The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) is New Zealand's primary workplace health and safety legislation. For construction site supervisors, it creates specific duties that go beyond common sense — and getting them wrong exposes both you and your employer to serious legal consequences.
PCBU duties — what they mean for supervisors
Under HSWA, a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has the primary duty of care. That's your employer or principal contractor. But supervisors are workers with specific responsibilities under section 45 of the Act:
- Take reasonable care for your own health and safety
- Take reasonable care that your acts or omissions don't adversely affect others
- Comply with reasonable instructions from the PCBU
- Cooperate with any reasonable health and safety policy or procedure
In practice this means: if you see an unsafe condition and don't act on it, you may share liability — even if you didn't create the hazard.
Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) in NZ
Unlike Australia, SWMS are not explicitly mandated by name in HSWA or its regulations. But the outcomes they achieve are legally required. The Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 require:
- Hazards to be identified before work begins
- Risks to be assessed and controlled — elimination first, then isolation, then minimisation
- Risk controls to be documented for high-risk work
- Workers to be informed of hazards and controls before starting
High-risk construction work categories
For the following work types, risk documentation equivalent to a SWMS is strongly expected by WorkSafe and required by most principal contractors contractually:
- Work at height (falls risk greater than 2 metres)
- Work in or near trenches and excavations deeper than 1.5 metres
- Work in or near confined spaces
- Work involving asbestos
- Work near live electrical installations
- Work involving the use of explosives
- Work on or near pressurised gas systems
- Demolition of a structure or element of a structure
- Work involving tilt-up or precast concrete
Incident notification obligations
PCBUs must notify WorkSafe as soon as possible after a notifiable event. For supervisors, this means knowing what counts:
| Event Type | Notification required? |
|---|---|
| Death of a person | Yes — immediately |
| Notifiable injury (requires immediate treatment, hospitalisation) | Yes — as soon as possible |
| Notifiable illness (serious occupational illness) | Yes — as soon as possible |
| Notifiable incident (near miss with serious risk potential) | Yes — as soon as possible |
| Minor injury treated on site (first aid only) | No — but record in site register |
After a notifiable event, you must preserve the scene until a WorkSafe inspector arrives or authorises disturbance — except to assist injured persons or prevent further harm.
Your right to stop unsafe work
Under HSWA section 83, a worker may cease or refuse to carry out work if they have reasonable grounds to believe it would expose them or others to a serious risk. You cannot be penalised for exercising this right in good faith.
Free to try — no card needed, no setup call required.