Lack of workplace health and safety slammed in new report, workers twice as likely to die in NZ than in Australia

A person died following a workplace incident at a property in Newland, Ashburton District in April 2024. Photo / George Heard

Workplace health and safety is severely lacking, with almost one in two New Zealanders affected by workplace incidents, according to new research.

These health and safety failures cost the country $4.9 billion in 2023 alone.

The Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum’s 2024 “State of a Thriving Nation” report found close to 50% of Kiwis have been hit by a workplace incident to themselves, colleagues, family or friends.

The report, written by economist Shamubeel Eaqub, said the cost of lost lives, lost earnings, serious injury costs to ACC and health issues rose to $4.9b last year, up from $4.4 in 2022.

Forum chief executive Francois Barton said statistics in the report showed NZ workers were twice as likely to die from a workplace incident than workers in Australia.

“Catching up to Australia’s performance would save New Zealand $1.4b each year, and if we were to match the UK’s performance, we would save $3.4b per year,” Barton said.

“This is a considerable human and economic price to pay.”

While the report found nearly 50% of New Zealanders are affected by health and safety at work, about the same number also had a positive perception of the country’s health and safety performance following an incident at work.

When asked how much they would pay personally to make work safer in New Zealand, 55% said they would pay a nominal amount, equating to $730 million a year.

“It’s telling that New Zealanders would opt to pay out of their own pocket for work not to hurt and that close to half of the population has been affected by poor workplace health and safety,” Eaqub said.

“While our performance is slowly improving, New Zealand’s fatality rate is 60% higher than Australia and more than 500% higher than the United Kingdom. Australia and the UK have similar legislative settings as ours, but something is not working in New Zealand.”

Economist Shamubeel Eaquib has written a report on poor workplace safety in New Zealand.

The report also looked into the regulatory system and where New Zealand sits when compared to Australia and the UK.

It found New Zealand’s regulatory interventions are more reactive than in Australia and that its regulatory system lacks a mechanism for oversight and co-ordination or “system stewardship” which is at the heart of the successful regulatory approach by the UK’s Health and Safety Executive.

“As our regulatory system matures, and in order to lift our performance towards that of Australia and the UK, we need to see more proactive activities from regulators and a clear and explicit commitment from government to improving oversight and accountability of the entire health and safety system,” said Barton.

Barton called on the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden to consider the report’s findings in her upcoming review into health and safety.

“We urge her to consider the findings in this report to enable a more responsive health and safety system where businesses and workers know where to improve, where the risks are created and how best to mitigate those risks,” Barton said.

“Every death, serious injury and ill-health from work is a reminder that we still have work to do.”

The Forum reports annually on the performance of New Zealand’s health and safety system.

This year’s report carried out by Kantar survey aimed at understanding people’s experience of workplace health and safety.