Source: Radio New Zealand
A November 2010 photo showing flames coming out of a ventilation shaft at the Pike River Coal mine near Greymouth. AFP/Pool
Almost 15 years after 29 men were killed in the explosions at Pike River mine, new research shows New Zealand’s health and safety record remains poor, with workers here more likely to die than in Australia or the United Kingdom.
Research by the Public Health Communication Centre identified persistent issues – including weak enforcement, inadequate fines and poor understanding of legal duties among employers and political leaders.
Dr Christopher Peace, the lead author of the research, said while there were changes following the 2010 mining disaster, things were now sliding backwards and there had been no substantive change in the number of work related deaths in the last 15 years.
New Zealand’s workplace fatality rate was now twice as bad as Australia’s and four times as bad as the United Kingdom’s.
“Quite honestly, for a country that thinks it cares about people, for a country that thinks it’s pretty good, I’m afraid we’re doing disgracefully.”
Dr Christopher Peace, lead author of the research into workplace fatalities, 15 years on from Pike River. Supplied
He said it also came at a significant cost – more than $5.4 billion in the last year was spent on compensation, re-training and addressing the psychological harm to family, friends and workmates.
The findings come as the government shifts its work health and safety regulator’s priorities from enforcement to advice, saying it will address concerns about underfunding and a culture of fear.
Peace said the Pike River disaster revealed inadequate legislation and that directors were not doing enough to meet health and safety requirements, or being held to account for those failings.
He said the subsequent Health and Safety at Work Act that was introduced in 2015 was based on the United Kingdom’s legislation, but the outcomes there were better because the law was applied sternly and consistently in workplaces.
“In New Zealand, we’ve gone almost in the opposite direction, we’ve lost the people with experience in WorkSafe, we’ve hired a whole lot of new inspectors, hoping that they will do something in an advisory way that will turn the tide but that isn’t how it works, sometimes you have to be an enforcer.
“Being an advisor really doesn’t get people to understand they’re dealing with risk to people, risks of killing them, seriously injuring them, maybe leaving people incapacitated for the rest of their lives.
Anna Osborne, whose husband Milton died at Pike River, said she was shocked but not surprised there had been little change in the rate of workplace fatalities since then.
“We lobbied the government for stronger health and safety rules and regulations in the workplace, but to find that they’re being watered down at the moment by the government, it just makes me sick to think that another Pike River could actually happen again.”
Anna Osborne holds a photo of her husband Milton. RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
She wants to see health and safety regulations strengthened.
“I’d really like to see heavier penalties, to be honest, like corporate manslaughter, fines that are way higher than what they are now because you look at Australia and they’re doing so much better than what New Zealand is.”
She and Sonya Rockhouse, whose son Ben died in the mine, are meeting the Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden in Wellington next week, on the 15th anniversary of the Pike River disaster.
“Hopefully get her to understand that this is not a joke, if your husband or your son or anybody doesn’t return home from work in New Zealand, it’s just not acceptable, people should be able to go to work and come home after their day is done.”
Van Velden said too many people die at work and she has proposed reforms she said would help businesses better manage critical risks.
“The government wants [businesses] to focus on the direct results of the actions they are taking on the ground and identifying which actions could cause death and serious injury, spending less time ticking the box, and more time focusing on critical risk.”
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden. Marika Khabazi
She said a decade after the Health and Safety at Work legislation was introduced, there had been no significant reduction in workplace fatalities and she was confident the proposed changes would result in fewer workplace deaths.
“The whole law and the purpose behind it is that there will be more information given to businesses upfront, there will be [more] inspectors than we have ever had under this government, going out to businesses and letting them know what it is they should be doing right and for prosecutions, we will be focusing on genuine areas of negligence.”
Nigel Hampton KC, who represented some of the Pike families, said he was worried the nation had forgetten the lessons from the disaster, and that another health and safety calamity was inevitable.
“We saw what de-escalation of the regulator looked like in Pike, there was no rigidity of a regulator at all, and indeed it was almost non-existent on the Pike River site.
“A regulator has to be at a distance, it’s got to be objective and it’s got to be prepared to take enforcement action, including prosecutions, if needs be.”
He said the move away from enforcement was concerning, and prescriptive regulation was not about ticking boxes.
“It is ensuring that the health and safety protocols within a particular business are up to scratch and are being applied, and if they’re not being applied, then enforcement notices made by the regulator and then if that fails, then prosecutions are taken.”
Pike families are now waiting for police to reveal whether they plan to lay any criminal charges as a result of the mens’ deaths, with a decision is expected before Christmas.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
