New Zealand – Page 7 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

NZ Farmers rep enters quad bike safety debate

An opinion piece was published in the New Zealand Herald on 12 January 2011 concerning quad bikes. There are several points raised by Donald Aubrey, vice-president of Federated Farmers and chairman of the Agricultural Health and Safety Council that can be disputed.

“In the hands of the untrained or the over-confident they can be deadly. And quad bike safety is far from being a problem exclusive to the agricultural sector.”

From the outset Aubrey’s position is clear, the problem with quad bike safet is not design-related, it is lack of training and over-confidence. Training for quad bike riding has existed for many years and injuries continue to occur. At what point should more effective controls be introduced? Continue reading “NZ Farmers rep enters quad bike safety debate”

Quad bike safety issues continue with no end in sight

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been following the discussions about safety of all-terrain vehicles and quad bikes for some time. This is because the use of these vehicles encapsulate so many of the issues that workplace safety needs to deal with:

Safe design
Personal protective equipment
Hierarchy of controls
The line between private activity and work activity
Personal responsibility
The “nanny state”
Regulatory safety guidance
Industry-based codes of practice

On 19 December 2010, the New Zealand Sunday Star Times ran a feature article on quad bikes, written by Amanda Cropp (I can’t find the article online but please send a link if you can) entitled “Risky Business”. The article is a fair summation of many of the perspectives and attitudes to quad bike safety.

For those readers who like statistics, Cropp writes that

“The annual ACC [Accident Compensation Corporation] bill for quad bike-related injuries is around $7 million, and Hobbs’ claim was among 2533 in 2009, a sizeable increase on the 457 new claims accepted in 2000.” [link added] Continue reading “Quad bike safety issues continue with no end in sight”

Of stunning, short-lived cactus flowers and quad bikes

The smoke from the mine:

It has been a frighteningly bad month in the mining industry internationally. OHS meetings I attended during this period have been hushed as a result of the New Zealand tragedies. Discussions about OHS have become more pertinent and more accurate – for the time being. But this, like stunning but short-lived cactus flowers, will quickly disappear.

Because I’ve had close involvement with the Beaconsfield Gold Mine rockfall that killed Larry Knight, and years earlier with the Esso Longford explosions and fires in Victoria, the CrossCity tunnel fatality in Sydney… and many other tragedies or near misses, such events, like a sudden cramp, re-focus my thinking on current issues. Another OHS failure that we didn’t stop.

Quad bike safety:

One such issue I’ve been involved in for some time has been the quad bike safety issue. The fatality statistics I have on these machines in Australia show that over the last 10 years 13 people (on average) are killed per year. 130 people, most of whom, the industry will have you believe, were ‘mis-users’ of the machines (see below). The trend is up not down.

I have just resigned from the TransTasman Quad Bike safety committee created by the regulators last year. The OHS and quad bike interest group in the community may be interested in some of the difficulties I see with the current work on this issue.

The obvious and useless in practice:

I think a much greater degree of transparency and openness – including a high level public conference – ought to take place. And neither the regulators nor industry will be interested in that; Continue reading “Of stunning, short-lived cactus flowers and quad bikes”

OHS harmonisation documents released for public comment

Late on 7 December 2010 Safe Work Australia released draft OHS regulations and Codes of Practice for public comment. The documents released are:

According to a Safe Work Australia media release, not yet available online:

“As part of the development of the Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS), Access Economics on behalf of Safe Work Australia, is surveying businesses across a range of sizes, industries and regions in an effort to obtain data on anticipated compliance costs and safety benefits of the model Work Health and Safety Regulations. Continue reading “OHS harmonisation documents released for public comment”

Death at work differs from work-related death

Often immediately following an incident, the safety manager receives a brief phone call “There’s been an accident.” Information is scarce and, in my experience, often wrong or more fairly inadequate. in OHS there will always be an assumption that an injury or death is work-related as that is our patch but people die every day and they can die anywhere, even in your workplace. Is this a workplace incident? Yes. Is it an occupational incident? not necessarily.

It is vital in those first moments of confusion and panic, not to jump to conclusions and rush out to the incident site. If it is your responsibility you will become involved but often, by asking a few simple questions, you are able to avoid this confusion and avoid worsening the situation by “butting in” where you are not needed.

I was reminded of this when reading about a coronial inquest into two suicides that occurred at an Australian shooting range in October 2008. These two incidents occurred at a workplace but not from work-related activities. There may have been some workplace management issues that, in hindsight, relate to supervision or security but these are the type of issues that the Coroner will investigate.

The deaths are reportable to the OHS regulators as they occurred on a workplace but it is unlikely that the regulator will put a lot of resources into the investigation given the Police and Coroner are investigating.

Update on New Zealand cool store explosion

On 15 December 2009, a New Zealand Court penalised two companies and a director with fines totalling over $NZ390,000 over an explosion in a coolstore that result in the death of one firefighter and injuries to others. In the comments section of a previous blog article the following questions were put to the New Zealand Department of Labour (DoL). Their responses are included below Continue reading “Update on New Zealand cool store explosion”

NZ announces inquiry into the safety of farm vehicles

The New Zealand Department of Labour (DoL) has announced a period of public consultation on its OHS guidance on the safe use of off-road vehicles. The process will include a review of “Safe Use of ATVs on New Zealand Farms: Agricultural Guideline” publication.

Interestingly the DoL says it

“is looking to extend this publication to apply to the agricultural, forestry and adventure tourism industries.”

There is a potential for a considerable broadening of OHS issues but this may be hampered by the scheduling of the public consultation. The DoL public commentary period closes on February 13 2010. Both Australia and New Zealand are in Summer holiday mode and many companies are closed down for several weeks in January or operate on a skeleton staff. SafetyAtWorkBlog has commented on this trend for short consultative periods over the Christmas break previously. Continue reading “NZ announces inquiry into the safety of farm vehicles”

Category: New Zealand

NZ Farmers rep enters quad bike safety debate

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Quad bike safety issues continue with no end in sight

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Of stunning, short-lived cactus flowers and quad bikes

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OHS harmonisation documents released for public comment

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Death at work differs from work-related death

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Update on New Zealand cool store explosion

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NZ announces inquiry into the safety of farm vehicles

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