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Speaker 1: It's Health and Safety Week because finally the government looks

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Speaker 1: to bring a bit of real world back to the

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Speaker 1: mad business of rules and regulation around the workplace in

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Speaker 1: our roads. So low risk businesses are set to have

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Speaker 1: life made easier good. The focus will be on risk

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Speaker 1: good as opposed to a lot of rules. Our Workplace

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Speaker 1: Relations and Safety Minister Brooklynvelden is with us. Very good

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Speaker 1: morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning mate.

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Speaker 1: Now, I was following your press presser yesterday with the

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister with a great deal of interest, and you

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Speaker 1: tease this, You tease us with a whole seemingly a

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Speaker 1: whole week worth of reveals. Do you have a whole

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Speaker 1: week worth of reveals coming?

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Speaker 2: I do, indeed, and not only that, but I've got

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Speaker 2: months of reveals coming. This is just the first of

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Speaker 2: the first tranch of health and safety reforms through the year.

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Speaker 1: Are you upending us?

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Speaker 2: Well, what we've heard is that for most companies, by

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Speaker 2: and large, they're happy with the bones of the Health

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Speaker 2: and Safety at Work Act, but we are making some

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Speaker 2: significant changes. Like you have said, one of the things

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Speaker 2: I heard from traveling from Fang Day to Bluff talking

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Speaker 2: to small business and workers was that most of them

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Speaker 2: don't know what to do to comply, and we know

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Speaker 2: that businesses are already stressed. We're trying to figure out

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Speaker 2: the Holidays Act on top of this, as well as

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Speaker 2: how do you get money in and out of the door.

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Speaker 2: We're going to make it a lot clearer, so you

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Speaker 2: only need to focus on your critical risks, things that

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Speaker 2: will actually cause people harm, rather than posters saying warning

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Speaker 2: hot water or warning here is a staircase. We've got

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Speaker 2: to bring some common sense back to New Zealand and

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Speaker 2: to business.

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Speaker 1: How much of that is ideological on your part versus

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Speaker 1: practical because in my experience, to be frank, a lot

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Speaker 1: of that stuff, you know, the silly stuff is ignored anyway.

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Speaker 2: Well, a lot of it is companies finding they're spending

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Speaker 2: a lot of money on over compliance because they are

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Speaker 2: fearful of prosecution, you know, and we've heard it even

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Speaker 2: in the case of traffic management that sometimes some companies

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Speaker 2: are spending nearly half of their project cost on temporary

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Speaker 2: traffic management. So we're bringing some common sense back and saying, look,

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Speaker 2: in some cases you're doing too much and in some

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Speaker 2: cases we need to focus less on the paperwork and

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Speaker 2: making sure that works safe has a paper trail and

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Speaker 2: more on how you actually reduce harm in your workplace.

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Speaker 2: Let's go back to what you can recognize as things

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Speaker 2: that could cause death or serious illness and injury, and

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Speaker 2: not sweet the small stuff.

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Speaker 1: The road cone thing, the temporary traffic management is somebody

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Speaker 1: ultimately in this country in charge of that or is

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Speaker 1: it a local authority thing? And therefore getting on top

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Speaker 1: of it in a consistent fashion is going to be

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Speaker 1: a problem.

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Speaker 2: We can get on top of it. What we've heard

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Speaker 2: everywhere in New Zealand is there are far too many

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Speaker 2: road cones. And I agree Minister Chris Bishop is responsible

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Speaker 2: for MZTA. They have a new temporary Traffic Management guide

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Speaker 2: that has been released and what we'll be doing is

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Speaker 2: working together to ensure that people around the country know

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Speaker 2: what it is and that it is a risk based

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Speaker 2: guide and we should see fewer road cones on the streets.

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Speaker 2: But what I'm doing is guiding work to go out

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Speaker 2: into the community, find instances of over compliance, too many

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Speaker 2: road cones and actually tell people that they're doing too much.

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Speaker 2: We actually need some sense and letting people know that

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Speaker 2: there is guidance out there.

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Speaker 1: Is there this hotline, is there a person on the

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Speaker 1: end of it, are they offshore in Malaysia and will

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Speaker 1: anything actually be done.

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Speaker 2: What I've been doing is having some very blue conversations

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Speaker 2: with work Safe that the will will be funded through

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Speaker 2: their baselines. Now, we don't have a number for the

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Speaker 2: phone line just yet because I don't want people calling

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Speaker 2: in before the program's actually live. But we'll be working

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Speaker 2: for twelve months. People can let work Safe know. The

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Speaker 2: investigators will be going out and letting people know whether

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Speaker 2: or not they're doing too much or whether they think

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Speaker 2: the guidance is actually sufficient and they're doing enough. But

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Speaker 2: my hope here by the end of it is that

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Speaker 2: we will actually have a bit more respect for road

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Speaker 2: workers and people putting out the cone because we'll be

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Speaker 2: seeing less of it and they'll be less frustration. People

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Speaker 2: will be able to pick up their kids, go to

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Speaker 2: work and know that the road cones they're seeing are

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Speaker 2: genuinely there to reduce their harm and the harm of

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Speaker 2: people working.

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Speaker 1: All I can do is wish you the very best,

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Speaker 1: appreciate time Brook ben Felden workplace relations in say a

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Speaker 1: few minutes

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Speaker 2: For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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