Parliament has passed one of the most contested pieces of legislation of this term, with the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill clearing its third reading and immediately drawing a promise from Labour to repeal it if the party wins the November election.
The bill rewrites large parts of the 2015 Health and Safety at Work Act, the law brought in after the Pike River mine explosion killed 29 men on the West Coast in 2010. Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden, who is also the ACT Party deputy leader, said the current system had become confusing and expensive for businesses without making workers any safer.
Van Velden told the House the changes would restore “clarity, common sense, and focus” by directing attention to the risks that matter most. “It makes clear that attention should be directed towards the hazards that can kill or seriously injure people, or that could cause serious illnesses,” she said, arguing that the bill “supports businesses and workers to do the right thing”.
In a statement released as the bill passed, the minister said the old regime had been holding businesses back. “For too long, businesses have been dealing with a system that is confusing and difficult to comply with,” she said. “These changes make it clear that the focus should be on preventing serious harm in the workplace.”
The amendment sharpens the law around what the government calls critical risks, meaning the hazards most likely to cause death, serious injury or serious illness. It strengthens the role of Approved Codes of Practice so businesses have clearer guidance to follow, tells the regulator WorkSafe to prioritise those critical risks, and narrows the duties of company directors so they focus on governance rather than day to day operations.
Small businesses get a lighter touch. Under the changes they will be expected to manage critical risks and keep providing basic worker welfare facilities such as toilets and drinking water, but with fewer compliance obligations that the government says added paperwork without adding safety. The bill also clarifies who is responsible for health and safety on land used for recreation, an issue that had left some farmers and landowners uncertain about their liability when people walked, hunted or biked on their property.
The reform delivers on a commitment in the ACT and National coalition agreement, and it has been a long time coming. It moved through select committee earlier in the year against strong opposition from unions and from families connected to past workplace tragedies.
Labour used the third reading debate to make its position unmistakable. The party’s Jan Tinetti called it “an absolute horror of a bill” and said it “would weaken the protections that kept people safe” and “risk more injuries and deaths”. Speaking to Pike River families, she gave a direct pledge. “We will repeal” the legislation, she said, putting workplace safety squarely into the election campaign.
That promise means the future of the law now hangs on the result in November. If National and ACT are returned, the changes stay. If Labour leads the next government, it has committed to unwinding them. Voters weighing up where the parties stand on workplace safety and a long list of other issues can compare policies using Newswire’s voting tool.
The debate also exposed a familiar tension inside the governing coalition. New Zealand First backed the bill because the coalition agreement required it to, but the party made clear it was not entirely comfortable. New Zealand First’s Mark Patterson acknowledged the reservations and said his party had at least won something in return. Their achievement, he said, was securing “the most precious of commodities in politics: time, a delay in the implementation date”.
That delay is real. The law was originally due to take effect on 1 November 2026, just before the election. It has now been pushed back to 1 April 2027, giving the incoming government, whichever bloc forms it, a window to make further changes before businesses have to comply. New Zealand First has signalled it wants to revisit parts of the bill after the election, so even a National led win would not necessarily lock the law in as it currently stands.
The Greens were unhappy with how the final stages played out. The party’s Teanau Tuiono said it was disappointing that the only amendment the House adopted at the committee stage was the government’s own change to the commencement date, arguing that the process had been rushed and that other concerns raised by submitters were brushed aside.
Business groups have broadly welcomed the reset. They have argued for years that the 2015 law pushed firms into box ticking and over documentation out of fear of prosecution, rather than genuine attention to the things most likely to hurt or kill people. The Institute of Directors and others had pressed for clearer director duties and a stronger role for codes of practice, both of which appear in the final bill.
Unions and safety campaigners see it very differently. Their concern is that softening the framework built after Pike River sends the wrong signal at a time when New Zealand’s workplace death and serious injury numbers remain high by the standards of comparable countries. For the families who lost sons, husbands and fathers underground on the West Coast, any move to loosen the law carries a heavy meaning.
With the commencement date now sitting on the far side of the election, the practical effect is that the fight over workplace safety is not finished. It has simply moved from the debating chamber to the campaign trail, where both major parties have now staked out clear and opposing positions.
What do you think about the health and safety changes and Labour’s promise to repeal them? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply