The health and safety podcast for New Zealand leaders
Straight conversations with directors, a former WorkSafe prosecutor, a retired inspector, frontline leaders and people who've lived through the worst day at work. Hosted by Matt Jones and on air since 2018, when the show started life on Plains FM in Christchurch.
Latest episode: Matthew Bray on reporting critical risk to a board on one page. Read the guide that goes with it
Boards, directors and the law
For the people who carry officer duties and answer to a board.
Matthew BrayHealth and Safety Board Reporting: One Page, Not 50
Matthew Bray asked his board what they wanted to know about health and safety, then gave them a single page in place of the usual 50-page report with 200 graphs and 47 KPIs.
Listen and watch →
Phill DaggerCritical Risk Controls: How Can a Director Really Know?
Phill Dagger spent 16 years as a shareholder and director of one of New Zealand's biggest wine producers. The question that sat uneasily with him the whole time was how a director can really know critical risks are being managed.
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DeAnne BrabantHSWA Explained: Officer Duties, Section 34 and Private Prosecutions
DeAnne Brabant is a lawyer and former WorkSafe prosecutor. In this long-form conversation she walks through officer due diligence under section 44, the section 34 duty to consult, cooperate and coordinate and how private prosecutions work.
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Shane Strode-PennyRetired WorkSafe Inspector on How the Inspectorate Has Changed
Shane Strode-Penny spent years as a WorkSafe New Zealand inspector before he retired. He gives his own frank view of how the inspectorate works, how it has changed and what he'd bring back.
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Dave GreenbergCrisis Simulation: Why Your Exec Team Isn't Ready
Dave Greenberg spent 25 years and 4,000 missions on the Westpac rescue helicopter in Wellington. He now runs crisis simulations that show executive teams how ready they are when it counts.
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Tim JonesWhat Is ESG and B Corp? Why It Matters for NZ Business
Tim Jones of Grow Good helps companies through B Corp certification. He explains why ESG now reaches the small and medium businesses that supply the big ones.
Listen and watch →Critical risk on the ground
Where the work actually happens and where it goes wrong.
Troy HallHe Survived a High-Voltage Electric Shock at Work
Troy Hall survived a high-voltage power line flashover at work on 14 October 2011. He talks openly about the attitude he carried onto site that day and the long recovery that followed.
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Keith BarnettWorking at Height: Plan How You Get Down First
Keith Barnett is Health and Safety Advisor and a trainer at Vertical Horizonz. His starting point for any work at height or in a confined space is the plan for getting back out.
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Jen DransfieldWork as Imagined vs Work as Done in Construction
Jen Dransfield is a health and safety advisor at Naylor Love. She talks about what changes when the people doing the work are part of the conversation about how it gets done safely.
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Jo PrigmoreWill It Work at 3am in the Rain? Plain Language Safety
Jo Prigmore tests every health and safety rule and document with one question: will it work at 3am in the pouring rain? It's how she turns policies and procedures into something people can use.
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Rosie KillipBuilding Warrant of Fitness and Fire Safety: Who's Checking?
Rosie Killip founded Building Networks and teaches building, fire and safety compliance. She talks about what she finds when she asks who is checking the safety systems in a building.
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Peter ThomasAI Risk Assessments and the Future of Safety Consulting
Peter Thomas is a UK health and safety professional who threw himself into safety technology because serious accident and fatality numbers there have sat flat for years. He sees AI as the profession's chance to change that.
Listen and watch →Leading people and culture
Influence, wellbeing and the human side of getting it right.
Sarah ThomasYou Can't Break a Business in the Name of Safety
Sarah Thomas has 20 years in health and safety and a coaching background alongside it. Her line that you can't break a business in the name of safety sums up this conversation about the real role of the health and safety professional.
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Dr Megan TranterHow to Influence Senior Leaders in Safety
Dr Megan Tranter has led safety globally for some of the biggest companies in the world, PepsiCo, Amazon and Netflix among them. She explains how safety professionals earn influence with senior leaders.
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Di FosterSelf-Aware Leadership: What Business Owners Miss
Di Foster coaches business owners and leaders by holding up a mirror to what they're missing. The thing she finds most often is a lack of self-awareness.
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Joy KuhnsEmotional Intelligence for Safety Leaders: Lessons from NASA
Joy Kuhns was working for a company at a NASA research centre in California when the space shuttle Columbia was lost. What she took from that investigation shapes how she coaches leaders on emotional intelligence and health and safety today.
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Michael PhilpottPresentation Skills for Health and Safety People
Michael Philpott coaches people to speak and present. In this episode he works through how health and safety people can win over a room that has already decided what safety training is going to be like.
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Matt VaughanWorkplace Wellbeing Programmes: How to Prove They Work
Matt Vaughan moved from strength and conditioning coaching into workplace health and wellbeing. He built his programme around the challenge every wellbeing coach hears from a business: prove to me that it works.
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Daniel Hummerdal and Rob CousinsHealth and Safety Innovation: The Trojan Mouse
Daniel Hummerdal and Rob Cousins of Open Change run workshops that help health and safety practitioners try small experiments in place of big top-down programmes. They call it the Trojan mouse.
Listen and watch →Technology, data and AI
What the tools can and can't do for you.
Tane van der BoonAI Computer Vision in Workplace Safety: Stopping Harm Early
Tane van der Boon founded Inviol to put computer vision and AI onto the cameras a business already has. It picks up risky behaviour around forklifts and loading before somebody gets hurt.
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Bede Cammock-ElliottAI and CCTV for Forklift and Pedestrian Safety on Industrial Sites
Bede Cammock-Elliott of SEEO builds AI that watches a site's existing CCTV for forklift and pedestrian risk around the clock. It began with a chief executive asking him how the business hadn't known what was going on in its own yard.
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Hilary WaltonAI in Health and Safety: Where to Start and What to Avoid
Hilary Walton is a technology strategist at Microsoft and a former chief information security officer. She explains in plain terms what AI means for health and safety people and where to start with it.
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Nathan HightReactive to Proactive Safety Culture: What the Data Shows
Nathan Hight co-founded Safe365 in 2016 to give businesses a way to measure their health and safety maturity. The aim is to move them from reacting to incidents toward managing risk before anyone is hurt.
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Storm MacDonald and David MastersPaper to Digital Health and Safety Systems in NZ
Storm MacDonald and David Masters from SiteApp Pro spend their time with health and safety consultants and their clients. They share what practitioners are asking for as businesses move from paper to digital safety systems.
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Michael Hartley and Storm MacDonaldChoosing Health and Safety Software: Lessons from SiteApp Pro
Michael Hartley is CEO of SiteApp Pro and Storm MacDonald is Executive Sales Manager. They tell the story of how a 12 person software development house became a health and safety software company working across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada.
Listen and watch →Listened to one? Test your own business against it
Officer Due Diligence Check
For directors and officers. Find out whether you could show due diligence if WorkSafe asked tomorrow.
Take the check →Compliance Compass Self-Check
A quick read on where your health and safety system is strong, where it's thin and what to fix first.
Run the self-check →Talk it through with Matt
Fifteen minutes on the risk keeping you up at night, with Matt directly. No pitch deck and no obligation.
Book a strategy call →Matt Jones
Matt founded Advanced Safety and has worked with more than 500 New Zealand organisations on health and safety governance, critical risk and leadership. He started out as a union organiser before he moved into health and safety.
- HASANZ registered and Professional Member of NZISM
- Graduate Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health
- Founder of the New Zealand Health and Safety Professionals community
- Author of Raise the Standard
The COVID-19 and Whakaari conversations
Before the video years the show ran audio interview series with NZHSP members, lawyers and business leaders: how workplaces handled COVID-19 in real time and how the Whakaari/White Island charges unfolded. They're all still on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
These episodes were recorded in 2020 and 2021 and reflect the law, guidance and court position at the time. Check the current position before you act on them.
What listeners say
- ★★★★★
Business owners will get plenty of value from listening to these recordings. Keep up the great work!
Clifton MagonManaging Director - ★★★★★
Listened to the podcast while driving last week. What a fantastic speaking presence you have. Nice, simple language and very easy to listen to.
Malcolm LowreyTraining Facilitator, L&D Professional - ★★★★★
I enjoyed the way in which you spoke about the legislative changes on plain English
Lee-Anne FolkersHSQE Consultant - ★★★★★
Listened to your podcasts, excellent. I've had a lot to do with the practicalities of health and safety over the years and you translate it well for the average person.
Anonymous listener
Podcast FAQ
Where can I listen to Health & Safety Unplugged?
Every episode is free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The video episodes are on the Advanced Safety YouTube channel.
Who hosts the podcast?
Matt Jones, founder of Advanced Safety. He's HASANZ registered, a Professional Member of NZISM, holds a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health and founded the New Zealand Health and Safety Professionals community.
Who is the podcast for?
Directors, chief executives and senior leaders who carry duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, plus the health and safety professionals who advise them. The episodes are sorted on this page by the problem you're trying to solve.
Where did the show start?
Health & Safety Unplugged began on Plains FM radio in Christchurch in 2018 and moved online during COVID-19. It's been an independent podcast and YouTube show ever since.
Can I be a guest or suggest a topic?
Yes. If you've got a story or a hard-won lesson that would help New Zealand leaders, get in touch and tell us what you'd want to talk about.
Does Advanced Safety help with the issues raised in the episodes?
Yes. Start with one of the free tools on this page or book a 15 minute strategy call with Matt. Every enquiry gets a reply within one working day.
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Health and safety that stands up to scrutiny. For NZ organisations operating in complex, high-risk environments.