Port Sector Plan For Improving Safety On Our Ports

The Port Health and Safe­ty Lead­er­ship Group – made up of unions, ports and steve­dor­ing com­pa­nies, the Port Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion, Mar­itime NZ and Work­Safe – is proud to release its advice to the Min­is­ter of Trans­port, a mul­ti-year Port Sec­tor Insights Pic­ture and Action Plan to make ports safer.

This fol­lows the trag­ic deaths of two port work­ers in 2022, after which the Min­is­ter of Trans­port asked the Port Health and Safe­ty Lead­er­ship Group for advice to address health and safe­ty on ports.

The plan pulls togeth­er infor­ma­tion from fatal­i­ties, injuries, inci­dents, near-miss­es, reg­u­la­to­ry noti­fi­ca­tions, inves­ti­ga­tions and assess­ments, work­er sur­veys, and work­er inter­views and work­shops to build a pic­ture of what dri­ves seri­ous harm on ports — who it is hap­pen­ing to, and why. It lays out six key inter­ven­tions where changes can have a real impact:

- Imple­ment­ing the Fatigue Risk Man­age­ment Sys­tem: Good Prac­tice Guide­lines to reduce the risks asso­ci­at­ed with work­er fatigue.

- Putting in place an Approved Code of Prac­tice around load­ing and unload­ing of car­go to imple­ment more con­sis­tent reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards in rela­tion to some of the high­est risk activ­i­ties in Ports.

- Rec­om­mend­ing the Gov­ern­ment extend the Mar­itime NZ des­ig­na­tion to cov­er the whole port.

- Work to improve inci­dent report­ing, noti­fi­ca­tions, insights and learn­ing across the Ports, so the sec­tor can get bet­ter real time under­stand­ing of harm and take nec­es­sary action.

- Action to improve train­ing and work­force issues.

- Actions to ensure there are eas­i­er ways of shar­ing good prac­tice that the sec­tor is doing here, or over­seas, to encour­age con­tin­u­ous improve­ment on Ports.

“We owe it to those work­ing on ports every day, the peo­ple who have died, their fam­i­lies, and those who have been injured, to improve safe­ty on ports,” says Port Health and Safe­ty Lead­er­ship Group Chair and Mar­itime NZ Chief Exec­u­tive Kirstie Hewlett.

“We have built a com­pre­hen­sive pic­ture of why and where harm is hap­pen­ing on ports. All port and steve­dor­ing com­pa­nies, reg­u­la­tors, and many work­ers, have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant data, insights and time to devel­op this pic­ture, which is the foun­da­tion for our mul­ti-year harm pre­ven­tion pro­gramme. This is already pro­vid­ing valu­able insights to sec­tor par­tic­i­pants on where to tar­get their effort.”

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary, Craig Har­ri­son, says the plan is a cru­cial step in improv­ing safe­ty on ports.

“While research shows that over time seri­ous injuries on ports have declined, there is still more work to do. Hear­ing work­ers’ voic­es and includ­ing work­ers’ expe­ri­ences has been vital.

“This mahi has required trust, part­ner­ship and a dif­fer­ent way of work­ing. It shows what can be accom­plished when the sec­tor works togeth­er towards a com­mon goal. This will make a real dif­fer­ence to the lives of our peo­ple.”

Ports of Auck­land Chief Exec­u­tive, Roger Gray, says the sec­tor is mak­ing a firm com­mit­ment to its work­ers and their fam­i­lies.

“Every­one has the right to go home safe to their wh?nau.”

“The lead­er­ship group has already start­ed imple­ment­ing the action plan. We have pub­lished fatigue risk man­age­ment guide­lines, start­ed train­ing and want all organ­i­sa­tions employ­ing work­ers on ports to have at least start­ed a fatigue risk-man­age­ment sys­tem by Sep­tem­ber.

“Work on an approved code of prac­tice for steve­dor­ing is well under­way, and there is a lot more to come.”

The group has pre­sent­ed the plan to the Min­is­ter for Work­place Rela­tions and Safe­ty, and Trans­port, Michael Wood, who has endorsed it.

For more infor­ma­tion and for a copy of the plan, vis­it the Mar­itime NZ web­site.