Psychosocial risks are a risk to health & safety, so for me it needs to be covered by our health and safety legislation. That was the general consensus at Worksafe's Mentally Health Work conference in 2022 and is supported by the NZ Business Leaders Forum, and the Institute of Directors. I appreciate the current Minister wants to go 'back to basics', however the psychosocial risks remain in their various forms and our PCBU's have a duty to deal with it. It is such a shame that, again, we have to look to Australia & the UK to find robust specific legislation on the topic. There is plenty of support and proactive work taking place in NZ amongst both HR & H&S business functions to understand and improve when it comes to psychosocial risk management.

I Attended a workshop run by Umbrella where they discussed this. The facilitator (Dougal Sutherland) had previously run the same workshop with the individuals who had helped to write the HSWA.
He mentioned that when they discussed this topic the writers confirmed that they never intended the Act itself to provide enough guidance on how to manage psychosocial risks. Instead, they expected psychosocial risks to eventually be regulated in NZ. So we agreed that until we have a government who is willing to take this topic seriously and supports the creation of NZ specific regulations, it is likely that outcomes of court cases (i.e. Siouxsie Wiles Vs University of Auckland) will provide the guidance we are currently seeking.