By Geoff Hardy - 16 Nov 2018
In April 2018 Meika McHardy of our firm posted a blog on
what you need to know about asbestos and home renovation. She
pointed out that asbestos is now the single biggest cause of death
from work-related disease, and that on 4 April 2018 the new
regulations governing asbestos came fully into effect. What
is probably not fully appreciated is how widespread the use of
asbestos was during the period from 1940 to 2000.
Pretty much any commercial or residential building constructed
or substantially altered during that time can be expected to
contain some. This means that if you are renovating or demolishing
any building falling into that category, you have to investigate
whether it will release any dangerous asbestos particles into the
air, and if so, you must have it safely removed or isolated by
experts.
Perhaps not surprisingly, that law is still not widely known or
consistently adhered to. The first example of that emerged
recently, when a builder who carried out a demolition job on a
Riccarton building in February 2017 was fined $3,000 in a
prosecution brought by WorkSafe New Zealand. The penalty would have
been greater, but for the fact that the builder was bankrupt and
his company had gone into liquidation.
This was the first successful prosecution under the Health and
Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016, but we suspect there
will be many more to come. We can help in a number of ways.
Regardless of whether you are a property owner or a member of the
building industry, we can unravel for you the sometimes complex and
confusing morass of rules and regulations surrounding asbestos. And
if you are on the receiving end of a prosecution, we can ensure
your rights are observed and you are treated fairly.
As with anything else, we prefer to be the fence at the top of
the cliff to the ambulance at the bottom. So we encourage you to be
proactive and to check out the relevant law ahead of time. That
way, we can all contribute to avoiding the very serious health
consequences that an exposure to asbestos can involve.
Contact
Geoff
Hardy