Health and Safety

As anyone navigated Health and Safety as it potentially applies to alluvial mining with respect to suction dredging yet. Would like to know what other have done so far.

When i got new linz access agreement they included all new health and safety stuff… basically i had to set up as a business with full health and safety policy, hazard register etc… be interesting to see if anyone else has had a new agreement with them and what it specified

what sort of things? water might drown…rocks falling on my foot… fingers getting sucked off my hand… I personally think its going a bit far but I suppose these things have to be done.

is a health and safety policy required under the new act, hazards identification and mitigation and register is the closest to the old act I can find.

Nugget8hunter, do you have this all in place?

Kiwikeith pretty much, weather, flashfloods etc its more to show and document that your aware of dangers,pc crazy the reason i left my old job…yes have everything in place.

hi nugget8hunter… you should have seen our health and safety plan we had when possum hunting

Hey Jo I think one of the reasons why your claim had to have all the health and safety stuff in regards to LINZ was the fact you are a teir 2 permit holder. Its treated more as a commercial operation perhaps?

All suction dredge claims that are hobby which ( and I may have this around the wrong way) being Tier 1 are classified as hobby and as such are not commercial in their character. Its not different to a fisherman or hunter (both being hobbies) not needing to have a H&S plan.

There was a period back about 2 years ago whereby some overzelous NZPAM staff were raising the H&S issue to some hobby claim holders but it was taken to the minister at the time by Vivienne Bull who got confirmation direct from NZPAM that H&S plans were not needed for the hobby guys.

Hope this helps

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Hey prich yea im tier 2 which is hobby also tier 1 is commercial. Haha kiwikeith thats what i was doing before this, you know a good mate of mine ol Tad he mentioned you where on here

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thanks for this, someone else told me much the same, so now independently confirmed by two sources it must be true, now if I let other folks on my claim on a tribute basis where do I stand?

I would do it as if they are subcontractors then it should be on them

As you are a hobby claim holder and you have validated you are in the clear with regards to not having to produce H&S plans etc then I would therefore argue that by introducing anyone else onto your claim (on a hobby basis) then those lessee would also not have to produce a H&S plan…Basically your in the clear.

Nugget8hunter the idea of treating lessee as sub contractors implies a business relationship. The notion of a sub contractor would only apply if your are mining on a commercial basis ie you are a company or sole trader. As these claims are non commercial and are treated as hobby in our permits by NZPAM then it is not necessary to bring persons on as subbies as this term is not applicable to our claims.

Hope this helps

Wouldn’t it be great if a small “Band of brothers” such as we, united and became a major force against all this crippling, PC, OHS garbage that is steadily destroying our Country. I am 65 and totaly disgusted with the way NZ is going.
Comments invited?

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Yes the PC drivel is basically putting socks, trousers and a nice shirt on a turd but at the end of the day its still a turd!

Re OHS- Unfortunately or Fortunately (depending on how you look at it) NZ is behind by about 10 years when it comes to H&S compared to Australia, the UK , US etc. One way to look at it is this: In order for Industry to be successful and attract and retain customers consumers demand industry do their best to protect things like its employees, the environment, communities etc. One of the ways it can achieve this is by looking after the health and well being of its employees. Smart businesses dont want there companies reputation tarnished by employees being hurt or killed at work and ending up on the front page of the newspaper as that affects their customer base and ultimately its reputation. Translation its bad for profits.

I think what gets lost in the whole H&S debate is actually a lot of the H&S processes and systems from a business perspective can actually benefit a business by strengthening resilience and minimizing key business risks. A classic example of this is the aviation industry which is probably one of the most safety conscious and regulated industries out there. There is a direct correlation within this industry of higher safety measures translating to greater reputation, leading to bigger customer base and therefore greater profits. Compare the likes of Air NZ, Qantas, Emerites, Singapore Airlines etc to some sub Saharan African or Russian airline thats held together by duck tape and you get the drift.

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Agree entirely but what many do not have is the benchmark we have of having lived and known an era when things were more laid back and university educated FUCKWITS who think they know everything on the basis of textbook knowledge like to use their little bit of authority to make life difficult for others.
NZ is not the land of the free but a land where Big Brother has taken over and rules supreme and does not want any of us to have any freedom what so ever nor to be able to do those things we took for granted fifty years ago. It s Police State ruled by the elite for the elite and big business…I honestly thought Labour might have improved things for the ordinary people.

thumbs up lammerlaw. never truer words spoken. total and utter BS to have to go through h&s planning to own a hobby claim. ffs does anyone even know of an accident on a claim that a h&s policy would have prevented. all the h&s and osh crap has nothing to do with safety. accidents still happen. its all about leaving a paper trail so they can lay blame.

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H and S,don’t get started!!!
We ran(until recently)a quad bike tour company until the H and S just got beyond a joke…spending so much time on evaluations and internal audits…my partner and I were the directors…who had to assess the administrators (us)…who had to evaluate the lead guides (us)…who had to evaluations the back guides (us) …needless to say we did shit load of self evaluations…if the brakes needed adjusting we had to take them to a certified mechanic…if we even touched a bike and it had an accident we would hold full liability…operated for 5 years without a single major incident but got failed on our safety audit because our helmets were expired by one month…all this is set up for mid to large companies…not the small fry…people we trained had very little skills because nobody tries anything any more…to scared…because people aren’t experienced in risk assessment…because no body takes risk in this P C world!!! Oh well …more time for gold hunting!!!

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If health and safety got to involve U would need to wear steel caps and hard hat for the walk in probably have to fence or block of the area that your working + do daily hazard check slips trip fall, lose rocks All the bullshit would shut alot of people down and if anyone did get injuried then random inspections would take All the fun out of it

I found the biggest thing was when dredging under water and if a rock rolled out of the face you were working and landed on your foot its to big to move so you have to stay there till the motor runs out of petrol then you drown. if going deep and at altitude don’t forget the bends.

Back about 1985 when diving for gold I pulled a boulder from above me and it went the wrong way - and bust my leg! I had to use a crow bar to get back to my truck half a mile away and at the top of the cliffs above our claim and then not wanting to wreck my skin diving suit I managed to get it off while singing the ‘Screamers Serenade’ then drove 60 miles to Dunedin Hospital. I was then in plaster for six weeks…hardly any mining that summer!

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