Editorial: Worksafe ads wield fear as a weapon

Mark Dawson

By Mark Dawson

ACCIDENTS will happen ... no matter what.

So it becomes a question of how much we want to invest in limiting the damage.

Huge effort and expense has gone into reducing the road toll but, short of banning all vehicles, there will always be deaths on the roads.

The focus has switched to the workplace of late -- and New Zealand's record of workplace injuries and fatalities is none too flash.

A mixture of some high-profile incidents, political pressure and a need to be seen to be doing something has given rise to the governmental organisation WorkSafe NZ.

Like most such well-intentioned bureaucracies, WorkSafe seems intent on growing its power and extending its reach, prompting alarm among businesses which now find themselves in a regulatory stranglehold. And already its ambition has seen a self-inflicted wound with its TV advertising campaign deemed misleading and an exaggeration of reality.

You may recall assorted chief executives turning up on our screens and intoning sombrely platitudes along the lines of "every worker has the right to return home safely to their families". Cue emotive household scene. The right? Sort of like the right to return home safely after a trip to the supermarket.

There was something immediately jarring about those adverts. A lot of money had been spent to achieve exactly what?

Now the adverts have been withdrawn after a Wellington economist complained about their lack of accuracy. The claim that 23,000 people were severely injured or killed in New Zealand workplaces last year was particularly cited as misleading as most of those "severe" injuries were strains or cuts.

The economist correctly pointed out that a government department should "not play fast and loose" with the facts.

Fear is a potent weapon and WorkSafe chose to use it. Its chief executive, Gordon MacDonald, is not admitting to any mistakes.

A complaint has gone to the State Services Commissioner, saying "misleading the public with advertisements exaggerating the harm of workplace accidents" falls well short of the requirement of public servants to be "impartial, honest and fair". Hopefully, the Commissioner will curb Mr MacDonald's zeal.