This is a previously unpublished article that was submitted to news organisations.

In April the Health and Safety at Work Act will come into effect and it will be the first major change to workplace safety legislation in over twenty years.  If we can use the number of fatalities as a proxy measurement for workplace safety overall we can look at some of the available data to see what effect the new law may have.  Based on comparisons with other countries, a very difficult exercise for various reasons, we are doing slightly worse than some of the EU countries but much better than the litigious United States.

At present there are about 50 workplace fatalities per year, and according to data from 2009 the rate was about five deaths per 100,000 employees per year.  Putting it another way it will take workers 20,000 years on the job before they have the statistical chance of being killed.  Being a statistic they would of course have just as much chance of getting killed on the first day on the job as they would after working for 20,000 years.

In the period from 1993 to 2009 the average number of workplace fatalities did not actually change very much.  The Health and Safety in Employment Act passed into law in 1993 but it had no effect on the recorded workplace fatalities.  Also, over the 1993 to 2009 period there had been an absolutely huge change in workplace health and safety culture and policy.  This also had no obvious effect.  A similar situation happened when bicycle helmets became mandatory.  Even though there was a huge uptake in the use of bicycle helmets there was no corresponding stepwise reduction in head injuries due to cycle accidents.

So are we seeing the long tail of the law of diminishing returns on the number of workplace fatalities?  If this is the case then no matter how much policy is put in place there will be no effect on the fatalities.   One reason why there will always be fatalities is the concept of risk compensation, where we will always aim for the same level of risk.  This means that is does not matter how many health and safety procedures are implemented workers will always take risks with some risks leading to fatalities.

Another thing to consider is the effect of what may be onerous health and safety compliance on the cost of doing business in New Zealand.  While larger companies can absorb an increase in compliance costs small businesses, on which the New Zealand economy is built, will feel the financial pinch.  Businesses that are only marginally profitable will shut down.  All else being equal, the work carried out by these businesses, which may need to be done in some cases and in all cases would be a contribution to the New Zealand economy, will shift to a country with less restrictive health and safety policies.

If any work currently done in New Zealand is forced to shift off shore to a country with less strict health and safety policies we should consider the ethics of this from a global perspective.  Is it really ethical to allow some of the more dangerous industries to move off shore where foreign workers are killed instead of New Zealanders?  Based on what has already happened with sourcing cheap labour, cheap recycling, and cheap waste disposal this is a likely scenario.  So it the global workplace fatality rate remains the same would anything have been achieved with the new law?

The best piece of health and safety equipment, which some either choose not to or cannot use correctly, is the grey matter between our ears.  And so how do we legislate for the use of our brain?

There is a huge amount of electrical safety regulation here in New Zealand and this sharply contrasts with the total lack of environmental regulations for the same equipment.

Any electrical products used in New Zealand need to pass a set of compliance tests before they are allowed to be sold. Once in use, and depending on where and how they are used, electrical products require electrical safety testing as often as every three months. When they are discarded or scrapped they have to be prevented from being able to be plugged into the mains electricity supply.

Contrast this with the fact that even though some electrical products contain hazardous substances such as mercury, cadmium, and lead, there are absolutely no regulations governing the disposal of these products.  Also, it seems everything conspires against the repair, refurbishment, and recycling of electrical products.  I have discussed the decline in the repair industry in this submission, I have already blogged about being unable to obtain stock for refurbishment, and I am finding that recycling e-waste correctly is almost impossible to do.

All of this is part of the intergenerational inequality that our society has created.  We are placing a high value on our own lives but it means that if future generations want to enjoy the state of the environment that we currently have then they will have to clean up the mess that we are creating.

I had two cases last week were the electrical safety regulations failed in their intended purpose for two different reasons.

An item came in for repair which powered up but did not operate.  It had a current AS/NZS 3760 test and tag label.  I discovered that there was no earth on the metal frame of the equipment.  I also discovered that the power supply cord must have been pulled, breaking the supply wires but it leaving the earth wire intact.  That was the first problem – lack of a decent cord clamp!  The second fault, and one that should have been picked up on the test and tagging, was that the socket did not have the earth pin connected to the chassis.  It should have had the earth for it to be sold in New Zealand.

In the second case I discovered loose connections in a mains plug and some of the plug assembly had become hot, resulting in distortion of plastic parts.  It was on a piece of equipment that draws a fairly large amount of current and it is not likely that the plug would have caught fire but if the fault was in the equipment itself it may have represented a fire hazard.  The plug was not original.

Test and tagging under AS/NZS 3760, AS/NZ 5761, or AS/NZ 5762 is only of use if it is carried out correctly, and it does not pick up loose connections that may lead to fire risk.