It’s six months since Charanpereet Singh Dhaliwai, aged just 21 died from head injuries after a horrific assault on the job.
He was on his first night working as a security guard watching over the Fulton Hogan site in West Auckland, and he was working alone.
He’s just one on a shameful list of workplace deaths and injuries as we mourn our workplace toll on Workers Memorial Day today.
Every year, I hope things will be better and we will see a different approach to protecting workers who go to work, expecting to return home safely to their families at the end of the day.
So what’s the government’s plan?
MOBIE – that’s the unfortunate acronym for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which will incorporate the Department of Labour and its Health and Safety roles from 1 July this year.
The least the government could have done was to wait until the Royal Commission on Pike River Mine reports back in September, because there are likely to be significant recommendations for change to protecting the health and safety of workers in New Zealand. I think our treatment of health and safety has become so negligent we should be considering whether we need a standalone agency.
An announcement from the government that they are putting the merger of the health and safety functions into MOBIE on hold pending major change to tackling our death and injury rates on the job would have been a nice message for the families and workmates mourning today.
Won’t happen though.
Postscript : Sincere condolences to the family and workmates of Herman Curry, bus driver, who died at work in Friday night.
Could someone explain why Labour puts so much vehemence upon the idea of combining ministries. It seems to me to be confusing the problem with something quite distinct. Cuts to public services are bad, yes, but the National Government is going to try to cut public services anyway – combining the ministries makes it neither easier or more effective. What it CAN do, however is bring down the insane cash going to the CEO and Managing Directors, and force departments to actually share information and goals. So again, why is Labour saying that public good can only be served with many completely independent ministries, and never with a larger, more organized ministry?
@James. There’s no opposition to sensible mergers and quests for reasonable efficiency gains provided they make sense. Lumping in health and safety and for that matter the work of the Department of Labour with a “business facing ministry” doesn’t make sense at all. Agree with you about CEO pay.
You do seem to be drawing rather a long bow here. I’d say most companies put a huge amount of effort into H and S, in fact when tendering for work H and S performance is a key metric against which you are measured.
That being said I’m sure there are business’ which do pay lip service to the issue, though I’m not sure how further legislation will resolve this.
That being said I’m sure there are business’ which do pay lip service to the issue, though I’m not sure how further legislation will resolve this.
One way is to make companys properly responsible with possible manslaughter charges to those in charge. At the moment some companys budget on x number of deaths then take out cover for that.
IM sure they would try harder if some of the CEO faced prison time for not looking after staff.
You need to be really relevant in your comments You need to comment on the death at work of Mr Herman Currie at the Waterloo interchange. Security is a real issue for night drivers
You could have at least commented as a
post script on Mr Currie’s death. The problems fester in the transport industry but there is no comment even when there is a tragic incident
@Ruth : thanks for your comment. I have added a postscript and my sincerest sadness to his family and workmates. Another needless death on the job.
@ Clare
You might want to adjust that postscript as police statements suggest the 2 events (the theft and Mr. Curry’s death) are not causally related.
Also, you have made a typo with his surname.