Health and safety reform must put culture first

New Zealand’s Government has launched a major review of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. The review signals an intent to simplify compliance, reduce unnecessary regulation, and sharpen the law’s focus on serious workplace risks. Proposed legislative changes, expected in early 2026, include requiring only critical risk management for small low risk businesses, refining the purpose of the Act, reducing notification requirements, and updating Codes of Practice so industries can co design standards that reflect their operational realities.

These reforms aim to clarify expectations and ease burdens, but they also expose a familiar tension in health and safety policy. Organisations and regulators continue to debate whether safety should be led by prescriptive rules or by professional judgement. Governments try to strike a balance between deregulation and enforcement, yet one truth remains. No amount of legislative redesign will deliver safer workplaces unless culture sits at the centre.

Policy design: more than a regulatory dial

Effective health and safety systems rely on engagement, education, co design, collaboration and proportionate enforcement. Remove any one element and the system weakens. Too much enforcement leads to fear and box ticking. Too much deregulation creates space for complacency.

WorkSafe New Zealand is often described as needing to be either a compliance policeman or a partner in risk management. In reality it must be both. Credibility comes from holding the line as well as building capability. It must educate and enforce. It must collaborate and it must act as a watchdog.

Why prescriptive guidance falls short

Some stakeholders argue that the answer is more detailed rules and more directive oversight. This approach has clear limits. Regulators cannot anticipate every workplace scenario or decision. Work tasks change quickly, and real safety decisions often unfold in moments that no external agency will ever observe.

Over reliance on detailed guidance can reduce organisational ownership and weaken risk based thinking. Workers become focused on following instructions instead of understanding the underlying hazards. This undermines initiative and the ability to respond dynamically to context specific risks.

The real solution: psychological safety

The strongest predictor of safer workplaces is psychological safety. This is the belief that people can speak up, raise concerns, question decisions and admit mistakes without fear of blame. Research by Professor Amy Edmondson at Harvard shows that psychologically safe teams prevent more errors, innovate more quickly and perform more consistently across complex environments. A scoping review published in 2023 found that strong psychosocial safety climates are linked to improved mental health, higher productivity and reduced incidents. Safe Work Australia routinely reports that psychosocial risks such as stress, bullying and fatigue cost employers billions in compensation and productivity losses each year.

In high risk sectors such as construction, forestry, agriculture and manufacturing, psychological safety can be the difference between a near miss and a serious injury. Workers who feel free to challenge unsafe scaffolding, stop machinery or speak openly about fatigue are workers who prevent harm. Teams that reflect together and discuss vulnerabilities reduce both the frequency and severity of incidents.

Psychological safety is also associated with lower turnover, higher engagement and improved organisational resilience. Safety culture is not a compliance issue. It is a performance advantage.

Putting values into action

Health and safety reforms express the values a government wants to prioritise. Legislation alone cannot deliver safer workplaces. The real test is whether the system embeds the cultural foundations of psychological safety and empowers people at every level to act.

If culture is ignored, reform will fail. If psychological safety is embraced, reform can transform the system.