As a court reporter I attended many WorkSafe prosecutions.
Charges seemed commonplace. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was at its litigious best, pushed either by a drive to reduce workplace accidents, or by a drive to be seen as doing as much.
The material argument was whether employers had taken "all practicable steps" to ensure the safety of their workers.
Some convictions were justified - some were farce. In the later camp were the odd workers who decided it was a good idea to put their hands in moving machinery, only to later argue there was no physical barrier to prevent them from being idiots.
Either way, yesterday's news from Stats NZ that the Gisborne/Hawke's Bay region's workers had the highest work-related injury rate in 2016, wasn't surprising.