November 23, 2011

Why is Health and Safety being squeezed when funds are available?

Revelations from the CTU that the Government is holding nearly $16 million in health and safety funds while health and safety operations at the Department of Labour are being squeezed, highlights the Government’s disregard for ensuring New Zealand workplaces are safe.

“This money has been collected from businesses for the purposes of workplace health and safety, but instead of being used for this purpose, the Department of Labour’s Health and Safety service is being asked to find more savings,” says PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff.

“Health and Safety in New Zealand is already under the International Labour Organisation’s benchmark of 1 inspector per 10,000 workers. We estimate that New Zealand’s ratio is less than 0.7 per 10,000 workers.

“Yet despite heading toward a record low in health and safety capacity, the Health and Safety unit at the Department of Labour is under review as the Department looks to make the savings the Government is demanding.

“This is not a disaster waiting for a disaster to happen. We’ve already had the disaster. There were just two mines inspectors at the time of Pike River and that number remains. The PSA believes there are just over 100 health and safety inspectors who are responsible for keeping all of New Zealand’s workplaces safe.

“That’s an impossible task, yet health and safety is being squeezed even more while millions of dollars in collected levies is not being utilised where it’s needed.

“As the CTU has already said, the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, recognised in a paper to Cabinet that there were some serious problems in health and safety in regard to shortages of senior advisors on high hazards in the Petroleum and Geothermal sector, but the Government had and still has the funding available to correct this shortage.

“We have members who are health and safety inspectors who because of their job cannot avoid being exposed to hazardous materials, environments and chemicals, yet in some Department of Labour offices support for individual health monitoring for these inspectors is being cut.

“It’s ironic that the Department of Labour is cutting this when its own inspectors are tasked with enforcing employers to monitor the health of their employees. It’s hardly leading by example.

“Pike River has highlighted that you do not wait for a disaster to happen before adequately funding health and safety,” says Richard Wagstaff.

ENDS

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