Committee members
Current members of the Health & Safety Committee are:
John Beattie – DownerEdiWorks
Carl Stent – Fulton Hogan (Chair)
Lawrence Butcher-Leighton Contractors
Heather Street - Infracon
Tarryn van Niekerk - Blacktop
Keith Herlihy – Higgins Contractors
Barry Gundersen – RoadingNZ Executive Council
Alan Stevens – Roading NZ Technical Advisor
The Health & Safety Committee has the following Sub-Groups:
- Code of Practice Review Group
- E/2 Specification Group
Health & Safety
This committee’s role is to identify, develop, document, maintain, and facilitate best practice for health and safety issues associated with roading, utilities and land transport infrastructure activities.
It works in three key areas — advocacy, technical issues, and oversight of the Operate Safe H&S management system.
Working collaboratively with stakeholders
The committee works with the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to develop effective training and education packages for the improvement of H&S performance, and with the Department of Labour (DoL) to develop and foster co-ordination on matters of H&S policy at a national level and implementation and enforcement at regional and local levels.
The committee also comments on Government policy and consultation documents, when required, on behalf of industry members.
The committee has developed a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for comment with the DoL and is discussing a similar document with ACC, with the objective of promoting close co-ordination of initiatives and a common goal of improving H&S performance in the sector.
In conjunction with ACC we publish externally verified sector specific KPI data on accident and injury rates.
Technical
The committee works with industry and stakeholders to develop and manage a series of technical H&S issues and initiatives, such as the completion and issuing of Bitumen Burns Cards; reviews of the Bitumen Handbook and Code of Practice; a seatbelt safety campaign; heavy vehicle reversing guidelines; and a review of lifting chains and strops.
The committee has also had success in promoting H&S management in pre-qualification and contract administration, and continues to raise awareness of the obligations under the H&SE Act with local authorities and others. It works closely with major local authority groups, e.g. Auckland City Council, Manukau City Council and the Auckland Regional Contracts Group.
Operate Safe
In conjunction with the New Zealand Contractors' Federation and InfraTrain the committee was responsible for development of the health and safety self-regulation system Operate Safe, recognised as an approved H&S pre-qualification system by NZTA and other authorities including regional road controlling authorities.
A number of significant improvements have been made to Operate Safe recently. These include:
- The introduction of a Health & Safety Update Course to be undertaken by all operatives every two years; this ensures the inclusion in training systems of recently identified health and safety risks.
- An overhaul of the card system to encourage better progress through the regime, particularly in the early stages.
- Trial of an external Workplace Safety Management Practices audit, in conjunction with ACC, using the Industry Best Practice Guide which is specific to the roading and civil construction industry.
- Availability of new training initiatives.