As New Zealand’s primary work health and safety law, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (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. Today, amendments to the Act received Royal Assent and became law with the changes coming into effect on 1 April 2027.
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.
