scholarly journals “Occupational Health and Safety” Corporate Liability and the Regulation of Officers: New Zealand Reform

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stella Kasoulides Paulson

<p>This paper examines the concept of corporate liability in the context of occupational health and safety in New Zealand. In particular it looks at the new duty of officers proposed in the Health and Safety Reform Bill 2014. New Zealand’s occupational health and safety framework has experienced a regulatory breakdown, stemming from its incomplete implementation of the Robens Model for health and safety regulation. That breakdown involves many flaws and gaps, especially as far as corporate liability is concerned, while the modern world of work has created new challenges to health and safety regulation. This setting demands a new regulatory tool to create effective corporate liability and increase the compliance of companies’. This article examines the new world of work and the inherent clash between OHS regulation and the corporate world to reveal two main conclusions; the major barrier to company compliance is a lack of effective inducement; and there is a desperate need to create health and safety leaders within companies, in order to create a positive health and safety culture. These two conclusions promote the main proposition of this paper, that the proposed duty of officers will be instrumental in improving the state of workplace health and safety. This paper examines the duty, as drafted, to emphasise its potential and to highlight certain flaws which may limit that potential.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stella Kasoulides Paulson

<p>This paper examines the concept of corporate liability in the context of occupational health and safety in New Zealand. In particular it looks at the new duty of officers proposed in the Health and Safety Reform Bill 2014. New Zealand’s occupational health and safety framework has experienced a regulatory breakdown, stemming from its incomplete implementation of the Robens Model for health and safety regulation. That breakdown involves many flaws and gaps, especially as far as corporate liability is concerned, while the modern world of work has created new challenges to health and safety regulation. This setting demands a new regulatory tool to create effective corporate liability and increase the compliance of companies’. This article examines the new world of work and the inherent clash between OHS regulation and the corporate world to reveal two main conclusions; the major barrier to company compliance is a lack of effective inducement; and there is a desperate need to create health and safety leaders within companies, in order to create a positive health and safety culture. These two conclusions promote the main proposition of this paper, that the proposed duty of officers will be instrumental in improving the state of workplace health and safety. This paper examines the duty, as drafted, to emphasise its potential and to highlight certain flaws which may limit that potential.</p>


1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 468-484
Author(s):  
Kevin Purse

In July 1998 the Soutb Australian goverment released a Discussion Paper concern ing the future of occupational bealth and safety regulation in South Australia. In examining the paradigm shift proposed in the Discussion Paper, this paper highlights the importance of workplace health and safety as public polig issues in Australia and seeks to locate the Discussion Paper within the broader context of deregulatory changes in the administration of occupational health and safety legislation that have occurred in South Australia in recent years. It identifies several fundamental flaws in the proposals put forward for change and suggests that the major problem with tbe regulation of occupational health and safety in South Australia is the failure to effectively administer the legislation. The paper also advances a number of proposals designed to achieve greater compliance with the legislation. It concludes that the major proposals contained in the Discussion Paper are unlikely to find widespread practical expression.


2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (02) ◽  
pp. 278-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Yassi

Summary Purpose: To synthesize the lessons from both occupational health and health promotion, to improve workplace health. Approach: This article briefly outlines the evolution in defining and understanding health promotion as well as current thinking in occupational health and safety.It also discusses an approach taken in the healthcare sector in British Columbia, Canada, where evidence-based practices and collaboration became the cornerstones to bringing about change and achieve impressive cost-beneficial results in healthcare workforce health. Conclusion: Traditionally, workplace health promotion and occupational health and safety have been two solitudes. Workplace health promotion is rooted in ‘wellness’ and healthy lifestyle choices, while occupational health is heavily dictated by workplace health and safety requirements and legislation. Recently however, there has been increasing recognition of the need for a more holistic approach that focusses on workplace culture, addressing both primary and secondary prevention [1], as well as interventions aimed both at the individual as well as the organisation [2].


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Walters ◽  
Michael Quinlan

The activism of coalmining unions in Australia, the UK, the USA and elsewhere securing improvements in safety including better legislation in the 19th and 20th centuries, has been widely researched and acknowledged. However, a relatively neglected aspect of this history was a campaign to secure worker inspectors (check-inspectors). These began in coalmining a century before similar measures were introduced for workers more generally as part of overhauling occupational health and safety laws in the 1970s/1980s. We document this struggle for mine safety in Australia and New Zealand, and the activities of check-inspectors in the period to 1925. Notwithstanding strong opposition from coal-owners and conservative governments, check-inspectors played an important role in safeguarding coalminers and improving the regulatory oversight of coalmines. Check-inspectors not only gave coalminers a ‘voice’ in OHS, but they also provided an exemplar of the value and legitimacy of worker’s ‘knowledge activism’. This system remains. Furthermore, the struggle is relevant to understanding contemporary debates about collective worker involvement in occupational health and safety. JEL Codes: J28, J51, J81


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-73
Author(s):  
A. E. Fomenko

Presented is a draft occupational health and safety manual for construction forensics practitioners. The draft guide was developed with the purpose of improving the reliability of workplace health and safety arrangements in construction forensics units within the system of the Russian Ministry of Justice. The expert community is invited to consider the proposed draft document.


2020 ◽  
pp. 174889582091889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynzi Armstrong

In the context of on-going debates regarding sex work laws, in most jurisdictions forms of criminalisation continue to dominate. Despite decades of sex workers calling for the decriminalisation of sex work and collectively organising against repressive laws, decriminalisation remains uncommon. New Zealand was the first full country to decriminalise sex work with the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003, which aimed to improve occupational health and safety. Several empirical studies have documented positive impacts of this framework. However, despite this, neo-abolitionists persistently describe the New Zealand model as a failed approach. This article examines neo-abolitionist knowledge claims regarding the New Zealand model and in doing so unpacks the strategic stories told about this approach, considering the implications for sex work policy making.


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