FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
In light of the recent tragedy at Dreamworld, where four people died after a raft overturned on the Thunder River Rapids
ride, John Frampton, a leading expert in Health and Safety Worksite, calls for Tourism Operators in New Zealand review
work place practices and their compliance to legislation.
Controversy surrounds the cause of the accident, with the Standard Australia's Amusement Ride Committee stating
maintenance issues could be responsible; however Dreamworld said the ride had its annual mechanical and structural
safety engineering inspection four weeks ago.
Frampton, owner Health and Safety Worksite, with 28 years experience in the industry says “although we’re still waiting
for the findings, it’s a sad but timely reminder for New Zealand based Tourism Operators to review workplace practice
for customer safety.”
The New Zealand Health and Work Safety Act (HWSA) 2015 and the Legislation that governs Health and Safety in Queensland,
Australia, are almost identical.
“Any outcome, finding or shortfall with the Dreamworld accident, could have ramifications in the workplace in New
Zealand,” Frampton says.
The new legislation, both in Australia and New Zealand brings higher penalties for legislative breach. For example, if
Dreamworld is prosecuted, the highest penalty is up to $3 million and the directors can be held personally liable and
face up to five years in jail or be heavily fined.
These warnings come at a time when New Zealand’s Tourism Industry is buoyant with a record $3.8 billion increase in
tourism spending in the past year, according to the Tourism Satellite Account: 2016 - a report just released by
Statistics New Zealand.
But Buoyancy is no excuse for complacency. Kevin Haskins, a Health and Safety Advisor, ACC auditor and co-founder of
BWARE, says “it’s always a tragedy when customers are killed. We’re totally on board with the philosophy that Health and
Safety is the responsibility of every member of an organisation. We’re working hard to change people’s thinking.”
BWARE have created the Responder App, software that enables employees to report accidents, identify new hazards and
document safety observations, from a smartphone or other device. Data is sent to a centralised data system so Site
Managers can be immediately reactive to work place incidents, to improve accident prevention.
188,136 people are currently directly employed in tourism in New Zealand – 7.5 percent of the total number of people
employed in New Zealand.
“It’s the small -medium sized companies that need the most help.” Haskins says. “They often don’t know where to start.”
BWARE have assisted Tourism Operators and Adventure Tourism businesses all over New Zealand to comply with HWSA 2015. As
well as the Responder App, Kevin and business partner Chris Brown developed Safety Manager software to help
organisations comply with the additional reporting load, which came with the implementation of the new Act.
Haskins says “it’s pretty typical to assign Health and Safety responsibility to the Office Manager but they may not
always have the experience.”
Safety Manager has inbuilt workflow processes which lead operators through the complexities of risk management. It
prompts for considerations around high-risk equipment or hazards in the workplace, populating HWSA required risk
registers, induction and training records, training records.
The Responder App has applicability on multiple sites across companies that manage operations nationwide. It was
recently deployed across three ski fields to about 300 staff, managers and supervisors, each given involvement and
access commiserate with their role in the organisation.
Kevin says “we’re urging operators to make changes now. Let’s learn from Dreamworld. What happened and why? Let’s make
sure it doesn’t happen again.”
ENDS
About BWARE
BWARE delivers software and mobile apps that help companies and small businesses, meet their compliance obligations to
New Zealand’s Health and Workplace Safety Act, 2015. The company services the Building and Construction, Hospitality and
Tourism (including adventure tourism) industries.
BWARE is an acronym that stands for Business and Workplace Activity Reporting Engine. The company was founded by two
long-time friends Kevin Haskins, a Health and Safety Advisor and ACC auditor and Chris Brown, a software architect. The
two formed BWARE to develop an easy to use, all-in-one software solution that allowed businesses to record, monitor and
control the health and safety processes in accordance with current legislation.