Govt launches road cone tipline as WorkSafe overhaul begins

WorkSafe has launched a new road cone hotline as part of sweeping reforms by the Government that aim to "significantly refocus" the agency’s scope from strict enforcement to greater collaboration with businesses and individuals.

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said she heard "many concerns" during public consultation from a wide range of Kiwi businesses and workers about WorkSafe's "inconsistency, culture and lack of guidance".

"For too long, businesses and employers have asked for more guidance and help from WorkSafe on how to comply with health and safety legislation, only to be told it’s not WorkSafe's job.

"A culture where the regulator is feared for its punitive actions rather than appreciated for its ability to provide clear and consistent guidance is not conducive to positive outcomes in the workplace."

As part of the overhaul, a 12-month pilot road cone "hotline" had been launched to investigate cases of overcompliance in temporary traffic management.

The initiative would work alongside a joint engagement programme by WorkSafe with NZTA and key industry stakeholders to educate those involved with temporary traffic management.

Van Velden said WorkSafe had also started slashing "outdated guidance documents" from its website and would be updating guidance where needed, with around 50 documents already scrapped.

"Removing and replacing outdated guidance will make it much easier for people to find the help they’re looking for and ensures WorkSafe is giving consistent and clear advice."

WorkSafe's funding structure would also be reclassified into four distinct categories.

These were supporting work health and safety practices, enforcing work health and safety compliance, authorising and monitoring work health and safety activities and energy safety.

"For some time, WorkSafe has struggled to effectively articulate the cost and effectiveness of its activities, making it difficult to monitor and assess the value of activities or the merit of requests for further funding", van Velden said.

The changes to funding classifications would come into effect later in the year and provide a framework for WorkSafe's shift in culture and expectations.

A Letter of Expectations formalising van Velden's expectations had been sent to the WorkSafe board.

In a statement, WorkSafe said it was working closely with the government on the changes.

"Our role will continue to be influencing businesses and organisations to carry out their work health and safety responsibilities. We will have a greater focus on engagement, guidance, and ensuring businesses have confidence to know they are doing the right thing.

"We are well placed to deliver on the Minister’s expectations, via our new strategy and new leadership. WorkSafe is concentrating on the sectors where the most serious harm occurs – agriculture, forestry, construction and manufacturing – and on well-known causes of harm such as vehicles, machinery, working at height, and harmful exposures.

"Our Statement of Performance Expectations, due out in the coming weeks, will outline our strategic direction, budget, activities, and performance indicators for the 2025-26 year.

"Our most recent Impacts and Effectiveness Monitor report found 75% of businesses surveyed identified health and safety improvements due to their interactions with WorkSafe."

Speaking to Breakfast this morning, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said excessive use of road cones was a "constant battle".

"A lot of road cones are just sitting there, hundreds of them are doing very, very little," he said.

He said: "It's a pretty straightforward thing. People are very irritated by it up and down the country. We want people to get moving, we want it to be safe and we want it to be appropriate."

He said the balance between over compliance and critical safety measures currently "isn't quite right".

"If you get too much over compliance, basically where people are following a lot of red tape and rules that often don't make a lot of sense, that adds huge amounts of cost to the system, and actually is a handbrake on the economy.

"All the minister's doing here is just rebalancing and refocusing WorkSafe to say, 'look we want you to be really proactive and actually offering really helpful guidance to businesses up and down the country about what their critical risks are rather than just doing a pure enforcement job'."

He said the Government wanted businesses to "stop and think about the critical risks that really are a health and safety danger in their workplace".

"I mean what's happening is you've got sort of a blanket set of rules that are applied to small, medium and large businesses sort of equally and actually businesses then are trying to comply with lots of rules rather than actually doing the work."

Labour spokesperson for infrastructure and public investment Kieran McAnulty said: "It's a hotline for road cones. This is where the government is prioritising its focus."

"They’re using Government resources, to allow people to ring in and complain about road cones."

“If they’re that worried about road cones, just make a rule that dictates how many road cones you use to ensure safety.

“When the Government is saying their highest priority when it comes to workplace safety is road cones, when we have an appalling workplace death record in this country, average is more than one a week, and if you extend that out to include not just workplace incidents but deaths that occur as a result of people’s work, it’s huge, and the Government is quite clearly focused on different things and I think that’s a shame.”