Firm size no guide to safety as workplace reforms loom
Small firms are no safer than large firms, according to a new report from the Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum.
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub wrote the report. He found no consistent pattern in injury rates by firm size and industry, and no evidence that small firms are less risky than large firms. RNZ
The report says the 20-worker threshold is administrative. It separates small businesses from large ones on paper, but it does not separate safe workplaces from unsafe ones.
That distinction is at the centre of the Government's reform programme. In June 2025, Cabinet agreed to define a small PCBU — the legal term for a business or employer — and to define critical risk, or risks that could kill or seriously injure, as part of health and safety reform. MBIE Under law changes due to take effect from April, small firms would no longer need to manage risks that are not critical.
Critics say the April changes will create a two-tier safety system, with big firms held to higher standards. NZ First secured a delay to the start until after the election. The law to ease standards for some businesses will now take effect on 1 April next year, rather than 1 November. NZ Herald
The Forum's report says workplace safety is improving, but too slowly. Some of the riskiest industries are improving fastest, it found, while mental wellbeing at work is consistently getting worse.
The report compares New Zealand with Australia and the United Kingdom. Workers here are 6.5 times more likely to be killed at work than workers in the United Kingdom, and 60% more likely to be killed than workers in Australia. The Listener via NZ Herald It estimates workplace harm costs $5.5 billion a year.
Forum chief executive Francois Barton said New Zealand has extensive health and safety regulation but lacks clear stewardship and coordination. The report says there is no public register of the more than two dozen approved codes — the official guides that explain how to comply with the law — so firms find it hard to know what applies. Regulations for plant, the legal term for workplace machinery, have been due for improvement since 2021 but are still not done. The Health and Safety at Work Strategy 2018-2028 has no delivery mechanism, performance measures or oversight.
The broader context here is enforcement and credibility. A size-based threshold makes compliance advice simpler for small PCBUs, but the injury data cited by Eaqub do not give a risk basis for it. For ministers and officials, the question is how WorkSafe and the courts will interpret critical risk in practice, and whether guidance, approved codes and plant regulations can be updated before the April start. The delay past the election gives the Government time, but it leaves business and unions working under a system the Forum describes as fragmented.
