Health and Safety clarification for Recreational hunters

Federated Farmers is also welcoming confirmation that landowners will not be liable if someone is injured on their land while doing recreation or adventure activities.

Instead, health and safety responsibility will lie with those running such activities and participating in them.

“Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden is right when she says uncertainty and scope creep has led to some farmers refusing access for such activities out of concern around their legal liability,” Birkett says.

“One big downside of that has been some reluctance to allow farm access to recreational hunters, despite growing numbers of feral pest animals across New Zealand.

“Changing the regulations so that health and safety is the personal responsibility of hunters, not the owner of the land they’re on, will be a boost to keeping deer, pig, goat and possum numbers down.


how many saw this and more importantly how many farmers farmers it would seem well some of them have been worried for nothing so long as they point out hazards they are in the good

I have seen that and while not a farmer and not knowing any either hopefully it will mean more access opportunities.

In a couple of instances where I have / had access to private property for pest shooting I had to sign waivers that absolved the landowners from consequences for any mishaps. Apart from very minor injuries I've never experienced any issues and was happy to sign and maintain my opportunities.

Still doesn't cover what happens if you end up wrapped up in the landowners activities without meaning to. It's good that you are not liable for people just crossing your land or that you are able to possibly gain access to cross land easier but it still doesn't answer the question of what happens if you do get involved without expecting to for some unplanned reason.

I had a good look at it and it really doesn't have the details on that sort of level yet.

(The example I'm thinking here is accessing through a station and on the way back out you find a heavy transport operation in full swing that you need to cross through).

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Originally Posted by 30.06king

In a couple of instances where I have / had access to private property for pest shooting I had to sign waivers that absolved the landowners from consequences for any mishaps. Apart from very minor injuries I've never experienced any issues and was happy to sign and maintain my opportunities.

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I tried to tell rural operators that I audited, that a waiver don't mean shit. You can't sign your liabilities away. Its taken quite a while to get from where we were when the poorly written legislation came in over a decade or so ago that had landowners potentially liable for injury to persons undertaking unlawful activities on their land, to the far more commonsense changes being undertaken now.

Next in line for a raark up will be the replacement bits to the RMA that will more easily permit landowners to do what they desire on their land, as long as it doesn't affect other landowners i.e (pollution running downstream to someone else).

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Originally Posted by No.3

Still doesn't cover what happens if you end up wrapped up in the landowners activities without meaning to. It's good that you are not liable for people just crossing your land or that you are able to possibly gain access to cross land easier but it still doesn't answer the question of what happens if you do get involved without expecting to for some unplanned reason.

I had a good look at it and it really doesn't have the details on that sort of level yet.

(The example I'm thinking here is accessing through a station and on the way back out you find a heavy transport operation in full swing that you need to cross through).

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That should be covered off in both the Landowner's and the contractors own SMP's. It still remains the duty of the landowner to communicate the risks (and control measures) associated with crossing their land.

Good common sense prevails.

Nothing new there
That clarification has been around for a long time

BUT Farmers are liable if they are actually undertaking an activity that causes harm
Eg you walk through a paddock of stock and get attacked the farmer has no liability or responsibility

But if he was actively driving that stock while you were hurt there is liability

Been through this with my Conservation work and private land access

Straight from Worksafe website Attachment 272970

And I also thought that it’s always been that the normal risks of a farm eg. stock, steep hills, wet tracks, dams etc the landowner wasn’t liable for should something occur to a rec user. .

It was only if there was something out of the ordinary occurring eg tree felling, explosive work etc that the land owner had to inform the recreational user.

Yeah, that "something out of the ordinary" is the bit where more detail would be good I think. Someone crossing unplanned (early or later than agreed for some reason that wasn't foreseen) and bowling into the middle of something else that is 'commercial' but not standard practice for the landowner is where it gets interesting.

I've had that before with working on a site doing works for a third party who was unrelated to the landowner who controlled access, and someone else wandered straight through heavy machinery operations. We had not been informed that it was possible, paperwork showed we had agreed on sole access and no one else was there for the duration of our works. Was a bit of a WTF moment, as our signage and plans were set up for us as we were well away from any other areas and as per agreement were the only people with access at that time.

Final verdict was - 'Bugger'... Didn't squash anyone or anything, but a bit of a serious conversation was had!

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one of our dairy farm clients makes us sign a HSE plan on arrival talk about overboard-- one map has the paddocks divided into parts labelled expert drivers only and intermediate skilled drivers in other areas - WTF really we are contractors doing 15-20 paddocks a day and hers are not even that steep - but the real stupid irony is you are then asked to drive over some absolute shit paddocks - tractor ruts- heavy pugging -they are the issue - bloody hard on gear - thankfully she is one of the few doing this kind of bullshit - her worker told her she is completely overboard

That has partially come about from a situation in BoP where a contractor was in an accident on a Kiwifruit orchard while doing fruit testing - drove somewhere they shouldn't and rolled the vehicle and stacked it on a vine post. Part of the findings was that the orchard owner knew it was slick, steep and people shouldn't drive there when it was wet but didn't advise the contractor who employed the tester as it was fairly obvious to most that it wasn't a good place to drive. There were a few other factors contributing but you get the idea... As a result of the investigation into that, a lot of places started that idea of 'drive zones' - go, no go, advanced drivers and suitable vehicles only and handing out maps.

It really does over complicate a fairly basic exercise because in reality any area off hard standing and sealed road might as well be labelled 'advanced drivers and suitable vehicles only'. Arse covering 101...

well the hard case thing is No 3 our client with the steepeist paddocks told the boss " send some one with balls -I have mowed some steep stuff ' well I get out there to rake it and holy crap the old bugger had been out with his 6430 Johnny with duels on and had mowed some absolute shite - stock tracked steep shite - I gave it a good go but had to leave some - stock tracks were so bad I was turning up dirt with the rake - he has never mowed that face since - its those stock tracks that get you in the shit - tractor gives one bounce coming down and you are off to the bottom unless in a very very low gear - but not worth it as the baler wont be able to hold on it - he has nearly 10 ton behind him even though his tractor is a good 5-6 ton heavier than mine - but you want to see where the fert boys take the spreader trucks thats another level - some of the tracks I have seen coming down hill from them as an ex bulldozer driver I would be hesitant to come down unless my blade was 3 feet under -

Yeah I've seen those spreader boys in action, balls of steel some of them. I wasn't comfortable driving up some of the faces they were spreading across!

I cocked up a while back and missed my turn off in a Courier ute - the old High Country pack version of the Xtra Cab. Had an ali tray on it, real light, could damn near go anywhere and on that day I was too lazy (well had too many things on at once as per) and took the ute up to sort out the water tank and get the water down to the plant running. On the way down I turned downhill one rise too early and realised my mistake too damn late. I ended up in a situation where I couldn't get out of the ute as it was too steep, the park brake wouldn't hold it and I couldn't reverse up to safety because the damn cattle had ripped the slope up. Ended up having to ride the 40 or so meter dropoff all the way down, one cattle track at a time while facing the ground out of the windscreen. I learned after that and never tried that again, the pluck mark out of the center of the driver's seat was spectacular. And I have a hell of a lot more respect for those Courier/Bountys from the end of the model run - surprisingly capable little utes.