CTU President Helen Kelly talks about Pike River and the death of security guard Charanpreet Singh Dhaliwal and what these tragedies tell us about employer accountability for health and safety in the workplace.
what this tells us is that we live in a self regulated civil society.
what this means is that you must tug your forelock and not answer back to the bosses who have their minds on higher things like how to reduce your wages.
otherwise you are being uncivil and spoiling their equanimity.
bwah wah wah.
I love you and the great work you do on behalf of the people that some want to abuse to death in many cases Helen. You are the most admirable type of human around and the type of person we need more of not only in NZ but the world over.
I know you often get flak from people who are afraid you will somehow eat into the profits that they make by exploiting people. But sensible people know that a safe, happy, equal opportunity workplace where people get fair pay for a fair days work is not only best for productivity but creates an environment where making profits is more likely and sustainable.
Keep up your great work. Hope you have a great xmas and new year xxooxx
There is a connection, or disconnection somewhere, in the minds of those who should act, between their percieved organisational status, their legal obligations and then maybe far down the line, their moral responsibility. I guess what that means is that over the period of my working life, my employers have ranged from psychotic, to negligent through to plain confused. The psychotic ones thought that “no care, no liability” was a good motto. They had taken the risk to form a business and now everyone else should pay. It was up to me to save myself, at my cost, regardless of the law. They were the big man, with percieved extra-legal rights because of social status. To some degree, the legal systems backed them up. Pushing people who simply refuse to engage is a job no one really wants to get involved with unless there is some material payoff – this included the supposed “good guys”.
When you’re young and ignorant, it’s easy to be taken advantage of by more aware superiors. Morally right? No freekin’ way. What happens is wrong, on every level, but when the choice is look after yourself or get injured, maimed, or worse, a person usually does what they can to protect themselves. That act of looking out for yourself is usually stolen for the whole “personal responsibility” meme and because the victim of this abdication from above wants the dream to be real, they might even start believing it themselves. But all they’re doing is maintaining a dangerous environment. Big boys don’t cry, your own efforts your own rewards, tough guys don’t complain and no one questions the boss’ abdication of responsibility. Senior employees often back this up and don’t help the at risk workmate either – waiting for them to fall for whatever personal thrill.
Sometimes the boss doesn’t actually want you dead. If they come up through this same distorted culture, sometimes they just don’t know. They have a mixture of ideas about safety, all contradictory and rather than risk cognitive dissonance they disappear at important moments, like during the set up of a job or during orientation of a new employee. These employers hover around, looking through their fingers, until reality pushes through their fuzzy thinking and down they come, barking that “it ain’t safe” and then everything stops until a fresh grasp can be found on how to proceed. If they don’t re-appear, they come back later to console the employees who are discussing the craziness of the now finished job, and how one guy almost had that happen, and how she almost lost her hand, and the scaffold was waving in the breeze. They don’t want you dead, but they won’t act. If anything had gone badly wrong, they’d find out the law takes a dim view of neglect.
Changing the ideas of the psychotic employer is a job for the law, politics and culture in general. Solitary workers can make small day-to-day changes in their environment, but currently they will always be outgunned at an organisational level and risk some kind of workplace penalty. It takes some courage. If you see the new guy a bit disoriented, come on people, guide them through it! If you know a new shift or environment has a hidden risk, tell them about it, or go with them, or alert your supervisor with your concern. It doesn’t matter if you had it hard and now you want others to feel how hard you had it so you can be sure they can relate to your pain and fear. Don’t use people like that, you only trap yourself. Feeling crappy might seem better than feeling nothing at all, but the path to emotional freedom often begins with a period of what feels like non-identity. It doesn’t last forever.
Creating supportive and safe workplaces isn’t just a political choice, it’s about finding real connections between people and that holds wider benefits than just at work or the bottom line.
Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. Decide to keep your shift safe over the holiday period.
Hell, I am impressed with this video blog. Clear consise and stayed on topic. I was somewhat worried that it’d look like crap or would waffle. But I was impressed and it got me irritated with those companies to the point I will have to read some more.
I got Lyn (she does video for a living) to watch it. She suggested a couple of tech things to improve it, but said it wouldn’t matter that much. I will squirt them through when I rouse myself from the immediate post work mode (aka blobbing out).
I absolutely agree that businesses need to treat health and safety of their employees as their utmost concern. However, employees also need to play their part. For instance, it has come out in the Pike River enquiry that minors were putting plastic film over their methane sensors. This in no way reduces the culpability of the company, and their may well have been productivity motivations that encouraged this behaviour. However, it clearly was a highly dangerous thing to do.
Also, if people believe they are intrinsically safe they can tend to take less care than they ought. I looked at this sort of behaviour during my studies a few years ago. I read an article about the introduction of safety belts in Britain. The effect was a reduction in death and injury to drivers. However, there was a corresponding increase in death and injury to pedestrians. It seems that because drivers perceived themselves to be safe they took more risky behaviours on the road.
This all goes to show that health and safety is quite complex and not solved simply by management establishing a safe working environment as there are complex psychological factors at work that can lead to unforeseen outcomes.
For instance, it has come out in the Pike River enquiry that minors were putting plastic film over their methane sensors. This in no way reduces the culpability of the company, and their may well have been productivity motivations that encouraged this behaviour. However, it clearly was a highly dangerous thing to do.
You’re a fucking asshole. What you’re ignoring here is who has the power and the responsibility in the workplace for ensuring that high levels of health and safety standards are followed at all times. The 17 year old kid or the mine’s general manager?
Health and safety is a real reason to have strong Unions without a good Union most companies will do what ever the hell they like and workers often end up paying with their lives, if it was the 1% who were loosing their lives it would be a totally different story.
Its a bit like Keys statement that NZ SAS did a grand job sorry that we lost a couple of good soldiers but thats the price we pay ( words to that effect). I bet he wouldn’t be so flippant if the price to pay was his son that had been killed that would a different bloody story.
CV: “You’re a fucking asshole. What you’re ignoring here is who has the power and the responsibility in the workplace for ensuring that high levels of health and safety standards are followed at all times. The 17 year old kid or the mine’s general manager?”
You obviously have very little knowledge of the health and safety act.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO AS AN EMPLOYEE?
As an employee, you have responsibilities for keeping yourself and others safe.
You can make your workplace safer by:
being involved in processes to improve health and safety
sticking to correct procedures and using the right equipment
wearing protective clothing and equipment
helping new employees, trainees and visitors to the workplace understand the right safety practices and why the practices exist, and
communicating any safety concerns to your employer.
I am fairly confident that covering the sensors with plastic film wasn’t “sticking to correct procedures and using the right equipment”.
I thought I made it quite clear in my previous comments that I considered that most of the blame lies with the company. However, employee behaviour can’t be ignored in this.
I am fairly confident that covering the sensors with plastic film wasn’t “sticking to correct procedures and using the right equipment”.
Show me one instance of disciplinary action taken against a worker for doing such.
These practices were tacitly or explicitly supported by mine management IMO. Unless you are claiming that every time the General Manager went down the mine, the workers hurriedly took all the plastic film off the sensors so he didn’t see it.
Tell me, would you back health and safety whistleblower legislation protecting employees in work places?
You have no argument from me that the company was atrociously deficient in it health and safety practices. And I absolutely agree that the company should shoulder most of the blame for the terrible outcome. They created the culture, and were clearly very lax in their enforcement of safety in the mine.
However, even if management had actively been telling workers to deactivate their sensors with plastic film, employees should still have known it was the wrong thing to do and refused to do it. There are some things that are so blatantly wrong that people should know not to do them under any circumstances. What they appear to have been doing is not far removed from striking a match in a mine.
So I still hold there appears to be a small degree of responsibility with the employees in this situation. The act is very clear that employees also have responsibilities as I pointed out above, and to some degree they may have failed to meet these responsibilities.
Fair enough. It seems to me you clearly recognise that the power, authority and responsibility for designing and running a safe mine rests primarily with senior management.
CV: “Fair enough. It seems to me you clearly recognise that the power, authority and responsibility for designing and running a safe mine rests primarily with senior management.”
Thanks for that.
It is probably impossible to know whether deactivating the sensors actually had any causal role in this situation. My understanding of Pike River is that there was a much higher tolerance of methane levels by management, almost to the point of explosive concentrations. Also, I have grave doubts about the investment the company was making in necessary equipment such as ventilation etc to evacuate methane from the mine. So, the accident may have happened regardless.
My company had just won an order for a whole lot of second-hand compressor equipment for Pike River. Second-hand because they couldn’t afford new. I thought at the time it seemed a bit odd, and wondered if this was typical for the mine. We were on the verge of supplying when the accident occurred. Our staff could have been installing the gear into the mine at the time of the accident other than for a few days.
Subsequent to the event, the manager we know from another contracting company told us he had pulled his workers out from working in the mine several months earlier because he was worried about safety. Turns out to have been a very wise move.
And while I fully agree ts that there is both an element of employee and employer responsibility for this disaster…. there is a dimension you have not touched on.
Employees have a responsibility to act safely in the ways the Act outlines. But their degree of committment and compliance with good practise will be set by the example and standards demanded by management.
Just three weeks ago I installed and commissioned a SIL2 level CO2 gas detection and shutdown system. In my working environment this kind of issue is taken seriously, disabling such a sensor would be an instant, if not sooner, dismissal offence. Presented with such a blatant stupidity, our entire organisation would demand a dismissal and seek to find a way to prevent a repetition.
Pike River management clearly did not set about blowing up their mine. They never had a meeting were they decided to deliberately take short-cuts and insane risks with lives and their huge investment. Instead they fooled themselves into thinking that what they were doing…in the cause of getting the mine into desperately needed production… was going to be ok. A lethal sort of closed circle groupthink as it were.
Missing in action was an independent oversight of mine management. That is the crucial element that should have picked up what was going at Pike River. Instead we had a DOL desperately understaffed and resourced… and given the emphasis on ‘industry self-regulation’ brought about by the dismantling of government departments in the 1990’s … not correctly placed to act effectively.
That is why Pike River has a political culpability as well, no less inescapable than that of the idiots who may or may not have put plastic film over sensors.
Instead they fooled themselves into thinking that what they were doing…in the cause of getting the mine into desperately needed production… was going to be ok. A lethal sort of closed circle groupthink as it were.
This is very similar to the ‘normalization of deviance’ or ‘normalization of risk’ organisational culture that NASA was accused of.
In other words you know that technically, you should not be covering up the sensors because it poses a potential risk to life and limb. But you do cover a couple of the worst offenders for convenience.
No one dies on day 1. No one dies on day 2 or 3. So having ‘proven’ that its ‘safe’ you cover the rest up. And no one dies on day 4, 5 or 6.
Sweet, the organisation has now ‘proven’ that its ‘safe’ to keep the gas sensors covered and the deviation to proper protocol becomes normalised as routine.
Until the fucking thing blows up killing people, whether its the Space Shuttle or a coal mine.
I thought whistle blower legislation already exists – it’s going back a long way, but didn’t Phil Goff help that bill through Parliament? Something to do with a problem at a psychiatric institution. Lake Alice, maybe.
tsm its clear that pike river were taking short cuts just about everywhere they could that was the culture enforced on workers because the management didn’t have enough money to open the mine safely
If the miners were coming home feeling crook all the time, which they were, it’s clear there were ongoing ventilation issues. Management must have and should have known this, and I’d bet they were aware.
Management may have been aware of sensor covering if there were earlier incidences of “false alarms” holding up production, could have been suggested by them even.
Anything’s possible and likely with that poorly designed and run death trap.
Yes they do.
The Rena second mate and Master are facing criminal charges for what is, most likely, a simple mistake, possibly accentuated by fatigue, working conditions and training issues.
Scapegoats for systemic rather than their individual fault.
Pike River is also due to a lax attitude to safety from Government on down.
I wonder of the party of individual responsibility will take individual responsibility for the de-regulation and lack of interest in workers safety since the 80’s which contributed to these disasters.
In my view the buck stops at those who had the power to make changes. The top.
Without proper outside audits and monitoring even the most safety conscious can get complacent.
Especially people whose main responsibility is the bottom line.
Still trying to instil in my crews that just because a confined space or hold was OK yesterday, it doesn’t mean it is OK today.
McFlock is right that safety is complex. Like the common increases in accidents when a safety management system is first implemented. The normal human attitude then, is that “safety is covered. Don’t need to worry about it any more”
A very dangerous attitude in places like ships, mines and rigs, which cannot be made totally safe.
This all goes to show that health and safety is quite complex and not solved simply by management establishing a safe working environment as there are complex psychological factors at work that can lead to unforeseen outcomes.
But some psychological factors leading to safety hazards are simple enough to understand. Fatigue, intense and sustained production targets, and poor training and supervision are all pretty obvious.
For example, low management emphasis on workplace hazards indicate to inexperienced workers how “real” a threat is, leading to the effect you alluded to with safety belts. Is the threshhold for an alarm indicative of a “real” hazard, or is it just some line drawn by a gummint boo-row-krat? And if the alarm shuts down production, and workers have production targets which result in payment penalties if not met, well – what would you expect to happen over the course of time? Management 101 (or it should be).
“Work is killing 1000 of us a year. New figures, which also show there are 17,000 new case of work-related disease in New Zealand each year, have been revealed by the Labour Department as it rolls out a new plan to reduce the statistics.
The Occupational Health Action Plan has 21 initiatives focused on reducing occupational cancer, respiratory hazards, noise, skin irritants and stress and pressure.”
…….. “She [Helen Kelly] applauded the department’s plan but said it had a history of writing reports about workplace health and safety, then not having the time or resources to implement them properly.”
The department could not say yesterday whether it had specific funding for the plan. ” http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business 19.12.2011
Meanwhile
“The plan was drafted in response to the 2009 review of the Workplace Health and Safety Strategy for New Zealand to 2015 which identified the need for a stronger focus on occupational health as a priority issue.”
The draft was the “Occupational Health Action Plan 2011-13”.
The consultation on that draft plan then closed November, 2011.
The final has now been launched December 2011. It’s now the “Occupational Health Action Plan to 2013”
Some two years for a response to the 2009 review. By the Labour Dept’s estimate that’s 1400 to 2000 more deaths and yet to begin the lengthy process of Implementation. Think now about Public Sector cuts as a response to workplace safety…inspectors..’She’ll be right’..we got until 2013.
Then compare responses and response time of 8 months to the following scenario and Bill introduction by National…13/08/2009
“According to statistics supplied by Mr Joyce, there were 25 fatal crashes and 482 injury crashes between 2003 and 2008 (5 years) where the use of a cellphone or another mobile device was a factor.” He announced at that time his estimate was that this Bill would then save 5 or 6 lives a year.
National’s new plans and priorities summed up nicely by panellist on “Backbenchers.” this week. ….whatever crops up at the time in this term..like the earthquake, the Pike mine, the Rena
1000 every year. Thats 29 people every 10.7 days.
It’s easy to see where this governments priorities sit. They would rather a token gesture cellphone rule to appear concerned for lives when theres the 1000 every year staring them in the face.
But we can’t upset shonkey corporate mates with extra “hassles” now can we.
the real founding document of new zealand is the world bank report 1968. (watch out for hippies).
the parameters it uses are exactly the same now as then and the problem is still the same.
autarchy or rampant capitalism forcing its full effects on a very small society with sometimes devasatating results.
an optimistic viewpoint is looking for new things to do and I personally believe that it is possible.
the labour party must and will lead.
I just love the efforts of the far-Left to rehabilitate Helen Kelly. Every time the extremists show her face, they remind the electorate exactly who the Labour Party is. Who Trade Unionists are.
Keep up the good work. Another anti-Union march this Mayday (of all days!) this year would be superb.
Hulun Shearer is the name of a troll, banned till next year, in my humble opinion.
Theres certainly no need for rehabilitation, shes more relevant and vital to society than you could ever be. Sticking up for people and their rights, protecting them from exploitation is work for the finest people on earth.
Theres nothing extremist about trade unions you clown HS. It’s very likely if you have ever worked at all that you have been the recipient of a condition that has protected YOU from danger or exploitation, and that was put in place with the assistance of a union.
Any political party that cares about the workers in this country would know that unions are a very strong voice for workers who are often taken advantage of. Labour can only be commended for supporting people who care about others HS, because that shows that they care too. Caring may be a foreign concept to you HS, but to humans (the real kind) thats a part of what makes them tick.
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First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
I make no claims to having much legal knowledge, so I defer to those trained in this area.I am very much enjoying this twitter stream from m'learned friend in Edinburgh, deciphering the legal arguments around the Scottish court challenge to Boris Johnson, based on the charmingly obscure principle of Nobile ...
Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
Aotearoa Climate Emergency (ACE), a climate change network, will host a conference in Wellington on 11 November (Armistice Day) to promote holding a Citizens Assembly in 2020, as a way of breaking the current political deadlock on treating climate ...
MediaWorks’ owners have called time after years of losses from its TV division. Sources say the company will announce it is for sale – if no buyers emerge, it will close within months.Three is facing the biggest crisis in its three decade history today, as its ownership will soon announce ...
Sam Brooks reviews Amazon Prime’s Modern Love, an anthology series based on the New York Times column dedicated to ‘love in all its forms’. A first date that ends up in the emergency room. A flagging marriage that finds new energy through tennis. The founder of a dating app who doesn’t ...
If we want to grow support for New Zealand’s aid, we need to get better at partnering with the ‘unlike-minded’ as well as the ‘like-minded’, and much better at telling people what we do with the money they give, says Josie Pagani, Executive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Orsola De Marco, Astrophysicist , Macquarie University If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.How are stars made? –Zali, age 8, Karkoo, South Australia. How are stars made? Well, stars are not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gita Mishra, Professor of Life Course Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland All women know to expect the time in life when their periods finish and they reach menopause. Many might even look forward to it. What many women don’t ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney Since ancient times, horse behaviour, and the bond between horses and humans, has been a source of intrigue and fascination. The horse-lore that has accumulated over the centuries is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Wallis, Lecturer and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland A move to the country is often presented in popular culture as an idyllic life, a place where you can escape the pressures of the city. It’s in television shows such ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The just-announced inquiry into Australia’s retirement income system ought to be anything but run-of-the-mill. Taking place 25 years after the introduction of compulsory superannuation, it provides an opportunity to either fix a broken system, or discard ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan McCay, Law Lecturer, University of Sydney The rise of artificial intelligence has led to widespread concern about the role of humans in the workplaces of the future. Indeed, Israeli historian, futurist and publishing sensation Yuval Noah Harari warns in his most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Saunders, Phd candidate, University of Wollongong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people. You leave Sydney and head for holidays on the South Coast. You plan to catch a quick surf, ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Clayton Mitchell denies accusations around a night out, food insecurity on the rise, and UK PM Boris Johnson secures deal with dubious prospects.NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell has got himself in a spot of late night bother in a Tauranga ...
As the rugby world wrestles with the new reality that players can, and will, be dismissed for accidental contact with an opponent’s head it's worth pondering the fate of three All Blacks not selected for the Ireland quarterfinal. ...
A new exhibition in Raetihi offers a rare opportunity to see early, colonialism-focused works by Wellington artist Barbara Strathdee, writes Pat Baskett. ...
Italy's Ambassador to New Zealand Fabrizio Marcelli responds to Newsroom stories - and The Detail podcasts - questioning the price of imported tinned tomatoes in light of reports of slave labour in the industry in his home country. ...
A measles outbreak in Samoa suspected to be responsible for the death of a one-year-old was “inevitable”, according to an expert who thinks NZ could have prevented it. ...
The big shock of the results in the weekend’s local elections was the unseating of Justin Lester as Wellington mayor. We invited him to pen a sort-of-valedictory.My three years as the mayor of Wellington ended on Sunday and I will forever remain grateful for the experience.I’m also acutely aware of ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, Alex Braae reviews a night spent on the Intercity overnight sleeper bus getting from Wellington to Auckland.The most important thing to understand about long haul bus travel is that it’s all about getting exactly ...
Britain and the EU have agreed new terms for divorce. But with the Conservatives’ Northern Irish support party unimpressed, can the British prime minister at last put an end to the interminable shitstorm?At last, a deal! A palpable deal! A path out of the endless brain-melt!“Where there is a will, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Government sources insist shock jock Alan Jones didn’t drive Thursday’s announcement of a cash payment to drought-striken farmers about to be turfed off their household support because they’d reached the four year time limit. They ...
The proposition that global warming driven by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a risk that needs to be dealt with has achieved a large measure of agreement among policymakers. The proposition that it has to be dealt with right now and at great cost has no such consensus.One point ...
A bill to improve the pastoral care of students living in halls of residence has flown through its first reading in Parliament, thanks to cross-party support. ...
In this week's MediaRoom column: could MediaWorks close its TV operations altogether? And the Herald restructures its newsroom to remove a layer of management and shake up its investigative team. ...
Twenty-five young people who represent the future of the Asia-New Zealand relationship have been acknowledged as ‘ones to watch’, by the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono. ...
The taboo that surrounds immigration and our refugee qouta, are two issues rising in New Zealand that need to start being given attention to challenge the fruit loops of the far left. ...
Winston Peters has been ordered to answer questions about whether he received a letter from MSD asking him to check details of his living arrangements, three years before discovering he'd been overpaid. ...
To celebrate 10 years since the start of New Zealand’s Next Top Model, our reality TV podcast The Real Pod is going to recap it week by week. Here are 10 of the most incredible revelations from the very first episode. 1) Colin Mathura-Jeffree was an emo kidThis was the moment ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Terrorism bill Lydia Lewis and Dan Satherley (Newshub): Security expert backs new terror law proposal ...
Occupiers of the disputed land at Ihumātao have been shut out of talks with the government about finding a resolution, saying they haven’t had any direct contact with ministers in more than a month, writes RNZ‘s Te Aniwa Hurihanganu and Meriana Johnsen.The Māori King announced in September mana whenua had ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Fancourt, Adjunct Research Fellow, University of New England Feral cats are wreaking havoc on our native wildlife, eating more than a billion animals across Australia every year. But managing feral cats and reducing their impacts on our threatened species is challenging, ...
Later this month, the national commemoration of the New Zealand Wars, known as Te Pūtake o Te Riri, is to be held in Taranaki. Local community activist Vivian Hutchinson looks at how a history of conflict has shaped our sense of citizenship and describes how some people in Taranaki are ...
New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell is demanding an apology from security guards who booted him out of a Tauranga bar on Saturday night, describing them as politically-motivated "buffoons". ...
New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell is demanding an apology from security guards who booted him out of a Tauranga bar on Saturday night, describing them as politically-motivated "buffoons". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jerry Zhou, Lecturer, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.Does chewing gum stay inside you for years? – Olivia, aged 12, Australia. Great question, Olivia! ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liam Elphick, Adjunct Research Fellow, Law School, University of Western Australia In March last year, Frances McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In her acceptance speech, she drew attention to the female nominees in the room and left them with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peggy Kern, Associate professor, University of Melbourne The Portal follows six individuals who undergo a personal transformation from trauma and struggle to calmness, self-acceptance, and compassion towards others. These personal changes are intertwined with contemplations about the broader struggles facing humanity and ...
Many hill country farmers could be locked into low-return agriculture by government policy, with little chance of breaking the cycle, according to the main meat producers' lobby, Beef + Lamb New Zealand. ...
The Southern DHB has apologised and pledged to change practices after a report into a young woman’s complaint about treatment which included being stripped naked and left unattended in seclusion for 12 hours. Here she tells her story.I’d forgotten the Health and Disability Commission was about to publish its report. ...
In the Chief Ombudsman’s latest Annual Report, contacts for advice increased 29 percent, while more use was being made of guidance material, including the 23 new or updated guides that were published in the 2018/19 year. ...
Fletcher's new offsite home manufacturing facility could be producing two homes a day within a couple of years. But for the moment this high-tech factory is underwhelming. ...
National's leader Simon Bridges says his party will pull its support for the new anti-terrorism legislation if the minister doesn't meet with them next week and start negotiating in good faith. ...
For the latest episode of On the Rag, notorious prude Alex Casey enlisted the help of sex toy expert and pleasure therapist Teddy Curle. It sounds a bit like ingredients for an avant-garde stir-fry recipe. Cauliflower. Kūmara. A jar of Vegemite. But what it actually is, sex toy expert Teddy Curle ...
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what this tells us is that we live in a self regulated civil society.
what this means is that you must tug your forelock and not answer back to the bosses who have their minds on higher things like how to reduce your wages.
otherwise you are being uncivil and spoiling their equanimity.
bwah wah wah.
I love you and the great work you do on behalf of the people that some want to abuse to death in many cases Helen. You are the most admirable type of human around and the type of person we need more of not only in NZ but the world over.
I know you often get flak from people who are afraid you will somehow eat into the profits that they make by exploiting people. But sensible people know that a safe, happy, equal opportunity workplace where people get fair pay for a fair days work is not only best for productivity but creates an environment where making profits is more likely and sustainable.
Keep up your great work. Hope you have a great xmas and new year xxooxx
+1
+1
Couldnt have put it better myself.
+1
+1
+1 Worthy praise. I so admire Helen’s fortitude and drive.
+1 and also +1 to LynW’s comment. Helen, you are a star – as my boss is prone to say!
There is a connection, or disconnection somewhere, in the minds of those who should act, between their percieved organisational status, their legal obligations and then maybe far down the line, their moral responsibility. I guess what that means is that over the period of my working life, my employers have ranged from psychotic, to negligent through to plain confused. The psychotic ones thought that “no care, no liability” was a good motto. They had taken the risk to form a business and now everyone else should pay. It was up to me to save myself, at my cost, regardless of the law. They were the big man, with percieved extra-legal rights because of social status. To some degree, the legal systems backed them up. Pushing people who simply refuse to engage is a job no one really wants to get involved with unless there is some material payoff – this included the supposed “good guys”.
When you’re young and ignorant, it’s easy to be taken advantage of by more aware superiors. Morally right? No freekin’ way. What happens is wrong, on every level, but when the choice is look after yourself or get injured, maimed, or worse, a person usually does what they can to protect themselves. That act of looking out for yourself is usually stolen for the whole “personal responsibility” meme and because the victim of this abdication from above wants the dream to be real, they might even start believing it themselves. But all they’re doing is maintaining a dangerous environment. Big boys don’t cry, your own efforts your own rewards, tough guys don’t complain and no one questions the boss’ abdication of responsibility. Senior employees often back this up and don’t help the at risk workmate either – waiting for them to fall for whatever personal thrill.
Sometimes the boss doesn’t actually want you dead. If they come up through this same distorted culture, sometimes they just don’t know. They have a mixture of ideas about safety, all contradictory and rather than risk cognitive dissonance they disappear at important moments, like during the set up of a job or during orientation of a new employee. These employers hover around, looking through their fingers, until reality pushes through their fuzzy thinking and down they come, barking that “it ain’t safe” and then everything stops until a fresh grasp can be found on how to proceed. If they don’t re-appear, they come back later to console the employees who are discussing the craziness of the now finished job, and how one guy almost had that happen, and how she almost lost her hand, and the scaffold was waving in the breeze. They don’t want you dead, but they won’t act. If anything had gone badly wrong, they’d find out the law takes a dim view of neglect.
Changing the ideas of the psychotic employer is a job for the law, politics and culture in general. Solitary workers can make small day-to-day changes in their environment, but currently they will always be outgunned at an organisational level and risk some kind of workplace penalty. It takes some courage. If you see the new guy a bit disoriented, come on people, guide them through it! If you know a new shift or environment has a hidden risk, tell them about it, or go with them, or alert your supervisor with your concern. It doesn’t matter if you had it hard and now you want others to feel how hard you had it so you can be sure they can relate to your pain and fear. Don’t use people like that, you only trap yourself. Feeling crappy might seem better than feeling nothing at all, but the path to emotional freedom often begins with a period of what feels like non-identity. It doesn’t last forever.
Creating supportive and safe workplaces isn’t just a political choice, it’s about finding real connections between people and that holds wider benefits than just at work or the bottom line.
Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. Decide to keep your shift safe over the holiday period.
Hell, I am impressed with this video blog. Clear consise and stayed on topic. I was somewhat worried that it’d look like crap or would waffle. But I was impressed and it got me irritated with those companies to the point I will have to read some more.
I got Lyn (she does video for a living) to watch it. She suggested a couple of tech things to improve it, but said it wouldn’t matter that much. I will squirt them through when I rouse myself from the immediate post work mode (aka blobbing out).
Doing this regularly is a great idea.
If anyone deserves a knighthood for their services to this country and devotion above and beyond the call of duty then Lprent does.
thank you lprent.
I absolutely agree that businesses need to treat health and safety of their employees as their utmost concern. However, employees also need to play their part. For instance, it has come out in the Pike River enquiry that minors were putting plastic film over their methane sensors. This in no way reduces the culpability of the company, and their may well have been productivity motivations that encouraged this behaviour. However, it clearly was a highly dangerous thing to do.
Also, if people believe they are intrinsically safe they can tend to take less care than they ought. I looked at this sort of behaviour during my studies a few years ago. I read an article about the introduction of safety belts in Britain. The effect was a reduction in death and injury to drivers. However, there was a corresponding increase in death and injury to pedestrians. It seems that because drivers perceived themselves to be safe they took more risky behaviours on the road.
This all goes to show that health and safety is quite complex and not solved simply by management establishing a safe working environment as there are complex psychological factors at work that can lead to unforeseen outcomes.
You’re a fucking asshole. What you’re ignoring here is who has the power and the responsibility in the workplace for ensuring that high levels of health and safety standards are followed at all times. The 17 year old kid or the mine’s general manager?
Health and safety is a real reason to have strong Unions without a good Union most companies will do what ever the hell they like and workers often end up paying with their lives, if it was the 1% who were loosing their lives it would be a totally different story.
Its a bit like Keys statement that NZ SAS did a grand job sorry that we lost a couple of good soldiers but thats the price we pay ( words to that effect). I bet he wouldn’t be so flippant if the price to pay was his son that had been killed that would a different bloody story.
CV: “You’re a fucking asshole. What you’re ignoring here is who has the power and the responsibility in the workplace for ensuring that high levels of health and safety standards are followed at all times. The 17 year old kid or the mine’s general manager?”
You obviously have very little knowledge of the health and safety act.
It is clear that employees also have responsibilities under the health and safety act.
From the act:
I am fairly confident that covering the sensors with plastic film wasn’t “sticking to correct procedures and using the right equipment”.
I thought I made it quite clear in my previous comments that I considered that most of the blame lies with the company. However, employee behaviour can’t be ignored in this.
Show me one instance of disciplinary action taken against a worker for doing such.
These practices were tacitly or explicitly supported by mine management IMO. Unless you are claiming that every time the General Manager went down the mine, the workers hurriedly took all the plastic film off the sensors so he didn’t see it.
Tell me, would you back health and safety whistleblower legislation protecting employees in work places?
If not, why not.
Yes I would support whistleblower legislation.
You have no argument from me that the company was atrociously deficient in it health and safety practices. And I absolutely agree that the company should shoulder most of the blame for the terrible outcome. They created the culture, and were clearly very lax in their enforcement of safety in the mine.
However, even if management had actively been telling workers to deactivate their sensors with plastic film, employees should still have known it was the wrong thing to do and refused to do it. There are some things that are so blatantly wrong that people should know not to do them under any circumstances. What they appear to have been doing is not far removed from striking a match in a mine.
So I still hold there appears to be a small degree of responsibility with the employees in this situation. The act is very clear that employees also have responsibilities as I pointed out above, and to some degree they may have failed to meet these responsibilities.
Fair enough. It seems to me you clearly recognise that the power, authority and responsibility for designing and running a safe mine rests primarily with senior management.
CV: “Fair enough. It seems to me you clearly recognise that the power, authority and responsibility for designing and running a safe mine rests primarily with senior management.”
Thanks for that.
It is probably impossible to know whether deactivating the sensors actually had any causal role in this situation. My understanding of Pike River is that there was a much higher tolerance of methane levels by management, almost to the point of explosive concentrations. Also, I have grave doubts about the investment the company was making in necessary equipment such as ventilation etc to evacuate methane from the mine. So, the accident may have happened regardless.
My company had just won an order for a whole lot of second-hand compressor equipment for Pike River. Second-hand because they couldn’t afford new. I thought at the time it seemed a bit odd, and wondered if this was typical for the mine. We were on the verge of supplying when the accident occurred. Our staff could have been installing the gear into the mine at the time of the accident other than for a few days.
Subsequent to the event, the manager we know from another contracting company told us he had pulled his workers out from working in the mine several months earlier because he was worried about safety. Turns out to have been a very wise move.
And while I fully agree ts that there is both an element of employee and employer responsibility for this disaster…. there is a dimension you have not touched on.
Employees have a responsibility to act safely in the ways the Act outlines. But their degree of committment and compliance with good practise will be set by the example and standards demanded by management.
Just three weeks ago I installed and commissioned a SIL2 level CO2 gas detection and shutdown system. In my working environment this kind of issue is taken seriously, disabling such a sensor would be an instant, if not sooner, dismissal offence. Presented with such a blatant stupidity, our entire organisation would demand a dismissal and seek to find a way to prevent a repetition.
Pike River management clearly did not set about blowing up their mine. They never had a meeting were they decided to deliberately take short-cuts and insane risks with lives and their huge investment. Instead they fooled themselves into thinking that what they were doing…in the cause of getting the mine into desperately needed production… was going to be ok. A lethal sort of closed circle groupthink as it were.
Missing in action was an independent oversight of mine management. That is the crucial element that should have picked up what was going at Pike River. Instead we had a DOL desperately understaffed and resourced… and given the emphasis on ‘industry self-regulation’ brought about by the dismantling of government departments in the 1990’s … not correctly placed to act effectively.
That is why Pike River has a political culpability as well, no less inescapable than that of the idiots who may or may not have put plastic film over sensors.
This is very similar to the ‘normalization of deviance’ or ‘normalization of risk’ organisational culture that NASA was accused of.
In other words you know that technically, you should not be covering up the sensors because it poses a potential risk to life and limb. But you do cover a couple of the worst offenders for convenience.
No one dies on day 1. No one dies on day 2 or 3. So having ‘proven’ that its ‘safe’ you cover the rest up. And no one dies on day 4, 5 or 6.
Sweet, the organisation has now ‘proven’ that its ‘safe’ to keep the gas sensors covered and the deviation to proper protocol becomes normalised as routine.
Until the fucking thing blows up killing people, whether its the Space Shuttle or a coal mine.
I thought whistle blower legislation already exists – it’s going back a long way, but didn’t Phil Goff help that bill through Parliament? Something to do with a problem at a psychiatric institution. Lake Alice, maybe.
tsm its clear that pike river were taking short cuts just about everywhere they could that was the culture enforced on workers because the management didn’t have enough money to open the mine safely
Read my reply to CV above.
If the miners were coming home feeling crook all the time, which they were, it’s clear there were ongoing ventilation issues. Management must have and should have known this, and I’d bet they were aware.
Management may have been aware of sensor covering if there were earlier incidences of “false alarms” holding up production, could have been suggested by them even.
Anything’s possible and likely with that poorly designed and run death trap.
Someone needs to be jailed for this.
“Someone needs to be jailed for this.”
I don’t disagree with you there.
Yes they do.
The Rena second mate and Master are facing criminal charges for what is, most likely, a simple mistake, possibly accentuated by fatigue, working conditions and training issues.
Scapegoats for systemic rather than their individual fault.
Pike River is also due to a lax attitude to safety from Government on down.
I wonder of the party of individual responsibility will take individual responsibility for the de-regulation and lack of interest in workers safety since the 80’s which contributed to these disasters.
In my view the buck stops at those who had the power to make changes. The top.
Without proper outside audits and monitoring even the most safety conscious can get complacent.
Especially people whose main responsibility is the bottom line.
Still trying to instil in my crews that just because a confined space or hold was OK yesterday, it doesn’t mean it is OK today.
McFlock is right that safety is complex. Like the common increases in accidents when a safety management system is first implemented. The normal human attitude then, is that “safety is covered. Don’t need to worry about it any more”
A very dangerous attitude in places like ships, mines and rigs, which cannot be made totally safe.
But some psychological factors leading to safety hazards are simple enough to understand. Fatigue, intense and sustained production targets, and poor training and supervision are all pretty obvious.
For example, low management emphasis on workplace hazards indicate to inexperienced workers how “real” a threat is, leading to the effect you alluded to with safety belts. Is the threshhold for an alarm indicative of a “real” hazard, or is it just some line drawn by a gummint boo-row-krat? And if the alarm shuts down production, and workers have production targets which result in payment penalties if not met, well – what would you expect to happen over the course of time? Management 101 (or it should be).
Reminds me of an oil rig that had a zero accident rate for two years in Indonesia.
They paid a very large, by Indonesian standards, bonus to each team for a perfect safety record.
There were no lost time injuries, but some rig workers were never seen again.
“Work is killing 1000 of us a year. New figures, which also show there are 17,000 new case of work-related disease in New Zealand each year, have been revealed by the Labour Department as it rolls out a new plan to reduce the statistics.
The Occupational Health Action Plan has 21 initiatives focused on reducing occupational cancer, respiratory hazards, noise, skin irritants and stress and pressure.”
…….. “She [Helen Kelly] applauded the department’s plan but said it had a history of writing reports about workplace health and safety, then not having the time or resources to implement them properly.”
The department could not say yesterday whether it had specific funding for the plan. ” http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business 19.12.2011
Meanwhile
“The plan was drafted in response to the 2009 review of the Workplace Health and Safety Strategy for New Zealand to 2015 which identified the need for a stronger focus on occupational health as a priority issue.”
The draft was the “Occupational Health Action Plan 2011-13”.
The consultation on that draft plan then closed November, 2011.
The final has now been launched December 2011. It’s now the “Occupational Health Action Plan to 2013”
Some two years for a response to the 2009 review. By the Labour Dept’s estimate that’s 1400 to 2000 more deaths and yet to begin the lengthy process of Implementation. Think now about Public Sector cuts as a response to workplace safety…inspectors..’She’ll be right’..we got until 2013.
Then compare responses and response time of 8 months to the following scenario and Bill introduction by National…13/08/2009
“According to statistics supplied by Mr Joyce, there were 25 fatal crashes and 482 injury crashes between 2003 and 2008 (5 years) where the use of a cellphone or another mobile device was a factor.” He announced at that time his estimate was that this Bill would then save 5 or 6 lives a year.
National’s new plans and priorities summed up nicely by panellist on “Backbenchers.” this week. ….whatever crops up at the time in this term..like the earthquake, the Pike mine, the Rena
1000 every year. Thats 29 people every 10.7 days.
It’s easy to see where this governments priorities sit. They would rather a token gesture cellphone rule to appear concerned for lives when theres the 1000 every year staring them in the face.
But we can’t upset shonkey corporate mates with extra “hassles” now can we.
20 people per week is the more marketable way of framing the statistics 😛
20 per week makes a better poster for sure.
I used the 29 to say its a pike river every 10.7 days
the real founding document of new zealand is the world bank report 1968. (watch out for hippies).
the parameters it uses are exactly the same now as then and the problem is still the same.
autarchy or rampant capitalism forcing its full effects on a very small society with sometimes devasatating results.
an optimistic viewpoint is looking for new things to do and I personally believe that it is possible.
the labour party must and will lead.
I just love the efforts of the far-Left to rehabilitate Helen Kelly. Every time the extremists show her face, they remind the electorate exactly who the Labour Party is. Who Trade Unionists are.
Keep up the good work. Another anti-Union march this Mayday (of all days!) this year would be superb.
Well coming from you HS that’s unexpectedly welcome support and praise. Maybe there’s something in this Christmas spirit thing after all.
Best wishes….
Far left? Me (since I was the one who organised the login)? You really are a bit of a moron.
Hulun Shearer is the name of a troll, banned till next year, in my humble opinion.
Theres certainly no need for rehabilitation, shes more relevant and vital to society than you could ever be. Sticking up for people and their rights, protecting them from exploitation is work for the finest people on earth.
Theres nothing extremist about trade unions you clown HS. It’s very likely if you have ever worked at all that you have been the recipient of a condition that has protected YOU from danger or exploitation, and that was put in place with the assistance of a union.
Any political party that cares about the workers in this country would know that unions are a very strong voice for workers who are often taken advantage of. Labour can only be commended for supporting people who care about others HS, because that shows that they care too. Caring may be a foreign concept to you HS, but to humans (the real kind) thats a part of what makes them tick.
An unsung Kiwi hero who will only be acknowledged very late in her career, but never by Corporates