Hopefully, you’ve all seen the news that Minister Woods announced regarding being more specific about how adventure activity operators must assess and manage natural hazard risks.

So far, we don’t know what this will look like or what, if any, changes will need to be made to operators’ safety plans. We do know that WorkSafe intends the changes to have been fully implemented by late 2023.

For a lot of our operators, late 2023 is right in the middle of your recertification audit, so it could be well worth planning ahead as much as possible.

We recommend the following:

1. Talk to other operators and professionals in your industry. Discuss what sorts of natural hazards might impact on your activities and how you currently manage them, and how you might improve how you manage them. Explore whether your existing emergency response plans can manage these natural hazard events.

2. Plan for your next audit. Are you familiar with the requirements of the Safety Audit Standard for Adventure Activities? Operators are required to adhere to this standard so being conversant with it means your audit should go smoothly. Check your expiry date and consider getting the ball rolling early to ensure there’s enough time to plan, go through a good document review and have an onsite audit. Remember that you need to have the audit at least 2 weeks before your certification expires to give us and WorkSafe time to review the audit findings before WorkSafe can update your registration.

3. Keep up to date with the news. If you’re feeling out of the loop, you need to engage with your sector better. Join Tourism Industry Aotearoa, Recreation Aotearoa, your industry advocacy body or association, etc. These organisations are responsible for looking after your best interests and sharing information with you. The better represented they are, the better they can represent you.

4. Make a submission on the proposed changes to the New Zealand Safety Audit Standard for Adventure Activities This is the key requirement for all Adventure Activity Operators and there aren't that many in the country so it stands to reason that every submission will have weight.