It is not surprising that Worksafe NZ struggles with identity  and funding. When the discourse of the regulator is articulated as pickles, meerkats, warriors and ‘spokes cats’ you have to wonder why it doesn’t focus on the basics (https://safetyrisk.net/skilled-conversations-in-risk-and-safety/ ).

When you have no vision (zero vision) for safety and cannot envision risk it is no wonder the NZ regulator turns its budget to nonsense identities, dumb discourse and pointless narratives.

Unless there in congruence between language, discourse, Discourse and key elements of culture (https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-silences/) it is little wonder the regulator has little idea of its role.

And it’s no different in Australia or elsewhere, in campaigns like:

All these infuse the discourse about tackling risk with utter nonsense, mysticism, metaphysics and confusion.

One would think that developing an identity (https://safetyrisk.net/identity-and-safety/) about tackling risk would be foundational for an industry.

The beginning of identity is articulating an ethic.

Unfortunately, when your vision is zero, you have zero vision.

When you have little clue of semiotics, linguistics, ethics, Socialitie or messaging, no wonder the regulator of NZ lines up with the rest of safety as the next safety joke.

Then we have the doozy of them all with global safety espousing apocalyptic promises of spiritual healing (https://safetyrisk.net/the-spirit-of-zero/), just more evidence of an industry with no vision and no identity about the basics of tackling risk.

How astounding all these examples of an industry that allocates so much of its time, energy and money avoiding the tackling the basics of risk (https://safetyrisk.net/skilled-conversations-in-risk-and-safety/).

This is all evidence of an industry bankrupt of vision because it has dug is heels into the binary fundamentalism of zero, a mono-disciplinary mindset and behaviourism.

And with little sense of critical thinking (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-silences-in-safety-critical-thinking/ ), it is likely that the industry will just keep burying itself in the mire of continued religiosity of ‘safety saves’ (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-people-dont-save-lives/ ), safety mythology (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-safety-myths/), perfectionism (https://safetyrisk.net/methodology-and-an-ethic-of-risk/) and confusion.

Maybe, one day Safety might move away from zero so that safety improves (https://safetyrisk.net/moving-away-from-zero-so-that-safety-improves/ ). In the current climate, not likely. And as long as Safety ruminates in its own mono-disciplinary bubble, it will most likely remain bogged down in engineering and behaviourist mythology.

How comical this industry, so bereft of an ethic (https://safetyrisk.net/podcast-ethos-and-ethics-in-risk/), so bereft of vision, it doesn’t even understand what should be its core business (helping, caring, educating and learning). Yet listen to this industry so keen to spruik the language of ‘professional’ (https://safetyrisk.net/three-lessons-in-how-to-be-unprofessional/) when all of this evidence demonstrates it is not.

Of course the dilemma for Safework NZ is not the 20 recommendations of the report (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/473017/worksafe-unclear-on-its-role-failing-to-intervene-in-key-areas-report-finds) but rather its inability to understand culture (https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-culture-silences/ ).

Without culture change, such cycles simply resurface 10 years later. Then there is a new report, a safety reset undertaken by an engineer and nothing changes (https://safetyrisk.net/lets-reset-the-last-reset-that-reset-the-reset/).

Same curriculum, same ideology, same safety code (https://safetyrisk.net/deciphering-safety-code/ ) and same Discourse.

I wait with baited breath for the next safety campaign. With humans declared by the AIHS as now the enemy (https://safetyrisk.net/how-to-be-a-safety-extremist/) what could be next. Ah, Eugenics safety! (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-eugenics-and-the-engineering-of-risk-aversion/ )