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Speaker 1: Afternoon. The government has today announced a drastic overhaul of

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Speaker 1: work Safe. Instead of enforcing workplace safety, it will now

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Speaker 1: offer advice to workplaces on how they can be safer.

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Speaker 1: There's also that new road cone tip line. Jeff Sissons

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Speaker 1: is the CEO of the New Zealand Institute for Safety Management.

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Speaker 2: Hey Jeff, Hey Heather, how are you well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? Do you like it?

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Speaker 2: We're we're skeptical. There's a lot of stuff on the

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Speaker 2: face of this announcement that sounds good, like focusing on

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Speaker 2: the things that matter, do better guidance, inspect. This should

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Speaker 2: be clear and more helpful. So far, so good, But

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Speaker 2: we think that these reforms are really wishful thinking because

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Speaker 2: work Safe has been cut over the last couple of years,

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Speaker 2: and now the minister wants the skeleton to dance because

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Speaker 2: there's no more money in the budget here.

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Speaker 1: Well would they, wouldn't they simply? I just assumed that

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Speaker 1: they would redirect the resources they had been using for

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Speaker 1: enforcement into offering advice, wouldn't they.

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Speaker 2: They're still they still have to enforce things worth remembering

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Speaker 2: that this is criminal law. Often somebody has died here

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Speaker 2: and we wouldn't say to the police we want you

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Speaker 2: to just provide more advice and stop stop enforcing the

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Speaker 2: criminal law. And work Safe's already lost twenty percent of

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Speaker 2: their staff, so we think the cupboard is really bear here.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do you agree with the minister that employers are

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Speaker 1: afraid of work safe prosecutions?

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Speaker 2: It's not something that I've heard very often. To be

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Speaker 2: honest with you, really, most employers haven't seen or heard

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Speaker 2: much of work Safe. So I take the winner's threat

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Speaker 2: of words she's heard from some employers, but it's certainly

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Speaker 2: not something that else.

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Speaker 1: Is that not? I mean, let's use the road cone example,

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Speaker 1: which is the example that's being used today by everybody.

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Speaker 1: Is that not? Does that not the idea that perhaps

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Speaker 1: the traffic management companies or the roading authorities are afraid

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Speaker 1: of prosecution? Does that not go some way to explaining

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Speaker 1: the abundance of road cones and how overly cautious they are.

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Speaker 2: It's important to remember that work Safe is not responsible

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Speaker 2: for the road cones. That sends ZTA. They had some

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Speaker 2: really fiendishly complicated, dodgy guidance.

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Speaker 1: Will they not interpret it interpreting what work safe was doing?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 1: No, it looks completely related, is it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? And now work Safe is carrying the can for

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Speaker 2: that by way of this hotline, and work Safe inspectors

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Speaker 2: can't tell people to have less road cones or do

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Speaker 2: less it's really just distracting work Safe from the job

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Speaker 2: that they should have of keeping people safer. It's worth

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Speaker 2: remembering here that New Zealand. You're sixty percent more likely

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Speaker 2: to die in New Zealand than in Australia and six

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Speaker 2: hundred percent more likely than in the UK.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. Hey, thank you very much, Jeff. That was really interesting.

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Speaker 1: That's Jeff Sison's chief executive officer of the New Zealand

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Speaker 1: Institute of Safety Management.

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