RECENT NEWS

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

WorkSafe New Zealand have just released the first sentencing under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This was for a machinery guarding incident; a worker had his hand caught, and lost most of his fingers. The company had identified a problem with the guarding six weeks prior to the incident, but had not taken any action towards fixing it. The fine was $100,000 which is an increase from $30,000 to $40,000 under the old Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. The fine w

I’ve been to a few training sessions recently where people are talking about work as it is done. Traditionally, health and safety has been based on fear, problems, and, sometimes, blame. Health and safety has had an image of being the “fun police”, not about people. It would be fair to say that putting rules in place and insisting on compliance is the starting point for most companies, especially those who are just starting the health and safety journey. There is a place for

Recently WorkSafe NZ announced that there had been seven workers killed at work, in a three-week period. At least two were forklift related; one involved a swing lift. It would be very easy to say that each of these people were in a place they shouldn’t have been, and that would probably be true. But, it is just the smallest part of the answer. It’s like saying wearing a hi viz vest will save your life. It will make you more visible, but it won’t make the injury less if you

As business owners, or managers, there are a few things that can keep us awake at night: paying the bills, having enough work, having too much work, and our workers having an accident. Accidents do happen, our job is to put systems in place to prevent them. One way we can do this is by investigating all accidents. This includes accidents which result in injury, and those that result in property damage. It’s also essential that we investigate near misses. These are a golden o

The NZ Herald recently had a couple of articles about a car versus a bus accident in Te Anau. The first photo I saw was the burnt wreck of both vehicles. However, the second article I saw showed the vehicles fully alight, flames leaping high, and black smoke filling the sky. The article read that the man inside the car was screaming for help. Around the same time, there was a fatal car versus train incident near Matamata. The photos, and story, about the Te Anau accident app

Recently I undertook site audits for a client who is helping with the Edgecumbe disaster recovery. It was very interesting to see the damage, and the clean-up which is underway. It was also heart breaking looking at the mess - the damaged houses were somebody’s pride and joy. Whilst I was in Edgecumbe, I heard a lot of people saying that no one could have predicted the floods. That may be true, but, as business owners or managers we should be identifying the potential emerge