Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A WorkSafe Story

WorkSafe New Zealand (Mahi Haumaru Aotearoa) was created after the Pike River Mine disaster to prevent harm before it hardens into damage. Its current budget shows the scale of that mandate. In 2024/25, WorkSafe reported total revenue of $148.4 million and total expenditure of $124.8 million. Workplace health and safety activity alone accounted for $144.0 million in revenue and $121.0 million in expenditure. This is a regulator funded at scale to prevent harm, guide compliance, and enforce the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

That level of funding sits alongside a labour market in which psychosocial harm is widespread. WorkSafe’s own psychosocial survey says 35 percent of workers reported exposure to at least one offensive behaviour in the previous 12 months, and bullying was the most common hostile act at 23 percent.

So the first question is simple. What does a regulator funded at roughly $120 million to $150 million a year do when a worker reports ongoing psychosocial harm?

My own experience answers that clearly. I raised racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and sustained intimidation at work. The conduct was ongoing and described in specific terms. WorkSafe did not come back to me to understand what I was experiencing or to ask for further information. They went to the employer, asked for policies and process documents, reviewed what the employer supplied, and closed the complaint.

They did not test whether the conduct I reported was occurring.

The complaint described conditions in a workplace. WorkSafe assessed employer documentation instead. Once that shift happens, the organisation under complaint controls the frame. It defines the issue, describes the process, and supplies the record. The conduct recedes. The paperwork remains.

Imagine a restaurant where food is making people sick.

Customers observe that the kitchen is not following hygiene standards and report this to the food inspection authority.

A food inspector receives the complaint.

The inspector does not go into the kitchen.
The inspector does not speak to customers.
The inspector does not speak to staff.
The inspector does not observe how the food is being prepared.

Instead, the inspector goes to the management and asks what policies are in place for cleanliness and hygiene.

The management says they have a hygiene policy and a cleaning checklist.

The inspector accepts that as evidence that the restaurant is not causing harm and closes the complaint.

The inspector informs the customers that everything is fine because the restaurant has a hygiene policy and a cleaning checklist.

The food continues to make people sick.

Do you think the inspection did what it was supposed to do? If not, why does this approach appear acceptable when the same method is applied to workplace harm?

The official record points in the same direction. An issues paper from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment states that between December 2013 and April 2019, at least 228 reports to WorkSafe involved bullying at work. Only 20 were investigated. Another 84 were either referred to another agency or referred back to the business to self-manage. The same paper also notes that WorkSafe often refers people to the employment relations pathway unless the matter involves a diagnosed serious mental health condition.

Set those figures against the funding and the gap becomes clear. WorkSafe spends roughly $125 million to $145 million a year. In the six-year window cited above, it investigated 20 bullying cases.

A simple division shows the scale of that gap. If one year of expenditure at $125 million is set against 20 investigations, the figure is approximately $6.25 million per investigated case. That is not a cost measure. WorkSafe carries a much broader mandate. The point sits in the contrast. Public funding is visible. A comparable, visible body of psychosocial harm intervention is not.

That contrast leads directly to the next step. The Employment Relations Authority already examines disputes through employer action, process, and documentation. When workplace harm is approached by checking policies, accepting organisational accounts, and closing matters without examining conditions, the function overlaps. The distinction was meant to sit in prevention. When the work stops at documentation, that distinction becomes difficult to locate.

This does not mean that WorkSafe should not exist. An empowered WorkSafe is necessary to prevent harm from workplace Goonda conduct in New Zealand.

WorkSafe is funded at a level that reflects a prevention mandate. That funding should produce a visible body of work. Not in general terms, but in clear, accessible reporting that shows how that mandate is being carried out. How many psychosocial harm complaints are received. How many are investigated. What action is taken. What outcomes follow. Where patterns sit. What interventions have been made under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

At present, that level of reporting is not visible in a way that allows the public to see what is being delivered.

Reporting and intervention are not separate. One shows whether the other is happening.

An empowered WorkSafe is defined by authority. The authority to hear psychosocial harm and workplace Goonda conduct as health and safety matters. The authority to engage directly with workers. The authority to examine workplace conditions and identify patterns of harm. The authority to intervene where those patterns are present.

That work needs to run alongside the Employment Relations Authority so that safety is addressed while employment processes continue.

Without both, it is difficult to see what is being delivered for the funding that supports this role.