Health and safety changes welcomed

New Zealand universities welcome Minister Van Velden's decision to fix the health and safety regulations applying to laboratories used for teaching and research.

Announcement: Common sense on health and safety will save up to $3 billion | Beehive.govt.nz

More than 2000 laboratories across New Zealand are public research laboratories, and nearly all would be non-compliant with current regulations without spending between $1.5bn to $3bn and associated increased annual operating costs.

That cost would have ultimately been borne by taxpayers as these laboratories – in universities, public research organisations and members of the Independent Research Association of New Zealand (IRANZ) - are either Crown entities or carry out extensive Crown-funded research.

The Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017 were designed to manage industrial-scale volumes and routine repeated activities and are impracticable in our situation in many cases. Minister Van Velden’s changes to the regulations are consistent with a continued focus on safety in our universities’ mostly bespoke and small-scale laboratories.

New Zealand universities look forward to the planned amendments to the 2017 Regulations.

 

Professor Neil Quigley

Chair, Universities New Zealand | Vice-Chancellor, University of Waikato