workplace can be just as confusing and high-risk, particularly if people a

Last week I was asked to meet with an organisation to talk about providing health and safety support to them. This happens frequently, which is just as well, or I wouldn’t have a business. Why am I writing about this meeting – what was different about it? The difference is that I had first spoken to them a few years ago. Three years ago, we had almost the same conversation. I told them what Safewise could do to support them and they talked about being able to do it themselves

This is one of the most frequent statements I hear: health and safety is just common sense. But is this true? WorkSafe New Zealand put out a media release recently about a driver who was watering a track. He was travelling at low speed. He allowed two young boys, around 10 years old, to climb on and over the tanker truck as it was moving along. One of the boys fell off and was badly injured. No doubt the driver thought the kids were just having an adventure, and how bad coul

WorkSafe NZ put out a media release on 23rd August 2017 containing the details of the first sentencing following a prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA). This has taken a long time as WorkSafe now have 12 months to decide if they are going to lay a prosecution, rather than the six months under the old act. The incident occurred on the 6th April 2016, two days after the new legislation was enacted. A worker had his hand caught as he fed product into