A NZIER report released this week discredits a WorkSafe NZ safety programme that started in November 2011.  The programme aims to reduce workplace falls from heights of below 3 metres.
 
We all agree that safety is important. So is cost. Anyone who cares about safety has to care about the cost of achieving it. Otherwise they fail to spend where the safety gains are greatest.
 
The cost increases are material. A Kapiti Coast builder told us that campaign had needlessly turned a $4,000 roofing job for an elderly lady into a $6,000 cost. A BRANZ study in 2014 put the (discounted) cost to the community at $1 billion over 25 years.
 
The NZIER assessed the programme’s costs to exceed its benefits. Our July 2015 research note, A Matter of Balance: Regulating Safety, anticipated such a finding. It calculated that much greater safety gains could be obtained by improving road safety.
 
There are unintended consequences. Higher costs make housing less affordable. Poorer owners in particular will defer necessary maintenance, and more homes will be unhealthy. Some owners will become unsafe ‘do-it-yourselfers’.
 
Such considerations should be assessed before setting out to commander $1 billion of other people’s money. In a January 2015 article, we asked whether officials had done this. We found they had not. To impose such costs regardless is irresponsible.
 
Our 2015 angst turned into disgust following an OIA inquiry this year to MBIE.
 
First, it revealed that WorkSafe misrepresented our report in dismissively briefing its Minister in June 2015. It did not even tell him that a key concern was the absence of a proper evaluation before November 2011.
 
Second, we know now that the NZIER was planning to finish its analysis by November 2015. Why the delay? How much has it cost the community and whom is accountable?
 
Ministers cannot hope to make well informed decisions if officials do not even attempt to get the analysis right, and disparage the efforts of those who do.
 
Officials have let the community down badly. It should not happen again, but it will. Rigorous evaluations before launch should be mandatory.