An independent taskforce review of NZ's workplace health and safety has recommended sweeping changes, and says the current system has "significant weaknesses''.

More than a third of farm fatalities involve quad bikes, and the number of injuries from quad bikes is increasing at an "alarming'' rate, according to a new study.

Services around the country are being held to mark Workers Memorial Day today - a time to remember those who have been killed or injured at work and their friends and families.

Two men are recovering from burns after the power pylon they were working on exploded, cutting electricity to nearly 800 homes.

Two linesmen have suffered superficial burns in an explosion in Warkworth, north of Auckland.

A Federated Farmers leader has called on a coroner to look into rural suicides instead of concentrating on quad bike deaths.

A man's been taken to Wellington Hospital's emergency department after seriously injuring his leg while felling a tree.

The parents of a forestry worker who was crushed by a falling pine tree fought back tears yesterday as they joined a campaign to improve safety standards in the industry.

A man's throat was cut in an accident at a glazing company in Napier yesterday.

The grieving mother of a dead Kiwi soldier asked for the return of his clothes but was told they were burned as the items were considered "bio-toxic".

Twenty armed forces personnel have been killed in the past three years - with a number of deaths linked to training failures and gaps.

A worker run over and killed by a forklift in an early morning industrial accident in Christchurch today has been named.

A 23-year-old farm worker suffered head and chest injuries when his quad bike crashed into a ditch in Marlborough last night.

A coroner has recommended forestry workers use machines to pile up felled logs instead of doing it manually after a Hawkes Bay forestry worker was killed.

An 18-year-old woman was seriously injured when a half-tonne log fell on her at the Marsden Pt wharf in Northland yesterday.

A 59-year-old farm worker died when his tractor overturned and plunged down a steep slope on a Teviot farm, near Millers Flat in central Otago yesterday afternoon.

A worker at the McDonald's distribution centre was seriously injured after he became trapped between a platform and a truck.

A 20-strong surgical team has reattached the fingers of a Waikato meatworker, who was originally keen to have them chopped off completely.