Kiwiblog

The Dom Post editorial:

What is known is that each year about 200,000 workers – one out of every 10 – make an ACC claim for a work-related injury or illness. Given that not all workers injured on the job make claims, the actual number of injuries will be even higher.

The total cost to New Zealand of this sorry state of affairs is estimated to be $3.5 billion a year. It is, as the task force notes, a price that is “appalling, unacceptable and unsustainable”.

Several factors are to blame for this intolerable situation. They include regulations that fail to make clear who is responsible for what, weak monitoring, enforcement and penalties and a lack of worker involvement.

The task force has proposed a series of sensible measures to address these issues. They include a recommendation, already accepted by the Government, that a stand-alone agency should be created to oversee safety in workplaces, provide information to workers and employers and collect data on accident, injury and death rates.

The task force has also proposed tougher legislation and penalties and a carrot-and-stick approach that will give incentives, such as lower ACC levies, to employers who reduce injury rates while punishing those who fail to act.

I am a big fan of ACC levies and premiums reflecting your accident record. I say this as an employer that (to the best of my knowledge) has never had a work related injury in nine years – yet pays a significant amount in premiums.

You need both carrot and stick when it comes to workplace safety. It is important that the focus go on the stick only.

Simon Bridges has announced:

The Government’s focus on significantly lifting New Zealand’s workplace health and safety record is behind the establishment of a new, stand-alone agency, says Labour Minister Simon Bridges.

The creation of a stand-alone Crown agent was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy.

“The new agency will have a dedicated focus on health and safety and underlines the Government’s strong commitment to addressing New Zealand’s workplace fatality and serious injury rates,” says Mr Bridges.

“We have a firm target of a 25 per cent reduction of these rates by 2020.

This was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission, and you expect the Government to implement all the recommendations unless there is a very good reason not to. The Pike River tragedy is a good example of what happens when there is an inadequate focus on health and safety.

Of course no workplace can be made free from risk, and nor should it be. Health and safety is always a balancing act. Otherwise we would engineer cars to not drive faster than 30 km/hr.

Just been looking at the level of Government spending on health and safety, in the wake of the Royal Commission report. Here’s the increase or decrease in health and safety spending since 1999.

• 2000 +$5,000
• 2001 -$52,000
• 2002 +$2,582,000
• 2003 -$251,000
• 2004 -$438,000
• 2005 +$3,865,000
• 2006 -$157,000
• 2007 +$3,818,000
• 2008 +$4,268,000
• 2009 -$98,000
• 2010 +$2,969,000
• 2011 +$3,224,000
• 2012 +$8,528,000

So if anyone goes on about cuts to health and safety funding, these facts may be useful.

This German safety video on forklift driving is a classic. We need safety videos like this here!

The Press examines the smoking ban in prisons:

From the middle of next year New Zealand’s prisons are set to emulate Australia’s and become smokefree.

It is a long overdue move. It was an anomaly that prisoners could still smoke in their cells as the rest of New Zealand moved increasingly towards a no-smoking regime.

School grounds, hospitals, and other government departments have gone smokefree, as have bars, restaurants and businesses, and, in Christchurch, there is even a smokefree policy in parks.

For many prisoners – two-thirds of inmates – an enforced cold turkey regime will seem a hardship or even a civil rights breach. But those who have committed crimes against society should not expect the right to smoke, just as they cannot legally have alcohol and drugs.

What amuses me is the policy dilemma for Labour. They instinctively are in favour of anything that is anti-smoking but against anything that they see as punitive to prisoners.

So how does Labour solve this dilemma? They run a blog poll to decide their policy

The Dom Post looks at the trans-Tasman relationship:

When Julia Gillard became prime minister of Australia, Prime Minister John Key was the first foreign leader to phone in his congratulations.

He needs to hope his fast dialling finger will deliver a better result than his predecessor, Helen Clark, achieved with her swift flight over for a cup of tea with Kevin Rudd when he got the job – in his time as prime minister Mr Rudd never quite made it to New Zealand for an official visit.

Mr Key, like Miss Clark before him, is smart enough to realise the onus is on Wellington to keep reminding Canberra what the “NZ” stands for in Anzac. The reality, however unpalatable it might be to some, is that New Zealand is simply not as important to Australia as Australia is to New Zealand.

Australia is New Zealand’s most important trading partner and its most important security relationship. …

Talk about whether New Zealand and Australia should take their relationship to the next level and look at issues such as a common border can wait until the Australian election is over.

Mr Key’s job is to ensure New Zealand’s interests are not damaged in the meantime.

Miss Clark and John Howard reportedly enjoyed a warm relationship despite their different political ideologies. The hope must be that the state-house son of a refugee and the daughter of a 10 immigrant from Wales can do the same.

The irony is that PM from opposite parties seem to have got on better than PMs from the same side of the spectrum.

The ODT looks at OSH:

It is one of our cultural stereotypes: the rugged, versatile, no-nonsense farmer – the sort of person for whom most regulations are made by townies for townies who have no real understanding of the demands and constraints of a working life in the country; and, further, how the red tape that such people unhesitatingly impose on the rural sector can seriously impact on proven working methods and productivity.

In no other sphere is this more pronounced, or more irritating to some, than on-farm safety: the rules and regulations promulgated by the Department of Labour, Occupational Safety and Health and ACC are frequently seen as at best a brake on freedom and individual responsibility and, at worst, the interfering actions of bureaucrats and the “politically correct”.

Sadly, the reality is that such organisations have reason to be concerned.

According to the latest figures released by ACC, farmers are killing themselves in work-related accidents at the rate of one every 28 days.

Last year, 13 farmers died in accidents on New Zealand farms.

There were 18,600 injuries on farms, with quad bikes, farm machinery and poor animal handling featuring as the most common causes.

Raw figures by themselves mean little. What would be more useful is the injury rate per employee.

My first reaction upon hearing that the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre had been fined $480,000 for its role in the death of seven students and staff from Elim College was that it was over the top.

My reasoning was that while big fines make sense if it was a commercial workplace (as would provide incentive to make things safer), a $480,000 fine on a not for profit centre could actually rob them of the money they need to make things safer.

But then upon reading the story, I found in fact they have only been fined $40,000 and the other $440,000 is reparations to the families of the deceased (and a small amont to the survivors). That changes the nature of it, and makes it seem far more reasonable. Not that $60,000 is any compensation for losing a family member, but its a lot more than you would probably get if they were murdured!

National has released its ACC policy. As expected they are supportive of opening the workplace account up to competition.

Now you will hear much misinformaion about what this means. It in no way means employees will have less rights to compensation in case of an accident. All insurers will have to provide the at least the exact same coverage as the ACC does.

What it does is allow employers to choose the best workplace insurer for them. Just as we do not force everyone to use the same car insurer or same contents insurer. Employers will also be able to purchase workplace insurance beyond the minimum requirements – something you can’t do through the ACC.

If an insurer does not have a state monopoly behind it, then it has incentives to work with employers to have safer workplaces. It is a win-win-win. Insurers pay out less money. Employers get cheaper premiums and employees have less accidents.

Labour will argue that OSH regulations provide the incentive to have safe workplaces. This is typical leftish thinking – all stick and no carrot. Now as it happens large employers are able to already get some incentives in terms of the accredited employers scheme which allows self or private insurance. This is about giving all employers that same choice.

National says in their policy:

There is little incentive (in the form of lower levies) for those who adopt good safety practices in the workplace, and there are no penalties for those who disregard good safety practices.

Because there is no choice or competition, there is no real transparency around the
operation of the scheme.

Employers provide the basic minimum cover for staff, as they are obliged to do. A more flexible scheme would encourage employers to buy more than the basic cover.

All good points. Having made those points I am surprised they are not saying they will definitely introduce the much needed competition, but just investigate it. I guess they are keeping options open in case it proves too difficult. At the end of the day they did so in 1998, so I am confident they will do so.

Finally they are also saying they will investigate the merit of introducing an independent disputes tribunal to end ACC’s dual role of judge and jury on disputed claims. I suspect there would be considerable support for that.