State of A Thriving Nation | Annual Report Series

Since 2023, I have co-led an annual review of Aotearoa New Zealand’s health and safety system through the State of a Thriving Nation reports with the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum.

Across the 2024–26 reports, our work has challenged what Donna Haraway calls the “god trick” in New Zealand’s health and safety system, as the idea that institutions can govern effectively from an abstract position above the relationships they seek to shape. Our work challenges both WorkSafe and businesses to better situate themselves within safety ecosystems and in relation to workers, strengthening the shared capacities through which safer and more sustainable work cultures are built. This has included attending to cultures of coercion in everyday work, and to the social and economic conditions that enable workers to exercise judgement and speak up safely.

The research focuses on how institutional interdependence can be strengthened in Aotearoa New Zealand, narrowing the gap between formal rules and “work as done.”