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The Safe Side | Issue 80
16/10/2026
In this issue, we cover the outcome of three prosecutions of businesses under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA). The first prosecution came about after a forestry worker was killed while carrying out high-risk work alone, without appropriate supervision and with an inadequate check-in system. The second resulted after a worker lost his arm and sustained other serious injuries when he became entangled in an unguarded tractor power take-off shaft. The last prosecution didn’t involve any harm but followed the decision of a construction company to ignore a prohibition notice and allow its workers to continue working unsafely at height. We also have articles on WorkSafe’s first tranche of guidance for businesses ahead of the upcoming amendments to HSWA and a new Safety Alert on remote and isolated work.
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The Safe Side | Issue 79
08/09/2026
On 1 April next year, substantial amendments to the Health and Safety at Work Act will come into force. In this issue, we briefly cover what the key changes mean for businesses. We also have an article on the eye-watering AU$3.4m fine imposed on an Australian bakery for industrial manslaughter after a worker was killed in a four-metre fall while removing insulation panels from the bakery’s ceiling. In addition, we write about a warning from WorkSafe to farmers on clearing up windblown trees, the latest enforceable undertaking that was accepted by WorkSafe following the death of a road traffic controller and the sentencing of KiwiRail for health and safety failures related to the grounding of the ferry Aratere in Picton Harbour in 2024.
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The Safe Side | Issue 78
24/06/2026
This month, we report on a case where spending $20,000 to guard a machine could have prevented a worker’s tragic death and saved over half a million in fines and reparations for a waste and recycling company. We also cover the prosecution of a property owner who wouldn’t stop work after receiving a prohibition notice and ended up with a conviction and fine of $32,000 instead. In addition, we have articles on the sentencing of two companies following the death of a logging truck driver on a private forestry road in Coromandel and the latest enforceable undertaking accepted by WorkSafe after a worker sustained serious burns from an electrical arc flash. Finally, we point to the just published WorkSafe Safety Alert about working with large agricultural tyres.
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