Residential site assessments will focus on how businesses are managing critical health and safety risks this spring.
WorkSafe New Zealand health and safety inspectors will carry out proactive assessment visits to residential construction sites across the country from October to December 2026.
The visits will focus on how businesses are managing critical health and safety risks – such as vehicles, hazardous substances and remote work on farms, and falls from working at height on residential construction sites.
WorkSafe is focusing on agriculture and construction because of the high numbers of deaths and serious injuries in these sectors.
“These proactive visits to workplaces in high-risk industries help ensure businesses and workers understand their health and safety responsibilities,” says WorkSafe’s Head of Inspectorate Rob Pope.
Information gathered from assessments also gives WorkSafe insights on current practices to understand how risks are being managed, to inform how it supports businesses to prevent harm.
- Working at height is a leading cause of serious injury and death in New Zealand.
- Businesses must manage the risks associated with working at height.
- Certain types of work at height must be notified to WorkSafe New Zealand before work starts.
- Businesses must consult with workers when making decisions about how to manage health and safety risks related to their work.
WorkSafe issued renewed Working at Height guidelines in August this year, providing provide practical advice on ways to identify and manage health and safety risks associated with working at height in New Zealand.
Health and Safety Act changes
Meanwhile, businesses are reminded to familiarise themselves with changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA), which have been approved this winter and will come into effect in April 2027.
As New Zealand’s primary work health and safety law, HSWA sets out what businesses need to do to keep people healthy and safe at work. It also establishes key work health and safety principles and rights. In July, amendments to the Act received Royal Assent and became law with the changes coming into effect next year on 1 April.
The amendments aim to focus the health and safety system on critical risk so that businesses are clear about the most important things to focus on. It’s part of the Government’s wider health and safety reforms.
From 1 April 2027, small businesses (those with fewer than 20 workers) will be required to manage critical risks and to prioritise critical risk when complying with other provisions of the Act and its regulations. Critical risks are those likely to cause the most serious harm. Larger businesses must manage all risks but prioritise those that are critical.
All businesses will need to identify critical risks based on what they should reasonably know about their work.
Other key changes include:
- The ability for industry, worker, and employer organisations to develop their own codes of practice for approval by the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety.
- Providing clarity on the injuries and illnesses that must be notified to WorkSafe.
- Prioritising certain functions for regulators like WorkSafe, such as providing guidance, developing and reviewing approved codes of practice (ACOPs), developing Safe Work Instruments, and monitoring and enforcing compliance.
- Setting out that where a business follows an ACOP, it is taken to have complied with the Act meaning enforcement action cannot be taken about a relevant matter.
- Narrower duties for landowners and officers.
- Amending the WorkSafe Act to better support our focus on critical risks and educating businesses.
More information about the changes, and what they mean for businesses, will be available in the lead up to the Act’s commencement ahead of April.
Copy link