NZ health and safety law is changing — here's what it means for your business

The short version

• The focus shifts to critical risks — the things in your work that could realistically kill or seriously harm someone. The law's main purpose now prioritises preventing serious harm, rather than treating every risk as equal.
• Small, low-risk businesses get a narrower set of duties — businesses with fewer than 20 workers in low-risk sectors will need to manage their critical risks and provide basic worker welfare facilities, rather than meet the full set of general duties.
• Approved Codes of Practice become "safe harbours" — follow the ACOP process for managing a risk, and you can be confident you've met your obligations for that risk.
• Directors' duties are clarified — governance oversight belongs to directors; day-to-day risk management belongs to managers. The line between the two is now clearer.
• Reporting serious incidents gets clearer requirements — what you must notify, and when, is being tightened up.
• Nothing changes until 1 April 2027 — the current Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 applies in full until then.

What is a "critical risk"?

A critical risk is one that could realistically result in death, serious injury or serious illness. The new law asks every business to identify which of its risks meet that bar, based on what the business knows — or should know — about its work and its hazards.

For a roofing company that's falls from height. For a workshop it might be machinery entanglement. For a rural contractor, vehicles and mobile plant. For an office-based business the list may be very short. The point of the reform is that your time and effort should go where the serious harm is — not into paperwork about paper cuts.

Two things follow from that. First, you need to be able to show which risks you've identified as critical and why. Second, you need evidence that the controls for those risks are actually operating — not just written down.

What it means for different businesses

Timeline

What to do between now and April 2027

There's no need to panic-buy consulting hours. The businesses that will find the transition easy are the ones whose safety system already runs on evidence rather than binders. Four sensible moves:

• Write down your critical risks. A short, honest list of the ways your work could seriously hurt someone, and the controls you rely on for each. If you can't name them today, that's the gap to close first.
• Check your controls leave a trail. When the focus is critical risks, the question becomes "show me these controls operating" — pre-starts, inspections, checks, sign-offs, with dates and names. Paper systems struggle here; that's honestly where software earns its keep.
• Keep meeting today's requirements. The current Act applies until 1 April 2027, and your contractual and prequal obligations continue regardless.
• Watch for your sector's ACOP. Once codes of practice carry safe-harbour status, following your sector's ACOP becomes the clearest route to certainty. We'll flag relevant ones here as they're strengthened.

Where ThinkSafe fits

ThinkSafe was built around the idea the law is now catching up to: that safety effort should concentrate on the risks that matter, and that the system should generate its own evidence as your team works.

• Critical risk verification — identify your critical risks and record the checks that show their controls are operating, from any phone.
• Evidence as a by-product — pre-starts, inspections, toolbox talks and incident records accumulate as your team does the work, timestamped and signed.
• Advisory support included — HASANZ-registered advisors on your team as the guidance rolls out, so you're not interpreting law changes alone.

Your obligations stay yours — no software or advisor changes that. What changes is how easy they are to meet and to prove. See how ThinkSafe Go works or view pricing.

Latest updates

July 2026 — The Amendment Bill passed its third reading. The Government confirmed the changes take effect 1 April 2027, with supporting guidance to be released over the coming months. This page will be updated as each piece of guidance lands.