Farmers value health and safety

Beef + Lamb NZ chairman James Parsons says there's been a lot of noise about health and safety and the Government's amendments to the Health and Safety Reform Bill.

"We've been pointing out to government that farmers need workable and sensible legislation so it was good to see that sheep and beef farms, which on average employ fewer than two full time people, won't be required to elect a health and safety rep," he says.

Last week Workplace Relations Minister Michael Woodhouse released a list of 57 high risk industries which would require health and safety representatives even where there are fewer than 20 staff.

The new classifications have been heavily mocked with worm farms and mini golf courses being defined as "high risk" while dairy and cattle farms are not.

But Parsons says by not classifying agriculture as a "high risk" sector by no means lets us off easy and assertions that our sector is trying to dodge our health and safety responsibilities are completely unfounded.

"Some commentary that has described farming as one of the worst industries for work place deaths based on total fatalities does not take account of the scale of the sector. When you divide the serious accidents by the total number of farming workers, then our health and safety record is suddenly brought into context.

"There are a number of areas we will continue to work with the Government and WorkSafe New Zealand on – in particular finding a workable solution to quadbike use. We are working closely with Federated Farmers and DairyNZ on this and other issues. It is important that farmers continue to individually talk with politicians across the floor so there are no last minute changes to the legislation."