NZ Glossary List

Term	Explanation
Accident	An event that (a) causes any person to be harmed; or (b) in different circumstances, might have caused any person to be harmed.
ACOP	Approved Code of Practice - recommended methods that should be used to comply with legislation.
Business or undertaking	The usual meanings are: business: an activity carried out with the intention of making a profit or gain undertaking: an activity that is non-commercial in nature (e.g certain activities of a local authority).
Competent person	Generally this means a person who has the relevant knowledge, experience and skill to carry out a particular task, and has a relevant qualification (or their employer has evidence demonstrating that the person has the required knowledge, experience, and skill).
Contractor	Someone a person pays to do a job but who is not employed by that person.
Control measure	A way of eliminating or minimising risks to health and safety.
Designated agency	A government agency, other than WorkSafe, designated to carry out certain health and safety functions.
Duty holder	A person who has a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA). There are four types of duty holders – Person Conducting Business or Undertaking (PCBU) officers, workers and other persons at workplaces.
Documentation Review	All health and safety documentation is to be reviewed at least annually, unless otherwise specified in law/regulation e.g SDS every 5 years
Eliminate	Remove the sources of harm (eg equipment, substances or work processes).
Good practice	Practices that have been proven to work well and produce the desired results.
Hazard	Something that has the potential to cause somebody or something harm.
Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA)	HSWA is the key work health and safety law in New Zealand. All work and workplaces are covered by HSWA unless specifically excluded.
Health and safety representative (HSR)	Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) are workers elected by members of their work group to represent them in health and safety matters.
Health monitoring	Monitoring workers’ health to see if their work is harming their health and to assess ongoing effects.
Incident	An incident is unexpected and causes disruption, damage, harm, or loss to people, property, or the environment.
Injury	Damage or hurt to someone.
Investigation	A process of gathering information about an accident or incident to find out why the accident or incident happened and how to stop it from happening again.
Isolate	Isolate the hazard giving risk to the risk to prevent any person coming into contact with it (e.g by separating people from the hazard).
Lock out/tag out (LOTO)	A set of procedures used to ensure equipment is shut down, inoperable, and (where relevant) de-energised. This allows maintenance and repair work to be performed safely.
Minimise	Take steps that protect the health and safety of people by either reducing the likelihood of an event occurring, or reducing the level of harm to people if it does occur.
Near miss	An incident which did not result in injury, illness or damage, but potentially could have.
Notifiable event	A notifiable event is when any of the following occurs as a result of work: a death notifiable illness or injury (see below) a notifiable incident (see below). Under the HSWA, you must notify WorkSafe when a notifiable event occurs.
Notifiable injury or illness	An injury or illness that requires the person to have immediate treatment (other than first aid). For example, a serious head injury, a serious burn, an injury or illness that requires, or would usually require, the person to be admitted to a hospital for immediate treatment or to have medical treatment within 48 hours of exposure to a substance.
Notifiable incident	A notifiable incident means that someone has been immediately exposed to a serious risk to their health and safety because of an unplanned or uncontrolled work incident. For example, exposure to a leaked substance, an electric shock, or the collapse/partial collapse of a structure.
Officer	An officer is a person who has the ability to significantly influence the management of a PCBU. This includes, for example, company directors and chief executives. Officers must exercise due diligence to ensure the PCBU meets its health and safety obligations.
Overlapping PCBU duties	A PCBU’s duties may overlap with those of other PCBUs. When two or more PCBUs are working together at the same location or through a contracting chain, they must work together to fulfil their duties of care and manage risks. Where those duties overlap, the PCBUs must consult, co-operate and co-ordinate with each other to meet their health and safety responsibilities to workers and others.
PCBU (Person Conducting Business or Undertaking)	Most commonly an organisation but may be an individual person. An individual carrying out business as a sole trader or self-employed person is also a PCBU. A PCBU does not include workers or officers of a PCBU, volunteer associations with no employees, or home occupiers that employ or engage a tradesperson to carry out residential work.
Personal protective equipment (PPE)	Anything used or worn by a person (including clothing) to minimise risks to the person’s health and safety; this includes air-supplied respiratory equipment. PCBUs have a duty to provide PPE, and also related duties covering selecting, using/wearing, maintaining, repairing and replacing PPE.
Primary duty of care	A PCBU must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers, and that other persons are not put at risk by its work.
Reasonably practicable	‘Reasonably practicable’ means what is or was reasonably able to be done to ensure health and safety, taking into account and weighing up relevant matters including: the likelihood of the risk concerned occurring or workers being exposed to the hazard the degree of harm that might result what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about: the hazard or risk ways of eliminating or minimising the risk the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk. Control measures can only not be implemented where cost is grossly disproportionate. See WorkSafe’s Reasonably Practicable fact sheet for more information.
Risk	Exposure to harm.
Risk assessment (RA)	A process of identifying, analysing, and evaluating potential risks and hazards associated with a particular task, project, or situation. Risk assessments are important for making informed decisions and ensuring that risks are managed effectively.
Safety data sheet (SDS)	Information about how a product could harm people and how to safely store, use and handle that product.
Serious harm	An injury or an illness created by work-related activity that causes permanent or temporary severe loss of bodily function, including: amputation burns requiring specialist attention loss of consciousness from lack of oxygen, or from absorbing, inhaling or eating/drinking a substance damage to hearing or eyesight poisoning respiratory disease or cancer death. Any injury or illness that causes a person to be in hospital for 48 hours or more is also considered ‘serious harm’.
Standard	Follow these to achieve the desired level of quality.
Task analysis (TA)	Designed to document tasks to understand in detail how they are performed.
Toolbox/safety talk	A short informal group meeting or discussion about a specific health or safety issue or topic. It’s a good way to provide information to workers and to start health and safety conversations.
Unit standard (US)	Unit standards are registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and describe what a learner needs to know or what they must be able to achieve. Standards specify learning outcomes. Each standard is usually defined with a number.
Worker	A person who carries out work in any capacity for a PCBU is called a worker. This includes employees, contractors, subcontractors, employees of labourlabor hire companies, apprentice or trainee, a person gaining work experience and volunteers. Although workers don’t have specific duties for worker participation or engagement, they do have duties to keep themselves and others safe.
Workplace	Any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work. This also includes a vehicle, vessel, aircraft, ship or other mobile structure.
Workplace monitoring	Involves measuring exposure to a hazard arising from work (e.g noise, vibration).
WorkSafe New Zealand (Worksafe)	WorkSafe is the government agency that is the work health and safety WorkSafe. WorkSafe collaborates with PCBUs, workers and other duty holders to embed and promote good work health and safety practices, and enforce health and safety law. Other government agencies can be designated to carry out certain health and safety functions, for example, Maritime New Zealand and the Civil Aviation Authority.