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Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

Worker engagement, participation, and representation - Provisional improvement notices

78: Offence relating to breach of provisional improvement notice

You could also call this:

“Penalties for not following a temporary safety improvement order”

If you receive a provisional improvement notice, you must follow its instructions within the time given. This applies unless an inspector has been asked to review the notice under section 79.

You need to fix the problem or prevent it from happening, as the notice says. You can do this in a different way than what the health and safety representative suggested, as long as you still properly address the issue.

If you don’t follow the notice, you’re breaking the law. If you’re found guilty, you could be fined. If you’re an individual, you might have to pay up to $50,000. If you’re not an individual (like a company), you might have to pay up to $250,000.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM5977009.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Work and jobs > Workplace safety
Crime and justice > Criminal law
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77: Irregularities or defects in notice, or

“Small mistakes don't make a notice invalid”

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79: Review of provisional improvement notice, or

“How to ask for a review of a workplace safety notice”

Part 3 Worker engagement, participation, and representation
Provisional improvement notices

78Offence relating to breach of provisional improvement notice

  1. This section applies if a provisional improvement notice has been issued to a person and an inspector has not been required under section 79 to review the notice.

  2. The person must comply with the provisional improvement notice within the time specified in the notice by remedying the contravention or avoiding any likely contravention (as the case may be).

  3. For the purposes of subsection (2), the person may comply with the notice in a different way from that directed by the health and safety representative as long as the person substantially complies with the requirement to remedy the contravention or avoid any likely contravention.

  4. A person who contravenes subsection (2) commits an offence and is liable on conviction,—

  5. for an individual, to a fine not exceeding $50,000:
    1. for any other person, to a fine not exceeding $250,000.

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