• NOHSAC Technical Report 7
• Authors and Acknowledgements
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Executive Summary
• Summary of Issues
• 1   Introduction
• 2   Background
• 3   Occupational Health and Safety System
  • Occupational Health and Safety System
  • 3.1   Principles underpinning New Zealand’s occupational health and safety system
  • 3.2   International obligations
  • 3.3   Legislative framework
  • 3.4   National occupational health and safety budget
  • 3.5   The compliance and enforcement system
  • 3.6   The rehabilitation and compensation system
  • 3.7   The education and information framework
  • 3.8   Mechanisms to provide expert advice on occupational health and safety
  • 3.9   Collaboration and leadership
  • 3.10   The health and safety workforce
• 4   National Policy Framework
• 5   National Programmes
• Appendices
• References

3.8   Mechanisms to provide expert advice on occupational health and safety

Ministerial advisory committee and panels | Specialist advisory panels to the Department of Labour | Special analytical services and laboratories | Stakeholder comment | Comments and conclusions

A number of cross-sectoral committees and expert panels are convened to provide expert advice to Ministers of the Crown, government agencies and the occupational health and safety community in general. The main groups are:

• ministerial advisory committees and panels
• specialist advisory panels to the Department of Labour
• specialist analytical services and laboratories.

3.8.1   Ministerial advisory committee and panels  

3.8.1.1   NOHSAC

NOHSAC is responsible for providing independent advice directly to the Minister of Labour on major occupational health and safety issues in New Zealand. It plays a key role in providing an independent assessment of the measures that will deliver the greatest benefit for the prevention of occupational injury and disease, and in developing an evidence-based approach to occupational health and safety issues.

3.8.1.2   The Ministerial Advisory Panel on Work-Related Gradual Process, Disease or Infection

The Ministerial Advisory Panel on Work-Related Gradual Process, Disease or Infection was appointed under section 31 of the IPRC Act. This panel provides independent advice to the Minister for ACC on issues relating specifically to work-related gradual process, disease or infection. It also has a statutory function to advise the Minister on the content of Schedule 2 of the IPRC Act (Occupational diseases) or the definition of work-related gradual process, disease and infection, and to review and advise the Minister on the way that ACC deals with claims for personal injury caused by work-related gradual process, disease or infection.

3.8.1.3    The Injury Surveillance Ministerial Advisory Panel

The Injury Surveillance Ministerial Advisory Panel (ISMAP) advises the Ministers of Statistics and ACC on the direction and strategy for the model of injury information management. It assesses, monitors and provides advice on the injury information and statistics gathered by Statistics New Zealand, which was appointed as the Injury Information Manager in 2002.

3.8.2   Specialist advisory panels to the Department of Labour  

There are a small number of specialist advisory panels that provide technical advice on health and safety issues to the Department of Labour. These specialist advisory panels are:

• the OSH Cancer Panel, which reviews all cases of bladder cancer, lung cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukaemia reported to the New Zealand Cancer Registry to identify possible occupational causes
• the OSH Respiratory Diseases Panel, which reviews and monitors work-related respiratory disease notifications including cases of asbestos-related diseases, occupational asthma and other work-related respiratory diseases
• the OSH Solvent Panel, which reviews and monitors notifications of chronic organic solvent neurotoxicity
• the OSH Asbestos Disease Panel, which reviews cases of asbestos-related disease and oversees the Asbestos Exposure Register.

3.8.3   Special analytical services and laboratories  

New Zealand has a range of specialist laboratories that provide analytical services to the health and safety community. Organisations with a component of public funding include the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, AgriQuality, the National Audiology Centre and the National Radiation Laboratory. The National Poisons Centre also operates a call centre that people can call for advice about exposure to hazardous substances. There are no longer any direct retainer contracts between the Department of Labour and these specialist organisations (although there were previously with the Department of Health).

There are approximately 20 private providers of specialist analytical or monitoring services for issues such as noise, asbestos, air quality, environmental monitoring, drug and alcohol use in the workplace, electromagnetic fields and general health monitoring.

3.8.4   Stakeholder comment  

One research stakeholder commented on the historical provision of state-funded analytical capacity and monitoring services and noted that this resource appears to have been lost. Information about the historical resourcing of occupational health services is discussed in sections 2.4, 3.5.1 and 3.10 of this report.

3.8.5   Comments and conclusions  

A small number of organisations and mechanisms exist to enable access to technical advice and expertise on a range of occupational health and safety issues. This capacity is provided across a number of levels including localised and national level services. In order to further develop this expertise, New Zealand requires a critical mass of scientists and medical experts practising in occupational health and safety. The capacity of the technical base is discussed in section 3.10 of this report.

It appears that resources historically used to fund occupational health and safety monitoring and analysis are no longer used in this way: the Department of Labour no longer regularly contracts analytical and monitoring services from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, the National Audiology Centre, the National Radiation Laboratory and the National Poisons Centre. It is not clear how the transferred funding is now used.

ISSN 1177-2239
ISBN 0-478-28059-9

This document is available on NOHSAC’s website www.nohsac.govt.nz. It can be freely quoted, copied and circulated with appropriate acknowledgement. The suggested citation is: Allen & Clarke. Occupational health and safety in New Zealand. Technical Report prepared for the National Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee: NOHSAC Technical Report 7: Wellington, 2006.