The regulator for workplace health and safety is standing by its handling of bullying complaints despite not launching a single prosecution.
WorkSafe New Zealand chief executive Nicole Rosie says the agency takes bullying very seriously.
"Of the 100 cases that have come across our table over half of those have had an assessment inspector on site and we have investigated 10. None of those have hit the standard for us to prosecute," she told 1 NEWS.
National MP for Coromandel Scott Simpson says he's surprised by that.
"Given the number of inquiries that WorkSafe New Zealand have received it surprises me that there have been no prosecutions."
Now the Minister for Workplace Relations, Iain Lees-Galloway, has told WorkSafe he wants it to place a lot more emphasis on combatting bullying and sexual harassment.
In New Zealand up to 30 per cent of employees report feeling bullied each year.
A victims' advocate, CultureSafe director Allan Halse, says Work Safe's lack of action is inexcusable.
"They're not interested when people actually suffer serious harm. And they're not even interested when people have actually committed suicide," he said.
Ms Rosie said WorkSafe has "a very clear process of what we triage to investigation and a very clear process for us to prosecute. So yes I am very happy with the decisions that we've made to date".
With reports of workplace bullying skyrocketing around the world, WorkSafe is going to have a lot more decisions to make.
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