Speaker 1: Hilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. A new
Speaker 2: study suggests that another Pike River mine disaster is likely.
Speaker 2: The Victoria University of Wellington researchers say the failures that
Speaker 2: led to the disaster that killed twenty nine men in
Speaker 2: twenty ten could happen again at any other organization. One
Speaker 2: of their potentially disturbing observations is that health and safety training,
Speaker 2: auditors and well qualified staff were not enough to prevent failure,
Speaker 2: and may also have provided an illusion of certainty and overconfidence.
Speaker 2: The new research has come amidst a slew of changes
Speaker 2: to health and safety legislation being pushed through by the government,
Speaker 2: which has sparked warnings from advocates. One of those advocates
Speaker 2: is Like Cosmon, an independent health and safety practitioner who
Speaker 2: sat on the Independent Task Force on Workplace Health and
Speaker 2: Safety established after the Pike River disaster. He joins us
Speaker 2: now on the Front Page to discuss this new study
Speaker 2: and the proposed changes. So this new case study of
Speaker 2: Pike River warns we could very well see another similar
Speaker 2: disaster in the future, even fifteen years on You've done
Speaker 2: a lot of work around workplace health and safety of
Speaker 2: course over the decades. Tell me what have we learned
Speaker 2: since then? If anything, I think what we've.
Speaker 3: Learned is that disasters can still happen. Obviously Pike River
Speaker 3: was the most relevant one in this context, but it
Speaker 3: wasn't the first disaster that we had in the mining industry.
Speaker 3: If we look internationally, we know that disasters have occurred
Speaker 3: in a whole variety of different spectors, ranging from adventure
Speaker 3: activity with dream world, chemical plant, mines, ferries, railways and
Speaker 3: the like. And so I think one of the things
Speaker 3: that we have to reflect on is the fact that
Speaker 3: wherever there are activities that involve a lot of people
Speaker 3: and a lot of energy, then the potential for that
Speaker 3: energy to be released and people to be harmed is
Speaker 3: ever present. And whilst it may be very rare, when
Speaker 3: it does happen, it's catastrophic. And so the challenge for
Speaker 3: busy managers and directors is to say, well, you know,
Speaker 3: is it worth investing in reducing the likelihood of this
Speaker 3: occurring when I've got more pressing problems that I have
Speaker 3: to deal with immediately. And I think the Pike River
Speaker 3: case study shows that they were kicking the can down
Speaker 3: the road, hoping that things would come right and that
Speaker 3: they would be able to generate revenue, get into better
Speaker 3: quality conditions, get the machinery working properly, get the team
Speaker 3: working cohesively, and that all of this would actually make
Speaker 3: things better, whereas in fact, as we know, the explosion
Speaker 3: occurred within a month of them actually trying to go
Speaker 3: into full production.
Speaker 2: The lead author of this study, doctor Richard Logan, has
Speaker 2: said whilst the subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry investigated and
Speaker 2: reported their findings as to the causes of the disaster,
Speaker 2: and this was followed by a number of articles and books,
Speaker 2: there is a general sense of unfinished business, especially in
Speaker 2: the leadership and governance space. So has anything changed or
Speaker 2: how do we change that leadership and governance space.
Speaker 3: I spend a lot of my time working with boards
Speaker 3: and senior leadership teams, and I think that there has
Speaker 3: been a significant shift. I think that they are more engaged. Clearly,
Speaker 3: part of the regulatory change that I was involved with
Speaker 3: leading was around creating this proactive due diligence duty, so
Speaker 3: that actually there is a very clear expectation not just
Speaker 3: that you wait to be told but that as a director,
Speaker 3: you need to find out, you need to ask the questions,
Speaker 3: you need to seek the information that you need in
Speaker 3: order to understand your risks. So a lot of effort
Speaker 3: has gone in particularly i would say, at the at
Speaker 3: the big end of town. But what I'm seeing is
Speaker 3: less focus in smaller businesses governance perhaps doesn't exist in
Speaker 3: the traditional form, or where the governance skills don't exist
Speaker 3: as they might amongst professional directors. I'm seeing it in
Speaker 3: offshore owned businesses in New Zealand, where we are simply
Speaker 3: a part of a much larger global business and where
Speaker 3: perhaps health and safety doesn't have as much focus. But
Speaker 3: we're also seeing people like the Institute of Directors and
Speaker 3: the guidance that was produced last year really signaling clearly
Speaker 3: what director should do. And then the most recent prosecution
Speaker 3: of Tony Gibson, the former chief executive of Ports of Auckland,
Speaker 3: have actually demonstrated that at least one of the regulators
Speaker 3: in the form of Maritime New Zealand, is willing to
Speaker 3: actually put that to the test and has secured a
Speaker 3: conviction in relation to what they believe the chief executive
Speaker 3: in a high risk business with a portrack record should
Speaker 3: be expected to do, but noticing of course that that
Speaker 3: is subject to appeal.
Speaker 1: What I can tell you is that in the opportunity
Speaker 1: I've had to speak to the family members and the
Speaker 1: time that I spent with them, there is an awful
Speaker 1: lot of sorrow in that room, but not anger. People
Speaker 1: realize that this has been a great tragedy. They deserve answers,
Speaker 1: and in due course we will have a proper investigation
Speaker 1: to deliver them those answers. But for now, people are
Speaker 1: recognizing the scale of the tragedy and taking solace from
Speaker 1: the fact that so many people from around the world
Speaker 1: are giving them comfort, love and support.
Speaker 2: When you sat on the Independent Task Force on Workplace
Speaker 2: and Health and Safety, what were some of the recommendations
Speaker 2: that were actually then made into law.
Speaker 3: We made a whole series of recommendations, and part of
Speaker 3: the framing that we used was that it was like
Speaker 3: a cloak. I think we actually had a fucker toki
Speaker 3: that said, a carefully woven cloak is a protection for
Speaker 3: us all. And we said to the Minister at the time,
Speaker 3: who was Simon Bridges, this is not a Chinese restaurant
Speaker 3: menu where you can pick and mix these things all
Speaker 3: have to be mutually reinforcing, so if you're going to
Speaker 3: do it, do it all. He agreed, and for a
Speaker 3: time it looked as if officials agreed, but then other
Speaker 3: priorities prevailed and what we ended up with was exactly
Speaker 3: what we'd feared, which was only some of the recommendations
Speaker 3: being implemented. So if we take one of the issues
Speaker 3: that the Minister is currently talking about, which is around
Speaker 3: clarity and certainty for business as to what they need
Speaker 3: to be doing in certain circumstances, that was a clear
Speaker 3: recommendation from the task Force. There was a roadmap of
Speaker 3: new regulations that was planned, but it stalled, and so
Speaker 3: we've got significant gaps in the regulatory framework. And that
Speaker 3: means that there are lots of areas, very important areas,
Speaker 3: where the detail isn't simply there to support businesses to
Speaker 3: know what they should be doing. And unfortunately that hasn't
Speaker 3: been helped because of the relatively small number of cases
Speaker 3: that go to court and actually get determined, and so
Speaker 3: we're not building up that case law, that jurisprudence that
Speaker 3: actually tells us what the courts of interpreted parliaments intend
Speaker 3: to be. And so whilst I disagree with the majority
Speaker 3: of the minister's proposals. The one thing that I think
Speaker 3: everybody agrees on is that we do need up to
Speaker 3: date relevant guidance to support business to know how to
Speaker 3: do the right thing.
Speaker 2: Of those recommendations that you made that ever made into legislation,
Speaker 2: if you had a magic pen and you had the
Speaker 2: ability to sign something off tomorrow, what do you think
Speaker 2: should be on the top of the list.
Speaker 3: So for me, it's actually seeing health and safety as
Speaker 3: being about a system, and it's a system that needs
Speaker 3: governance just the same as a business needs governance. So
Speaker 3: one of the recommendations that we made and which was
Speaker 3: implemented but probably in name rather than substance, is having
Speaker 3: a national strategy around health and safety, but that strategy
Speaker 3: actually having some oversight and some teeth. So our national strategy,
Speaker 3: which is produced in twenty eighteen, there's probably about three
Speaker 3: people in the country who are aware of it and
Speaker 3: nobody who's actually doing anything to bring it about. So
Speaker 3: there's no implementation plan for the strategy. We've got different agencies,
Speaker 3: both public sector agencies like acc Work Safe, NZTA, Maritime
Speaker 3: New Zealand, all doing their thing but not really being
Speaker 3: joined up as part of a cohesive approach. We've got
Speaker 3: different parts of the private sector, whether it's private insurers,
Speaker 3: whether it's the medical system, the training system, health and safety,
Speaker 3: professional workers. All of them are trying hard, but there
Speaker 3: is no governance. There's no overseeing group as they have
Speaker 3: in other countries, which is taking that bigger picture of
Speaker 3: you and saying how do we make sure that the
Speaker 3: whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And
Speaker 3: at the moment we're being busy, but we're not necessarily
Speaker 3: being very effective.
Speaker 2: Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brook van Velden has made
Speaker 2: a number of changes over the last year to health
Speaker 2: and safety regulation. The most recent change is that this
Speaker 2: government wants work safe to become a more supportive regulator,
Speaker 2: to ditch its adversarial culture and focus on managing critical risks.
Speaker 2: According to a report in The Herald, what do you
Speaker 2: make of this change?
Speaker 3: So the first thing is that nothing that she says
Speaker 3: appears to be based on any evidence that it will
Speaker 3: actually improve health and safety. So the driver is about
Speaker 3: reducing burdens on business improving productivity, which are all worthwhile,
Speaker 3: but ultimately the objective I believe has to be about
Speaker 3: will it reduce the burden of harm that our workers
Speaker 3: and our social welfare system, and our medical system and
Speaker 3: familism baro are all experiencing every single day. So critical risk, yes,
Speaker 3: because those are areas that cause the greatest harm in
Speaker 3: terms of severity, so the things that kill people. But
Speaker 3: that is being part of the regulator's agenda for many years.
Speaker 3: They've prioritized forestry and construction and agriculture and manufacturing and transport,
Speaker 3: so there's nothing new in that space. But by focusing
Speaker 3: exclusively on critical risk, you actually miss out on things
Speaker 3: such as like a social or harm, which we know
Speaker 3: is a massive burden on all of society. We've got
Speaker 3: some of the worst suicide rates in the world and
Speaker 3: workplace factors are a significant contribution to that. It ignores
Speaker 3: the things that cost acc and therefore us the most
Speaker 3: amount of money, which is musculo scletal disorders. They wouldn't
Speaker 3: be classed as critical risks, and so by saying that
Speaker 3: the out of scope for the legislation and the regulator,
Speaker 3: we're actually dismissing, you know, the many hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of people with damage backs and chronic injuries that don't
Speaker 3: meet the definition. So I think she's being somewhat dogmatic
Speaker 3: in her approach. What it needs is a much more
Speaker 3: nuanced approach. It isn't a question of guidance or regulation.
Speaker 3: The two have to work hand in hand. She also,
Speaker 3: I think, seems to be implying by talking about work
Speaker 3: Safe being more business friendly, that they should be out
Speaker 3: there actually acting as publicly funded business advisors. Now you
Speaker 3: know that is not the regulator's role. Businesses have to
Speaker 3: own their own risks, They have to seek their own advice.
Speaker 3: The regulator should provide the guidance, but the guidance will
Speaker 3: only be generic. How you implement it in your business
Speaker 3: will be something that each business has to work out
Speaker 3: for itself, and so I think it's the simplistic some
Speaker 3: of it, I would say is driven by dogma rather
Speaker 3: than by genuine care for improving worker health and safety.
Speaker 4: On the work safe side, I'm going to direct work
Speaker 4: Safe to confirm and provide guidance on instances of road
Speaker 4: cone over compliance. There will be a hotline for the
Speaker 4: public to report on excessive road cone use they might
Speaker 4: find out in the wild. Having work Safe focus on
Speaker 4: this will be a culture shift for the agency, but
Speaker 4: it signifies the broader direction this government is taking with
Speaker 4: the health and safety system. This is just the start
Speaker 4: of the reform program. I'll be seeking care cabnet decisions
Speaker 4: on further issues in the coming months.
Speaker 2: There have also been changes removing responsibility for company directors
Speaker 2: and boards for health and safety risks, a removal of
Speaker 2: liability for land owners when it comes to recreational activities,
Speaker 2: and some leeway for small businesses around non critical risks.
Speaker 2: Now I understand from some previous comments you've made in
Speaker 2: the media that you aren't a big fan of these changes.
Speaker 3: I think that would be putting it politely. At the moment,
Speaker 3: there are only proposals, so nothing has actually changed. So
Speaker 3: we had a cabinet paper back in March. We'll have
Speaker 3: another cabinet paper in May, and obviously the Minister will
Speaker 3: need to bring forward more detailed proposals for legislative change
Speaker 3: through the Select committee process, which is obviously when you
Speaker 3: know we will be putting our submissions together. Removing director
Speaker 3: responsibilities I think is absolutely a mistake. As we've just
Speaker 3: been discussing. You know, tone from the top is crucial.
Speaker 3: If directors aren't fully committed to health and safety, they'd
Speaker 3: be no surprise if managers and supervisors and frontline workers
Speaker 3: get the message that it's all about production and safety
Speaker 3: is a nice to have, not a mat out. In
Speaker 3: terms of small businesses, we know that actually small businesses
Speaker 3: health and safety record is worse than larger businesses because
Speaker 3: they don't have the capacity and capability to manage risks
Speaker 3: as well as larger organization. So yes, focus their attention
Speaker 3: on the things that are going to kill and permanently
Speaker 3: disabled people. But once we start exempting things, and we
Speaker 3: saw this a few years ago when there was an
Speaker 3: attempt to exempt certain small businesses from requiring them to
Speaker 3: have health and safety reps if requested, and it ended
Speaker 3: up with all sorts of anomalies where farming was considered
Speaker 3: low risk, and yet we know it's got one of
Speaker 3: the highest fatality rates of any industry. And so I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the minister is playing to an audience. You know,
Speaker 3: if we take the whole Cones issue, which has been
Speaker 3: a complete distraction.
Speaker 2: Oh god, it's just a headline grab. I think it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think what the media refer to it
Speaker 3: as a dead cat. So you throw a dead cat
Speaker 3: on the table and everybody focuses on the dead cat
Speaker 3: and not on the issue that we were talking about previously.
Speaker 3: And they've been highly successful because everybody now talks about cones,
Speaker 3: and cones have become demonized. And yet actually we know
Speaker 3: that the risks to both road workers and road users
Speaker 3: when roadworks are taking place, it's potentially very high. Yes,
Speaker 3: we can always improve, you know, making sure the cones
Speaker 3: are removed once the work has finished, you know, looking
Speaker 3: at alternative ways of protecting the workplace, but that work
Speaker 3: was ongoing two three years ago. It's a big change
Speaker 3: that's occurring in that industry, but it also requires some
Speaker 3: tough choices, such as close the road rather than put
Speaker 3: cones in and out, you know, at nine point thirty
Speaker 3: every morning and take them back in again at three
Speaker 3: o'clock every afternoon, which slows the work down. It puts
Speaker 3: everybody at more risk because the process of putting out
Speaker 3: and taking in the traffic management is one of the
Speaker 3: highest risk times. And actually, by demonizing cones, what we're
Speaker 3: seeing is that road workers are being demonized. So one
Speaker 3: of my clients is heavily involved in this work and
Speaker 3: their staff are getting spat at, they're getting things thrown
Speaker 3: at them, they're getting people driving at them deliberately because
Speaker 3: they are seen now as being the cause of the
Speaker 3: delays that are occurring whilst the roads are being fit.
Speaker 3: And so the level of violence and aggression toward road
Speaker 3: workers and the lack of adherence to roadwork signage, whether
Speaker 3: it's about speed limits or not driving too fast on
Speaker 3: roads that have just been resurfaced, is actually creating many,
Speaker 3: many more problems rather than actually addressing the ones that
Speaker 3: we already working on.
Speaker 2: So, if work Safe is going to focus on critical
Speaker 2: risks and the threat of another Pike River could be
Speaker 2: described as such, what would you like to see change
Speaker 2: to prevent that? Because at the moment, all I'm thinking is, oh,
Speaker 2: these are all going to look nice on a three
Speaker 2: poster in the mail room, do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 2: what incentive other than trying not to kill your workers
Speaker 2: do those directors do those company owners have at the
Speaker 2: moment to implement these changes?
Speaker 3: So I think what I would like to see is
Speaker 3: that there is much more collaborative work around critical risk. So,
Speaker 3: rather than a transactional approach where an individual inspector visits
Speaker 3: an individual business to talk about how they're managing a
Speaker 3: particular activity, is actually to get the key movers and
Speaker 3: shakers in that sector or in relation to that risk
Speaker 3: together and actually agree how do we move standards forward
Speaker 3: in a managed way, because one of the challenges, particularly
Speaker 3: if we start to reduce the amount of enforcement, is
Speaker 3: that it actually makes life harder for the good performance.
Speaker 3: So somebody who's actually invested in improving health and safety
Speaker 3: is likely to be at a competitive disadvantage against somebody
Speaker 3: who hasn't made that investment, but who the regulator is
Speaker 3: not actually holding to account. So I think it's in
Speaker 3: everybody's best interest to have that clarity. This is what
Speaker 3: we're trying to achieve, this is the best way to
Speaker 3: achieve it. Here's the guidance that sets out in broad
Speaker 3: terms how we go about doing it. And this is
Speaker 3: how individually and collectively the various parts of the system
Speaker 3: are going to hold you to account. We're actually doing it,
Speaker 3: and that, from my experience back in the UK, is
Speaker 3: how you get sustainable change because we're all moving in
Speaker 3: the same direction together. We're not using health and safety
Speaker 3: as something that we compete against each other on. And
Speaker 3: actually that process is where the regulator needs to lead
Speaker 3: because they are the only ones who at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, actually have the power and the authority
Speaker 3: to drive change if they can't actually achieve it in
Speaker 3: a more collaborative way.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Mike, my pleasure. That's it for
Speaker 2: this episode of The Front Page. You can read more
Speaker 2: about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot
Speaker 2: co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan
Speaker 2: Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
Speaker 2: for another look behind the headlines.