21 March 2012

Health and Safety Field Officers to work with construction industry in the Canterbury Rebuild

Andrew Confait, spokesperson for the Canterbury Rebuild Health and Safety Initiative, today welcomed the commencement of its first two Health & Safety Field Officers.

“Their focus will be on assisting small to medium enterprises to; develop their internal capability, grow their safety leadership, build their knowledge of health and safety, and support the development of robust health and safety systems.”

Their employment was made possible by a government funded initiative to assist in the setting and prioritisation of health & safety training and related activities for the Canterbury rebuild.

When announcing this project at the end of 2011 the Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson stated that:

"The Government is committed to rebuilding Canterbury and ensuring that the transformation is achieved safely. There has been, and we will continue to see, a large influx of contractors working in Canterbury.”

“Some of their health and safety systems are not adequate for the size of this job so this funding will target subcontractors in commercial and residential construction, and focus on getting the right safety systems in place.”

The Canterbury Rebuild Health and Safety Initiative brings together, industry representatives* from the construction and infrastructure sector, union and employer representatives and the Department of Labour to address the unique health and safety issues that the Canterbury rebuild presents.

Andrew Confait commented that field officers’ priorities to the end of June are to work with SME’s, provide onsite mentoring, information, training needs analysis and referrals to relevant training providers and advise, and to support SME’s to develop their own robust Health & Safety systems.

“Field officers will develop health and safety champions in the workplace as a way to encourage greater participation and leadership.”

These “Health and Safety Champions” will be supported by new half day training courses developed by the CECC and the EPMU.

*Organisations represented in this initiative:

Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, Business NZ, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union, Site Safe NZ, Fletcher EQR, Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team, Hawkins Construction, Naylor Love, Mainzeal and Arrow International.

[Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team is an alliance between Christchurch City Council, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), City Care, Downer, Fletcher Construction, Fulton Hogan, and MacDow New Zealand.]

ENDS

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