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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The first of Kiwirail’s big network shutdowns to fix the foundations on our tracks is now well underway with the Southern Line closed between Otahuhu and Newmarket. This is following on from the network wide Christmas/New Year shutdown, during which Kiwirail say that nearly 1,300 people working across 69 different ...
This is a re-post from the Citizens' Climate Lobby blogIn last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Congress included about $20 billion earmarked for natural climate solutions. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for deciding how those funds should be allocated to meet the climate ...
You’ve really got to wonder at the introspection, or lack thereof, from much of the mainstream media post Jacinda Ardern stepping down. Some so-called journalists haven’t even taken a breath before once again putting the boot in, which clearly shows their inherent bias and lack of any misgivings about fueling ...
Over the weekend I was interviewed by a media outlet about the threats that Jacinda Ardern and her family have received while she has been PM and what can be expected now that she has resigned. I noted that the level of threat she has been exposed to is unprecedented ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: The days of the Labour Government being associated with middle class social liberalism look to be numbered. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni are heralding a major shift in emphasis away from the constituencies and ideologies of liberal Grey ...
A Different Kind Of Vibe: In the days and weeks ahead, as the Hipkins ministry takes shape, the only question that matters is whether New Zealand’s new prime minister possesses both the wisdom and the courage to correct his party’s currently suicidal political course. If Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is able to steer ...
The days of the Labour Government being associated with middle class social liberalism look to be numbered. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni are heralding a major shift in emphasis away from the constituencies and ideologies of liberal Grey Lynn and Wellington Central towards the ...
Following the surprise resignation of Jacinda Ardern last week, her replacement, Chis Hipkins, has said: Over the coming week, Cabinet will be making decisions on reining in some programs and projects that aren’t essential right now That messaging is similar to what Jacinda Ardern said late last year and as ...
Much of what will mark the early days of Chris Hipkins’ Prime Ministership would have happened anyway. By December, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister were making it clear the summer break and early days of this year were going to be spent on a reset of government policy. ...
Going to try to get into the blogging thing again (ha!) what with an election coming up and all that. So today I thought I'd start small and simple, by merely tackling the world's (second) richest man.I'm no fan of Elon Musk. You don't want to know why, but I'll ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 15, 2023 thru Sat, Jan 21, 2023. Story of the Week State of the climate: How the world warmed in 2022With a new year underway, most of the climate data for ...
Well, that was a disappointment. As of today, the New Zealand Labour Caucus opted for Chris Hipkins as our new Prime Minister, and I cannot help but let loose a cynical cackle. ...
Get ready for a major political reset once Chris Hipkins is sworn in as Prime Minister this week. Labour’s new leader is likely to push the Government to the right economically, and do his best to jettison the damaging perceptions that Labour has become “too woke” on social issues. Overall, ...
Things have gone sideways… and it’s only the third week of January? It was political earthquake time. For some the Prime Minister made a truly significant announcement. For others – did you have this on your bingo card? – a body double did so (sit tight, you’ll understand later, ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
The Government is providing a further $1 million to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Cabinet today agreed that, given the severity of the event, a further $1 million contribution be made. Cabinet wishes to be proactive ...
The new Cabinet will be focused on core bread and butter issues like the cost of living, education, health, housing and keeping communities and businesses safe, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced. “We need a greater focus on what’s in front of New Zealanders right now. The new Cabinet line ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week for an in person meeting with Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins ...
The Government is providing establishment funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “We moved quickly to make available this funding to support Aucklanders while the full extent of the damage is being assessed,” Kieran McAnulty ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
The Government is maintaining its strong trade focus in 2023 with Trade and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visiting Europe this week to discuss the role of agricultural trade in climate change and food security, WTO reform and New Zealand agricultural innovation. Damien O’Connor will travel tomorrow to Switzerland to attend the ...
The Government has extended its medium-scale classification of Cyclone Hale to the Wairarapa after assessing storm damage to the eastern coastline of the region. “We’re making up to $80,000 available to the East Coast Rural Support Trust to help farmers and growers recover from the significant damage in the region,” ...
The Government is making an initial contribution of $150,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Tairāwhiti following ex-Tropical Cyclone Hale, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “While Cyclone Hale has caused widespread heavy rain, flooding and high winds across many parts of the North Island, Tairāwhiti ...
Rural Communities Minister Damien O’Connor has classified this week’s Cyclone Hale that caused significant flood damage across the Tairāwhiti/Gisborne District as a medium-scale adverse event, unlocking Government support for farmers and growers. “We’re making up to $100,000 available to help coordinate efforts as farmers and growers recover from the heavy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Finnigan, Leader, Complex Systems Science, CSIRO ShutterstockOne of Australia’s leading climate scientists, Professor Will Steffen, died on Sunday. Steffen has been hailed as a leading climate thinker, selfless mentor and gifted communicator. He is survived by his wife ...
New Zealand’s reputation as a country mostly free from corruption in its public service and judiciary has been reaffirmed in the 2022 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier says. But Mr Boshier ...
New Zealand is ranked second equal with Finland in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark is now clearly at the top of the ranking. New Zealand’s score dropped one point to 87 while Denmark improved by 2 points scoring 90. This is only the third ...
Analysis: In juggling his cabinet, the new prime minister said he sought to balance stability with renewal, writes Toby Manhire.There were some massive shifts reflected in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced this afternoon – it’s just we knew about them already. Specifically: Mt Albert MP ...
Auckland Emergency Management has issued an Emergency Mobile Alert (EMA) warning of the potential for further extremely heavy rain to hit the Auckland region tonight. The alert asks Aucklanders to act immediately if they see rising water, due to how quickly flooding can happen. They should evacuate to high ...
Ayesha Verrall will become the minister of health and moves to the front bench, taking the portfolio over from Andrew Little. Kieran McAnulty will join cabinet and take over the local government portfolio. Meanwhile, Little drops seven spots on the list, Phil Twyford is no longer a minister, and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Graycar, Professor of Public Policy, University of Adelaide Just months after Australia legislated to establish the long-anticipated National Anti-Corruption Agency, our standing is back on the rise in Transparency International’s annual Global Corruption Perceptions Index. This is a small but important ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Ferguson, Director, Appleton Institute, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock After a few difficult years of lockdowns and travel restrictions, people are finally winging their way across the globe again; families are being reunited and sights are being seen. Yet the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Goodwin, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne Terren Hurst on Unsplash In May, we predicted Tony Burke’s joint portfolio of workplace relations and the arts was an opportunity to address some of the challenges facing the arts and cultural sector. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danny Kingsley, Visiting Fellow, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University Shutterstock Unless you’ve spent your summer on a digital detox, you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT: the latest AI chatbot taking the world by storm. ...
The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists welcomes former ASMS member Dr Ayesha Verrall into her new role as Minister of Health. "Dr Verrall brings significant professional experience sharpened by her time in Parliament serving as the Associate ...
Today the Prime Minister announced the appointment of Kieran McAnulty as the new Minister of Local Government. “We welcome Minister McAnulty to the role and call on him to follow the Review into the Future of Local Government’s recommendation ...
The Taxpayer’s Union has welcomed the appointment of a new Minister for Local Government and encouraged Kieran McAnulty to press pause on the Three Waters reforms. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Callum Purves, said: “A new Minister for ...
COMMENTARY:By Gavin Ellis It is unlikely that the Mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown, took any lessons from the city’s devastating floods but the rest of us — and journalists in particular — could learn a thing or two. Brown’s demeanour will not be improved by a petition calling for ...
RNZ Pacific The headquarters of the Malvatumauri of National Council of Chiefs of Vanuatu has burned down. The fire broke out about 1am Monday local time. Police are investigating the cause of the fire in Port Vila. The Malvatumauri nakamal is a custom parliament for all Vanuatu’s chiefs. “This nakamal ...
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown is under fire for calling New Zealand journalists “drongos”, blaming them for having to cancel a round of tennis with friends on Sunday as the city dealt with the aftermath of record rainfall and flooding that left four dead. It comes after widespread criticism of ...
Things are acutely uncomfortable for Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown right now, but can he recover to save his mayoralty? Less than a month after Wayne Brown was sworn in as Mayor of Auckland, a leading figure in central government was asked privately how the city might handle this unconventional figure ...
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) welcomes Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health role. NZNO Chief Executive Paul Goulter said the organisation and its members are looking forward to working ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced Jan Tinetti, Ayesha Verrall, Willie Jackson and Kiri Allan are being shifted up the Labour rankings, with Nanaia Mahuta and Andrew Little dropping down. Watch here. ...
Jamie Wall reviews Invincible by WJ Moloney, which covers Andrew (Son) White’s life and experiences of World War I, rugby and survival.“He saw it, and all the other memorials, was conceived and created for what was lost, by those who survived. Stark and imposing, thoughtfully designed and inscribed with ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week to meet with Australian PM Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins said. The meeting marks ...
A state of emergency has been declared in Northland as the region braces for more rain. Metservice is forecasting up to 140mm of rain across Northland, with some areas in the north and east getting 220mm, peaking at 40mm per hour. The state of emergency is effective as of 1pm ...
Never thought you’d order Uber Eats from the Coffee Club? You might have and not even known it, writes Sam Brooks.I spend a lot of my time scrolling through the Uber Eats app. Only half of the time is it because I’m looking for something to eat. The other ...
Consumers have been warned to prepare for fruit and vegetable shortages as floodwaters in the upper North Island impact food safety. The weekend’s flooding will exacerbate supply issues caused by rainy conditions this summer in much of the country, leading to higher prices nationwide. Anne-Marie Arts of industry group United ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Director, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre; Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University In 2016, the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence released its findings following an exhaustive 13-month inquiry. In it were 227 recommendations to ...
In recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Problem Gambling Foundation will launch a new wānanga series of online videos on Waitangi Day, featuring conversations with Māori influencers about the systemic injustices experienced by Māori including ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eliza Middleton, Biodiversity Management Officer, University of Sydney Overall winner of the 2018 competition, a Growling Grass Frog (_Litoria raniformis_) by EnviroDNA @enviro_DNA@enviro_DNA, CC BY-NC Almost 2,000 native species are officiallylisted as “threatened” in Australia – but how many have ...
Youthtown is launching [email protected] with two online after school programs aimed at giving kids a safe and supervised environment. Minecraft Monday and Imagination Lab - STEAM Kits are hosted in secure online groups that enable children to get a ...
The more hard surfaces we build, the more stormwater we need to drain. Here’s how we can future-proof our urban design as climate change bites. We’ve built our cities to be vulnerable to – and exacerbate – major weather events such as the one we saw in Auckland on Friday. ...
The soaring cost of living is fuelling an education crisis for New Zealand children living in poverty. To coincide with the start of the new school year, KidsCan is launching its 2023 Back to School campaign with the aim to bring on board 450 new ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nina Sivertsen, Senior Lecturer (Nursing), Flinders University Getty Images It’s good practice for employers to consult staff when forming policies or guidelines. However, for some staff from diverse backgrounds, this creates extra work and pressure. “Cultural load” in the ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has launched a petition calling for schools to have the authority to make their own decisions about emergency closures based on local circumstances rather than be beholden to bureaucrats in Wellington. Taxpayers’ ...
Duncan Greive founded The Spinoff in 2014. Today he has decided to hand the torch to his colleague and friend Amber Easby. He explains why.I swear I thought of it first. Or at least, in parallel. I remember walking up the stairs to work on January 9, and for ...
Today’s launch of Waipuna aa rangi, the formal body set to represent hapū and iwi across Te Tai Tokerau and Tāmaki Makaurau in the Three Waters reforms, has been postponed by the ongoing extreme weather event. “The latest red warning for parts ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics AO, University of Newcastle Pexels/Anna Shvets Ever feel a bit stressed or need a concentration boost? Research suggests one remedy may be right under your nose. Chewing has benefits for brain function, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danny C Price, Senior research fellow, Curtin University Midjourney, Author provided Some 540 million years ago, diverse life forms suddenly began to emerge from the muddy ocean floors of planet Earth. This period is known as the Cambrian Explosion, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camilla Nelson, EG Whitlam Research Fellow at the Whitlam Institute, and Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Australia April Fonti/AAP There is much to be excited about in Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’s draft Family Law Amendment Bill 2023, the first in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Naylor, Senior Lecturer, Massey University Getty Images The clean-up from Auckland’s devastating floods last week is just beginning but insurance companies will need to start thinking about what the record-breaking weather event will mean for future coverage. Over ...
A coalition of anti-poverty and welfare advocacy groups has called for urgent government action to support people affected by flooding in Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, and Waikato. The Fairer Future group - which called for increases in income support ...
<img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2301/634c21cb071ff0232051.jpeg" width="720" height="221"> “Raising the legal age for buying cigarettes to 20 is a good move, but effectively banning e-cigarettes is disappointing ...
Hospital waiting lists grow Chris Hipkins is expected to announce his cabinet reshuffle today. There’s been some speculation that Andrew Little may lose the health portfolio to Ayesha Verrall. As Stuff’s Bridie Witton reported, Little said he was happy to stick it out as the health minister. ...
In the December 2022 quarter, 0.4 percent of home transfers were to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa, Stats NZ said today. This compares with 0.4 percent in the December 2021 quarter, and 0.5 percent in the September 2022 ...
New Zealand is well behind the rest of the world when it comes to transferring money between banks. Shane Marsh and James McEniery discovered this when they were living in Singapore and started Aotearoa’s first real time payment mobile wallet. They aim to bring banking in New Zealand into the ...
MetService satellite imaging shows a deepening low moving towards New Zealand. It’s expected to bring more heavy rain to areas already impacted by the record-breaking rainfall on Friday that caused severe flooding in Auckland. Red and orange heavy rain warnings have been issued. Red warnings are issued when rain is ...
Our uniforms are overpriced and so packed with plastics they’ll outlive our great-great-grandchildren, write the student journalists of Balmoral Intermediate. Last year, Balmoral Intermediate’s student-run newspaper Kawepūrongo released a multi-part investigation into their polyester-packed school uniforms. The first instalment, titled “What Really Goes Into Our Uniform?” was initially sparked by ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that a Police dog handler’s decision to command his dog to restrain two young people while arresting them for attempting to steal a car was a justified, necessary and proportionate response in ...
While the upper North Island braces for more heavy rain, Auckland mayor Wayne Brown remains adamant he’s not resigning as a new text message about “media drongos” sent by Brown comes to light, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The ...
The Environmental Defence Society says that the National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry (NES-PF) are failing to protect the coastal marine environment from the significant adverse effects of sedimentation associated with plantation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danny C Price, Senior research fellow, Curtin University Midjourney, Author provided Some 540 million years ago, diverse life forms suddenly began to emerge from the muddy ocean floors of planet Earth. This period is known as the Cambrian Explosion, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Davies, Research Associate, Charles Darwin University The world’s largest wild population of water buffalo now roam Australia. As does the largest wild herd of camels. We have millions of feral goats and deer. For these introduced species, Australia is a paradise. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Juliana Segura-Salazar, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Planetary Resources We know the world must move to cleaner energy sources to head off the worst effects of climate change, but the technology required for the transition is very mineral-intensive. So ...
Two new polls put Labour under Chris Hipkins suddenly ahead of Chris Luxon’s National. Toby Manhire assesses some strikingly similar numbers. Come on now. The news in New Zealand is meant to yawn gently out of bed in January. A sprinkling of set-pieces, scene setting and sloganeering, that’s all. But ...
Filmed in rural New Zealand during the Covid-19 pandemic, Pearl was one of the biggest critical darlings of 2022. But, as Stewart Sowman-Lund reports, there are still no plans to release it here. It cost New Zealand taxpayers more than$1.5m. It was filmed entirely on our shores. It raked in ...
Increasingly frequent encounters between humans and sea lions in the Catlins and Clutha coast has conservationists calling for vehicle bans on beaches The world’s rarest species of sea lion is clawing its way back into prominence on Southland beaches - but road traffic on the seashore could send them back into ...
For political nerds and tragics the 2020 election was about as boring as it could get with no race to be seen and an inevitable landslide victory for Labour. Monday night’s polls show 2023 will be a return to MMP - a race down to the wire and the result ...
Carmel Sepuloni's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister has been rightly celebrated, but how will she fare as Chris Hipkins' right-hand woman? She's well-liked in the Labour caucus and seen as a safe pair of hands - but has Carmel Sepuloni got what it takes to be the Deputy Prime Minister? ...
The epic deluge and subsequent flooding across Auckland broke just about every record in the book. Newsroom has pulled the data together to show just how unprecedented this storm was. ...
Guy Somerset is Team Sussex I’m Team Sussex. I came to Harry’s memoir predisposed towards both him and Meghan. I believe them. They seem genuine. A bit flaky perhaps. A bit, yes, woke. But not the criminals they’ve been made out to be. Not the Machiavellian manipulators they’re portrayed as. ...
'When you have the support of many to help carry you and role models who completely smash glass ceilings, how can you not dare to dream?' Auckland University’s first female Pacific Pro Vice-Chancellor Pacific shares what the appointment of Carmel Sepuloni as Deputy Prime Minister means to her.Comment: Nafanua, well-known in ...
Multiple world champion archer Danielle Brown experienced the ultimate highs and lows of sport. Now with the help of two great Kiwi athletes, she's written an award-winning book, Angela Walker reports. Danielle Brown knows what inclusion looks like. It has enabled the archery champion to stand on the sport's highest ...
Dr Eric Crampton argues national and local regulation, including a clause in the Grocery Industry Competition Bill going through Parliament, make it more difficult for other players to enter the supermarket. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Former deputy prime minister John Anderson is one of the six- member committee launched on Monday to spearhead the “no” case in the Voice referendum. The Voice No Case Committee’s “Recognise a Better Way” campaign ...
RNZ Pacific New Caledonia’s pro-independence Union Calédonian has proposed September 24 this year as the date by which an accord be reached with France to complete decolonisation. The party, which wants independence for the territory by 2025, has chosen the date because it will mark the 170th anniversary of New ...
Pacific Media Watch Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat reports today on how Fiji has fared under the draconian Media Industry Development Act that has restricted media freedom over the past decade. There are hopes that state-endorsed media censorship will stop in Fiji following last month’s change in government to the People’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Treasurer Jim Chalmers has rejected as “laughable” criticism he has turned his back on the Hawke-Keating reform era in his blueprint for “values-based capitalism”. In this podcast Chalmers also reveals he spoke with Paul ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne It’s finally been launched. A new cultural policy for Australia. After years (actually decades) of neglect, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today launched a new national ...
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