New Health and Safety Law a Win for Hunters

The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act has passed into law changes affecting businesses and workplaces but also has implications for recreation.

The new law contains what may be its most important – yet least reported – reform for hunters and all New Zealanders who enjoy the outdoors recreationally. The changes make it clear that landowners and land managers are not responsible under workplace health and safety law for the ordinary risks faced by people who lawfully enter open land for recreational purposes.

This is a major win for recreational access.

Removing the Fear of Liability

For years, farmers, forestry owners, councils and other land managers have faced uncertainty about whether allowing hunters, trampers and other recreational users onto their land could expose them to prosecution or liability under the Health and Safety at Work Act. That uncertainty has had a chilling effect. Understandably, some landowners have restricted or refused access because they feared they could be held responsible if someone was injured while hunting, tramping or undertaking another recreational activity.

The amendment directly addresses that concern. Under the new section 37 provisions, a person conducting a business or undertaking who manages or controls open land will not owe the workplace-management duty to people lawfully using that land for recreation. This includes people crossing land to reach other land for recreational purposes. These are sensible and welcome exceptions. The duty may still apply where:

• the recreational activity is connected with the landowner or manager’s business; or

• work connected with that business is being undertaken at the same time and near the place being used for recreation.

In ordinary circumstances, however, merely permitting a hunter or other recreational user onto open land will not make the landowner responsible under section 37 for the inherent risks of that activity.

Hunters Must Take Responsibility for Themselves – as they should

This clarification restores an important and principled distinction: work is work, and recreation is recreation.

The outdoors cannot and should not be made risk-free. Hunting involves firearms, difficult terrain, changing weather, river crossings, navigation and other natural hazards. Those risks are part of the activity and must primarily be managed by the people choosing to participate. Hunters must take responsibility for:

• their own decisions, preparation and competence;

• understanding the terrain, weather and natural hazards;

• using firearms safely;

• carrying appropriate equipment and communications;

• complying with access conditions; and

• ensuring they do not interfere with farming, forestry or other work occurring on the land.

Landowners should not be expected to identify, eliminate or accept liability for recreational risk that a hunter may encounter.

This does not remove the need for reasonable communication where active work is occurring. Nor is it blanket immunity from every possible legal responsibility. What it does is remove the inappropriate application of the workplace-management duty to ordinary, lawful recreational access.

NZDA and Rec Sector Advocacy Has Delivered

NZDA joined 15 outdoor recreation organisations in making a detailed submission on the law. Our sector’s position was clear: landowners and managers should not face liability for accidents arising from recreational activities by recreational visitors.

We pointed out that the existing uncertainty was causing owners and managers to restrict access and that workplace health and safety legislation should not be used to regulate the inherent risks people voluntarily accept when recreating outdoors. The new law substantially delivers that central objective.

This is exactly what effective advocacy should achieve: identifying a practical barrier to access, working alongside the wider outdoor community, proposing a workable solution, and securing legislative change.

It may not attract the headlines given to other reforms, but for hunters and land access, this is one of the most significant legislative wins in recent years.

It provides landowners with greater confidence to say yes to responsible recreational access. The Government has announced that the changes will come into force on 1 April 2027, with supporting guidance to be released before then.