Thursday, March 28, 2024

Safety in farmers’ hands

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Federated Farmers has a good relationship with WorkSafe New Zealand but has publicly challenged some of its policies and practices.
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Most notably, it has questioned the mandatory use of helmets on quad bikes and issuing infringement notices when passengers are carried on quad bikes without helmets.

“That’s not to say we don’t agree with the use of helmets,” Katie Milne, the federation’s health and safety spokeswoman said.

“But we disagree with the fact that anybody caught in any circumstances not wearing a helmet will be ticketed. There are some circumstances where it’s just not practicable to be wearing a helmet – when you’ve got to wear a spray mask for example.”

The policing of health and safety legislation has toughened since the Pike River mine disaster.

WorkSafe’s establishment as an independent Crown entity in December 2013 was one consequence of official inquiries into the disasters. It took over the health and safety functions of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

It has devoted more resources to education, engagement and enforcement, not just in agriculture. But Milne said feedback from farmers gave her the impression greater effort went into enforcement.

One big complaint from farmers is the enforcement action taken for not wearing a helmet when travelling, say, at 4kmh behind a herd of cows. The regulations give little room for flexibility.

However, WorkSafe’s enforcement regime generally starts with a written warning.

Next, offenders will receive a prohibition notice.

Those who ignore the warnings and prohibition notice will be prosecuted.

But when do education and engagement become enforcement?

WorkSafe says there is no enforcement until an offender is prosecuted.

Farmers say enforcement begins with the first warning and this colours their attitude to WorkSafe. Two farm cases were prosecuted last year, both in Marlborough. The penalties were harsh.

A farm worker was fined $15,000 for not wearing a quad bike helmet.

Federated Farmers’ Waikato president Chris Lewis backed the principle of the fine but said it was disproportionate to the $150 fine an urban person received for not wearing a seatbelt. “Yes, he had been warned four times, yes he deserved a fine, but he didn’t deserve a $15,000 fine,” Lewis said.

A farming couple were fined $40,000 ($10,000 on each of four charges) for not wearing helmets while riding their quad bikes. Judge Tony Zohrab was told the sharemilking partners had been given several warnings to wear helmets while on their quad bikes but continued to be non-compliant. A written warning was issued to one of the couple in March 2013 and a prohibition notice was issued in October requiring workers on the farm to stop riding quad bikes without helmets.

Federated Farmers’ Northland chairman Roger Ludbrooke nevertheless said he was gobsmacked by the fines and said WorkSafe was out of control.

“A repeat drunk driver with three previous convictions has a maximum fine of $6000,” he said.

Milne said she was concerned the $40,000 penalties would make it harder to get the right health and safety messages across to farmers and change the culture in which lax attitudes to safety issues were fostered.

But she also recognised that the couple who copped $40,000 of penalties had failed to pay smaller fines.

The lesson, Milne said, was to pay infringement penalties from the outset, no matter the level of resentment.

Most critically, she would prefer much greater flexibility in the WorkSafe system and hopes it evolves from the Government’s Safer Farms programme launched in February. The programme was designed by farmers and the wider agricultural sector, WorkSafe and the Accident Compensation Corporation.

To some extent it addresses Federated Farmers’ concern that farmers are supposed to comply with a great deal of legislation, regulation, rules and recommendations, but the act is general in its thrust and farmers need information to help keep themselves and their staff safe and compliant.

The programme is an attempt to provide that information and the Feds support the greater emphasis on engagement and education.

“The number of deaths and injuries on farms won’t be reduced by the Government sending out more inspectors,” Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse acknowledged at the programme’s launch.

“Only farmers can directly influence this toll and Safer Farms aims to help them do this by finding health and safety solutions that work.

“Farmers have told us they want more information and engagement, so Safer Farms will work with farmers and rural communities to manage their own health and safety.”

WorkSafe has about 140 inspectors covering the country. Milne wonders how many of them appreciate the challenges facing farmers or the fact a farm is both a workplace and a home. Children want to accompany parents while they are working and the farm workplace is used extensively for recreation such as hunting, tramping and horse riding by visitors and farmers’ families.

“This makes the farm workplace very different from other workplaces,” Milne said.

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