Forestry death and injury
WorkSafe New Zealand says news today of a death and a serious injury in the forest sector is deeply saddening.
WorkSafe NZ General Manager Health and Safety Operations Ona de Rooy said after delivering an appalling safety record in
2013, to have a death just 16 days into the new year demonstrates just how much this sector needs to change its
behaviour.
“We have identified an alarming rate of safety non-compliance amongst cable logging operators – nearly half of the 162
we’ve visited weren’t operating in compliance with the industry code and we had to take 203 enforcement actions to force
those operators to comply. We had to shut 15 of them down they were so dangerous,” Ms de Rooy said.
“We are so concerned at this level of unsafe practice that we have sought meetings with individual forest owners to make
very clear to them that they have significant responsibilities under the Health and Safety in Employment.
“We will want to see their safety plans for the contractor crews demonstrate active management of safety standards. If
they are deficient, we will be holding them to account.
“The issues that are becoming apparent lead us to conclude that there are deeply ingrained systemic issues in this
industry,” Ms de Rooy said.
“The regulator cannot be solely responsible for making sure this industry is safe. We will use every power available to
us to push this industry to safer operations. But until every forest owner, every contractor, their national
associations, worker representatives and the workers themselves take personal responsibility for operating safely, the
culture in this industry will not change and more families and communities will be grieving over a dead or injured
forestry worker.
WorkSafe NZ has expert forestry health and safety inspectors on their way to the fatality in the Wairau Valley and the
serious injury near Whakatane.
Ends