New Zealand’s Proposed Health and Safety Reforms
The New Zealand Government’s proposed amendments to the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) are intended to simplify compliance obligations and refocus attention on the workplace hazards most likely to cause catastrophic harm. While many of the reforms have been welcomed as a practical attempt to reduce unnecessary red tape, one proposed change has generated significant discussion within the health and safety community: the treatment of work at height below three metres.
At the heart of the proposed reforms is a desire to concentrate regulatory effort on “critical risks”—those with the potential to result in death, serious injury or life-altering illness. The amendments would also provide greater clarity for small businesses, streamline certain duties and encourage the development of industry-specific Approved Codes of Practice to make compliance more straightforward.
One of the most closely watched aspects of the proposal is the suggestion that work at heights below three metres would generally not be regarded as a specified critical risk. On the surface, this may appear to be a sensible way of distinguishing between lower and higher consequence activities. However, the practical implications deserve careful consideration.
For many businesses, the amendments could reduce administrative burden and allow greater focus on managing genuinely catastrophic hazards. Organisations may be able to dedicate more time and resources to major risks such as confined spaces, mobile plant interactions, hazardous substances and high-energy processes, rather than applying the same level of oversight to every routine task.
The challenge, however, lies in how the reforms may be interpreted in practice.
Health and safety professionals understand that height alone does not determine risk. Falls from ladders, loading docks, mezzanines or elevated work platforms below three metres have resulted in numerous fatalities and life-changing injuries around the world. The severity of an incident depends on many factors, including the landing surface, surrounding hazards, body position during the fall, worker competency and the nature of the task being performed.
Introducing a specific height threshold therefore creates the potential for unintended consequences. Workers and employers unfamiliar with the finer details of the legislation may mistakenly conclude that work below three metres is inherently “safe” or exempt from robust risk management. Such an interpretation would be inconsistent with decades of incident data demonstrating that relatively low falls can still have devastating outcomes.
From an operational perspective, fixed thresholds can also create unnecessary complexity. Consider two identical maintenance tasks carried out at 2.9 metres and 3.1 metres. While the proposed legislation may treat them differently from a regulatory standpoint, the actual risk profile may be virtually identical. Safety decisions should ultimately be driven by the nature of the hazard and the reasonably foreseeable consequences—not by an arbitrary numerical boundary.
There is also a broader concern that specifying a distance may inadvertently encourage a compliance-based mindset, where organisations focus on meeting minimum legal thresholds rather than undertaking meaningful risk assessments. The most effective safety management systems are those that encourage critical thinking and proportionate controls based on the specific circumstances of each activity.
A Better Way Forward
If the objective is to reduce unnecessary compliance while maintaining strong protections for workers, the legislation could be improved by avoiding language that appears to define certain heights as inherently low risk.
Instead, the Government could clarify that work above three metres should generally be regarded as presenting a critical risk requiring heightened attention, while explicitly stating that work below three metres may still constitute a critical risk where the potential consequences or surrounding circumstances justify additional controls.
Such wording would preserve the Bill’s intention of focusing resources on the highest-risk activities while reinforcing a fundamental principle of modern safety management: risk should be assessed on the basis of potential harm and context, not height alone.
Ultimately, legislation should guide sound decision-making without creating ambiguity. By carefully refining the language around work at height, New Zealand has an opportunity to simplify compliance while continuing to promote practical, risk-based safety outcomes across all industries.
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