A Bay of Plenty forestry contractor has questioned why Worksafe NZ and its predecessors weren't more pro-active about forest safety in the past. In the past 10 months they have issued 60 health and safety enforcement actions in the Bay, many more than in previous years.
Enforcement notices can include written warnings, improvement notices, infringement notices and prohibition notices. Enforcement action can be taken for safety failings such as a written warning for a tree-feller operating without an available radio for communications, or a prohibition notice for an unsafe digger.
Bay of Plenty's enforcement actions included three prohibition notices for problems such as a damaged guy rope, and a damaged cab on a vehicle.
The figures follow the release this month of the Independent Forestry Safety Review panel's public consultation document highlighting industry health and safety concerns.
Wood Marketing Services co-owner Darren Robinson, based in Tauranga, said the Waikato-Bay of Plenty firm had been vigilant about health and safety. The forestry industry had enough processes in place to deal with rogue operators at present, and he was not sure how the safety review consultation could add to that.
"I don't know whether anybody in the public sector is qualified to make those calls.
"I think the process at the moment was going quite well. The WorkSafe guys had made some strong and diligent inroads into what was going on."
However, he said he would have liked to have seen WorkSafe take a proactive rather than reactive approach during the past few years.
His firm knew all its work crews personally.
"Our crews, they're all personal friends of ours, we've had them on our books for a long time, we know them and their wives and their families.
"We're not removed from these guys, we know them extremely well."
Mr Robinson was sick of hearing generalisations that forest companies did not do enough for their workers' safety.
Source: Article by Lydia Anderson, Bay of Plenty Times. To read the full article, click here.