Fisheries observer health and safety

Ensuring our fisheries observers are safe

Fisheries observers help us to manage our fisheries sustainably. They collect information on board commercial fishing vessels to independently confirm data on fish being caught and efforts to catch fish.

Working at sea carries its own unique risks. Fisheries New Zealand is committed to the health and safety of our observer workforce. When our staff are working at sea, they rely on the vessel and those around them to ensure their safety and comfort.

Our observers adhere to the specific health and safety requirements of the vessel while working closely with fishers to get the data they need.

Collaborative health and safety

Fisheries New Zealand works closely with fishers on health and safety concerns. We use a pre-placement health and safety assessment (PPHSA) process.

Find out more about the PPHSA process

We also resolve incidents when they happen. Even if an incident does not involve an observer directly, it may have the potential to do so. To ensure we are meeting our duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 we also evaluate these incidents to learn from them.

See our observer health and safety incident data

Observer services meets 4 times a year with the NZ Fishing Health and Safety Forum. At the forum we discuss:

• observer health and safety
• incident trend data
• wider health and safety concerns
• industry initiatives like MarineSAFE, a health and safety e-learning portal developed by the commercial fishing sector with funding from ACC.

Industry initiatives to improve health and safety for the fishing industry

MarineSAFE

FirstMate New Zealand

Workplace health & safety – OpenSeas NZ

Critical risks for fisheries observers

Fisheries New Zealand has identified critical risks that our observers are exposed to while on deployment or travelling to and from vessels. These include:

• aggressive interactions
• biological risks and unknown organisms
• driving
• fatigue
• hazardous substances
• large live animals
• working around machinery
• moving vehicles and mobile plant
• psychosocial risk
• remote and isolated work
• working on or over water.

The risk of manual handling injuries

While not identified as a critical risk, the observer role involves many manual tasks and there is a risk for manual handling injuries. Manual handling related incidents make up at least half of all observer health and safety incidents. It's an area of focus for us. We have made changes to some of our processes to address potential risks associated with manual handling and are seeing promising results. As part of this, we are also refreshing our manual handling training.

Observer safety alerts

We share health and safety learnings with observers by issuing safety alerts. Some examples of safety alerts include:

• guidance regarding the handling of poisonous sea snakes
• keeping watch
• trawl gear snapbacks
• use of life jackets.

Measuring our safety performance

Pre-placement health and safety assessments (PPHSA) and observer health and safety perceptions are 2 ways that we measure our safety performance. These measures are updated annually.

PPHSA results

Pre-placement health and safety assessments involve checking:

• the vessel's Certificate of Survey is current
• life-saving and firefighting equipment is in date and serviceable
• the vessel has bullying and harassment, drug and alcohol, and fatigue management policies in place
• the amenities on board available to the observer
• the workstation the observer is to use while on board.

We also ask audit-based questions to see how familiar a vessel's crew is with the safety system.

Summary of PPHSAs carried out for 2020, 2021 and 2022

Note, not all vessels that did not pass a PPHSA were required to carry an observer in the calendar year.

This data shows that a large proportion of vessels pass our PPHSAs and that pass rates are improving. Where a health and safety issue is identified, we work with the vessel to resolve it.

Observer health and safety perception ratings

At the end of every trip, our observers complete a short survey based on their experiences on board. This survey includes information about how safe they felt on board. The observer is not required to justify their rating. Over time, we expect observers to feel safer at work as we implement further controls and processes.

Observer safety perception ratings in 2020 and 2021

There are about 300 observer trips each year.

We never redeploy an observer to a vessel where an observer has felt unsafe or very unsafe without ensuring that appropriate controls are in place to manage these risks. Trips where an observer has reported feeling unsafe or very unsafe are often related to incidents during the trip which have affected their perception of safety.

Who to contact

If you have questions about fisheries observer health and safety, email info@mpi.govt.nz