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a view from the chair We need to improve our safety performance – and we can BY DAVID LEDSON, CHAIR OF THE MARITIME NEW ZEALAND AUTHORITY I t is an interesting and sobering time to be in the business of being a safety regulator. The environment in which we are working is complex and is sometimes dominated by those who have the loudest voices, invariably those voices are the ones most interested in constraining the influence of the regulator on achieving safety outcomes. Encouragingly however, from what I hear around the place I get a sense that those who wish to act responsibly – and are acting responsibly – are asserting their influence in the regulatory space. Which just goes to prove that as my stereo system regularly demonstrates, the loudness of volume is not necessarily an indicator of the quality of sound. There are common threads that link key findings in both the Royal Commission into Pike River and the Task Force into Workplace Health and Safety. These reports should cause us all to worry about our safety record and our attitude to safety. By "all of us" I mean each one of us, whether we are in the workplace, the boardroom, or sitting in a regulatory agency. Both reports clearly conclude that we all have opportunities to lift our game – and we need to take those opportunities. The interesting part right now comes from the dynamic environment that characterises the maritime sector, and the sobering dimension comes from the Pike River report and from the independent Task Force's findings. It is the second of these on which I would like to focus. TASK FORCE REPORT The Task Force report identified a number of key themes of particular interest to those of us who are committed to ensuring that people who go down to the sea and onto our waterways can do so safely. Rather than traverse them all, I'd like to mention a few which I think are particularly important. POOR PERFORMANCE The Task Force found that: "While we acknowledge that there are problems with data, the fact is that a lot of bad things happen to people at work in this country… Several highrisk industries account for the bulk of serious injuries and fatalities. These are manufacturing, construction, agriculture, forestry and fishing." This poor record is consistent with the Pike River findings and, as both reports make clear, were we to have quality data that would let us know what has happened and also the risk that something bad may happen, then an even more disturbing picture of workplace safety could well be painted. SAFETY CULTURE It would be no surprise to many people that the Task Force found New Zealand's culture is "widely seen as a key contributor to New Zealand's poor health and safety performance". A number of themes were identified as characterising the prevailing culture. They include "complacency", "passivity", "haste before care", and "distaste for red tape". I'm sure we have all seen evidence of these behavioural traits – and may well have demonstrated them ourselves. Ultimately, if 28 Professional Skipper July/August 2013 we are to be serious about improving our safety record then there is a need for changes in our safety culture. In those parts of the sector where inappropriate cultures are deeply embedded, even though this is likely to be only in small pockets, change will not be easy. A relentless and rigorous approach is generally the only effective strategy. Even elsewhere, where it may be that incremental change is required, cultural change can prove to be a challenging task. MARITIME NEW ZEALAND'S APPROACH While I am aware that there are people who would disagree with me, I believe that Maritime New Zealand is taking the right approaches to enable us to play our part in changing the safety culture in the maritime sector and in improving its safety record. Maritime New Zealand has developed what we call a "compliance operating model" to guide the way we go about our compliance work. The model has three central elements: A compliance strategy which sets out our objectives, the expectations we have of those in the maritime system, how we will go about our compliance work and the tools we will use. The most important question we will always ask is: "Is this operator acting safely? "Intervention guidelines" that empower Maritime New Zealand people to confidently make decisions in the knowledge that they are based on transparent, consistent, fair and robust decision-making processes. A Compliance Intervention Panel which includes the right people with the right skills to enable Maritime New Zealand to make the best decisions it can. While Maritime New Zealand is responsible for enforcing a number of Acts, we are very much focused on achieving safety (as well as security and environmental) outcomes. Consequently, our interest lies less in prosecuting people for every technical breach of the law as a matter of course. The most important question we will always ask is: "Is this operator acting safely?" Rather than: "Is there a rule somewhere that will enable us to get this operator?" So it's up to "me" – and it's also up to you. Anyone who is in a position in which their actions – or lack of action – can influence an improved safety performance within New Zealand's maritime sector should take the time to look in a mirror and answer the question: "Do I want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?" Fundamentally, it's a question we must each answer in our own way. Which way we swing will undoubtedly be demonstrated by our behaviour in a safety context. www.skipper.co.nz