Above: CI - leadership commitments
Approaching the end of 2024 - with tunnelling
approximately 83% complete and the project 71% complete overall - it is an opportune time to reflect on Central Interceptor project’s approach to health and safety.
CHALLENGES IN NEW ZEALAND’S CONSTRUCTION SECTOR New Zealand’s workplace safety record, while better than that of the United States, Canada, and France, remains concerning. According to the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum report, ‘State of a Thriving Nation’, workplace fatality rates are almost twice that of those in Australia. The Report likens New Zealand’s situation to that of the UK in the 1980s. More mature regulatory frameworks and firmer enforcement, the absence of ‘no fault’ worker schemes, more active trade unions and better client engagement are cited as the key factors positively influencing workplace safety performance in Australia and the UK. Historically, New Zealand has had a ‘brain drain’
of experienced migrants to Australia where there is better pay and more opportunities, especially in the construction sector. A new ‘fast-track’ pathway to Australian citizenship for New Zealanders, announced in April 2023, will likely tempt more to make the move across ‘the ditch’. It is also worth noting that Central Interceptor client Watercare (WSL) did not have the ‘in- house’ expertise to deliver such a large project. To compound the problem, in 2019, when construction
on the Central Interceptor started, Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) project was also underway, creating more stress in an already oversubscribed labour market. The Central Interceptor project also had to navigate the complexities of operating under Covid-19 restrictions and also the impact of a rare 1 in 200-year storm event. To help tackle some of these challenges, WSL created
a ‘blended team’ comprising its existing WSL staff and experienced professionals from consultancies Jacobs and Aecom, respectively, many of whom have significant international tunnelling experience.
CLIENT APPROACH WSL is an organisation that takes safety seriously. However, in the case of the Central Interceptor project the leadership team recognised many of the above issues early on, and decided that things would have to be different. The organisation had experienced a tragic accident in 2011 that resulted in a fatality and multiple serious injuries after gas seeped into a section of underground pipe and exploded. CI’s Programme Director was intimately involved in that accident and was determined that health and safety would be pivotal to the delivery of the Central Interceptor project. Shayne Cunis, WSL Chief Programme Delivery Officer,
says: “From the start we had the view that success on the project was not about building world class infrastructure as we knew we had the team to do that, but rather everyone going home safe free from harm. It has been a relentless journey to date, but everyone involved in the project has been committed to achieving this vision.” One of the earliest decisions, seemingly unrelated to
safety, had a significant cultural impact. The expectation was that the Central Interceptor project team would be based at Watercare HQ in Newmarket, but the WSL project leadership decided against that. Instead, the entire client team would be based out of rented office space at Eden Park Stadium some three kilometres from central Auckland. This choice helped foster a unique culture: the team’s location, paired with the excitement of working in New Zealand’s largest stadium, helped distinguish the project from the corporate environment, encouraging, among other things, a fresh perspective on safety.
GOOD TO GREAT Central to this novel approach to safety on the Central Interceptor project was the ‘Good to Great’ (G2G) initiative. During the tender process the leadership team made a conscious decision to go, as the American author Jim Collins would put it in his management book, from ‘good’ to ‘great’. In 2020 the joint project
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