A few years ago I met Lawrence Waterman, head of safety during construction of the London 2012 Olympic complex. Shockingly, London was the first Olympics complex built where no worker died during construction.

When I asked Waterman what lay behind this success, he recounted a conversation he'd had with the London Olympic Delivery Authority well before construction began. Some authority members initially baulked at his vision of a fatality-free Olympic build believing it was unrealistic, too expensive, or might slow down the construction work.

Waterman said he would bow to their concerns, but only if they agreed to come with him each time he went to tell a dead worker's family that their loved one wasn't coming home.

Suddenly the dynamics of the conversation changed.

The consequences of poor health and safety became very real for the authority members as they imagined themselves defending their decisions to the grieving family.

To cut a long story short, the authority eventually adopted the vision and the Olympic complex was completed on time, on budget and with no fatalities.

For me, this story illustrates how the value people put on health and safety can depend on where they sit - whether it's in an office, on a roof, or in the living room of someone who has just lost a partner/child/parent at work. (As someone who has sat in that living room I can tell you it is an experience you never want to go through.)

The NZ Initiative's Bryce Wilkinson argues that it is irresponsible to regulate for safety without a competent assessment of the benefits relative to the costs (Weighing the costs of health and safety, Jan 12). While I agree with this point, the article also suggests that safety protections should only be put in place if they are justified as providing "value for money". Scaffolding is used as an example, with the article saying that the $2000 cost of scaffolding a house during a roofing job isn't justified by the number of lives saved by scaffolding.

This misses the point that decisions about people's safety at work should never be based solely on money. There is a moral test that also needs to be satisfied.

Companies profit from the work of their employees and in return they have a moral obligation to keep those employees safe. It is not acceptable for a worker to die because known safety equipment that could have saved them was considered uneconomic, based on a cost benefit analysis.

Pike River showed us where this kind of thinking leads - and it is not a good place.Wilkinson's article suggests that the money spent on scaffolding would be better directed into other safety improvements, like better roading. But safety shouldn't be an either or, but an "and".

Why not invest in keeping people alive in our workplaces and on our roads?

The reality is that New Zealand lags shamefully behind other developed countries when it comes to keeping people safe at work. Our workers are twice as likely to die at work as Australians, and six times more likely to die than British workers.

I believe attitudes play a big part in this. Some people still think it's OK to make money by placing workers in dangerous situations, even when we know how to reduce the risk.

Cost benefit analysis can help governments and companies make informed decisions about prioritising health and safety activities.

But this shouldn't be the only test applied when making decisions that can determine whether someone lives or dies.

Business leaders in particular need to apply the "living room" test. That is, they need to imagine themselves sitting in the living room of a dead worker's family explaining what they did or didn't do to keep the worker safe, and why.

If their explanation doesn't stack up, they need to go back to the drawing board and keep improving their health and safety performance until it does.

Julian Hughes is executive director of the Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum, which supports chief executives of large businesses to improve health and safety in their businesses and industries. zeroharm.org.nz.

- The Dominion Post

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