Government to Cut Health & Safety Requirements for Smaller Businesses

Wednesday April 30, 2025 13:05

Following the request for submissions on the review of the Health and Safety At Work Act – 2015 ( HSAW ) that closed at the end of 2024, the Government has announced the first in an expected series of changes it plans to implement.

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden announced a set of changes to the health and safety system. The changes are part of the wider health and safety system reform and deliver on the ACT-National Coalition Agreement commitment to reform New Zealand’s health and safety laws and regulations.

This initial set of changes aim to help reduce compliance burden and clarify health and safety duties, including by:

• limiting the health and safety obligations of small, low-risk businesses to providing basic workplace facilities and only managing critical risk.
• cutting compliance costs by reducing notification requirements to the regulator to only significant workplace events.
• providing a hotline for the public to report excessive road cone use, and for WorkSafe to confirm and provide guidance on instances of overcompliance.
• freeing up private and public land for recreational use and ensure health and safety duties for landowners and land managers are reasonable and proportionate.
• clarifying the distinction between governance and operational management health and safety responsibilities to reduce directors’ fear and risks of overcompliance.
• changing the Approved Codes of Practice model to increase business and worker certainty about what they need to do to comply with their health and safety duties.

Other changes to HSWA:

The Minister also announced the following proposed changes that have been agreed by Cabinet:

• The primary purpose of the HSWA to be “sharpened” to focus on critical risk. At this stage we are unsure what this means other than perhaps to reduce the burden of documentation and record keeping.  Hopefully, this will lead the way to a reduction in the demand for multi pre-qualification schemes, often a prerequisite for contract work.
• The boundaries between the HSWA and other regulatory systems that manage the same risks to be clarified, to address perceived concerns regarding “over-compliance.”
• Requirements to notify the regulator to be amended to only include significant workplace events (deaths, serious injury, illness and incidents).

Van Velden said the changes would be the first step in  "a suite of system-wide changes" to reform health and safety laws and regulations. She said the amended bill will be put before parliament by the end of the year and, if passed, would come into effect in early 2026.

This is a clear indication that the entire work health and safety regulatory system is under review including the HSAW Act and that changes will continue to be rolled out.

There will be further announcements this year on other changes as part of the reform.

It will fall on the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment ( MOBIE ) and WorkSafe NZ to work through these changes and provide clarification on the details of how these reforms will impact on the activities of organisations throughout New Zealand.

WorkSafe NZ has announced that it will be recruiting up to 60 new health and safety inspectors in 2025 aiming to improve workplace safety and address alarming rates of workplace harm.  This will invariably mean more workplace inspections.

We will closely monitor this process and endeavour to ensure all clients are kept up to speed with events and what to expect from the Regulator – WorkSafe NZ.

If you have any concerns around this topic or other Health & Safety matters, your Securo Consultant is available to help, so please give them a call or alternatively contact Securo head office on 0800 55 33 44.

Parts of the information in this newsletter has been derived from guidance documents published by WorkSafe NZ which are available at www.worksafe.govt.nz, Ministry of Business and Innovation (MBIE) and parts of the Health and Safety At Work Act – 2015.