This article first appeared in The Post.
By EMA Manager of Employment Relations and Safety Paul Jarvie
The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill marks an important milestone in the long‑overdue modernisation of New Zealand’s workplace health and safety laws. The government has positioned the reform as a way to reduce uncertainty, cut compliance costs, and focus attention where it matters most: on the risks that actually cause harm.
The Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) supports this overall direction. New Zealand businesses have needed a clearer, more risk‑focused system for years. But, as with any major change, the details matter, and several key gaps must be addressed if the reforms are to deliver the improvements the country desperately needs.
The Bill also expands the definition of critical risk to include occupational diseases listed in Schedule 2 of the ACC Act. These conditions are already recognised by ACC as work‑ related, effectively elevating many chronic and long‑ latency health conditions into the same category as acute hazards. This is an important step that strengthens the ‘health’ in ‘health and safety’.
At the same time, many businesses are also beginning to reflect not just on compliance, but on the broader behaviours and attitudes that shape safe work. The EMA’s Safety Culture Programme is already prompting conversations among employers about how safety can be embedded into everyday decision‑making, from the boardroom to the frontline. Early interest suggests businesses recognise that while compliance defines minimum expectations, culture determines whether those expectations translate into real reductions in harm.
Where the Bill becomes more problematic is in its proposal that small businesses (those with fewer than 20 employees) need only identify and manage critical risks and provide basic worker‑ welfare facilities. Other hazards, including chronic harm such as sprains, strains, back injuries, fatigue and stress, would no longer need to be formally managed.
Similarly, psychosocial harms such as workplace violence, aggression, bullying and harassment would be unlikely to meet the definition of a critical risk, despite causing significant personal harm, business disruption and long‑ term cost.
These are serious flaws in the proposed legislation. Chronic‑ harm injuries account for around 65% of all ACC claims, particularly musculoskeletal conditions. These injuries remain the leading causes of workplace harm, yet most would not qualify as critical risks under the Bill. As a result, small businesses would have no legal obligation to identify or manage them.
Business size has no bearing on risk, and this carve‑ out creates an unnecessary and concerning disconnect.
The problem is compounded by the fact that 97% of New Zealand businesses fall below the 20‑ employee threshold. The exemption therefore removes almost the entire small‑ business sector from the obligation to manage the country’s most common causes of injury. Ignoring harms that cost New Zealand more than $4.5 billion per year because they are common rather than catastrophic makes little sense.
The Bill does make important progress in clarifying what constitutes director ‘due diligence’. The Bill introduces an exhaustive list of governance‑ level duties, which should help reduce the blurring that courts have previously allowed.
As the EMA has long noted, clearer governance obligations will only be effective if directors understand and can act on them. Directors are key change agents in workplace health and safety; without appropriate training, the law risks tightening expectations without equipping directors to meet them.
The move towards a more modern, risk‑ based and industry‑ aligned system is the right one. But unless the carve‑out for small businesses is reconsidered, the expanded definition of critical risk is supported with robust guidance, and governance duties are paired with accessible training, the reforms risk falling short of their potential.
Ultimately, the goal must be clear and consistent: a system that genuinely reduces harm, not one that simply shifts problems from one part of the economy to another..