Friday, August 21, 2015



"Low risk"

How "low risk" is farming? So "low risk" that the Minister was specifically warned how dangerous it was when considering health and safety legislation last year:

The Workplace Relations Minister was warned last year that agriculture was one of the worst performing in relation to health and safety - but has still decided to exclude most of that sector from rules facing high risk sectors.

Michael Woodhouse has been under fire this week for signing off on rules that will see worm farms and mini golf operators included in the new rules, but not sheep, dairy or cattle farmers.

Official documents show when he became minister last year he was warned that agriculture accounted for more workplace deaths in 2013 than the forestry, construction and manufacturing sectors combined.


This is an industry which reliably kills twenty people a year - half of them in quad-bike accidents. But because they donate overwhelmingly to the National Party, they get to be exempt from regulation which would help stop that. Again, this is a deliberate decision in full knowledge of the consequences, of people dying. And when people die because of it, it will be Michael Woodhouse's depraved indifference which kills them.