According to internal emails reportedly seen by The Guardian, WorkSafe NZ had challenged recall notices in Australia \u201cfrom the get-go\u201d after detecting asbestos in its own testing.<\/p>\n
A WorkSafe NZ spokesperson told the outlet it had consistently advised that any potentially affected products \u201cmust be managed, removed and disposed of as friable asbestos-containing material until proven otherwise\u201c, yet this wasn\u2019t widely adopted.<\/p>\n
An AUT study confirmed the presence of airborne asbestos fibres in several products in findings shared earlier this month. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n
Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy said The Guardian report was \u201creally concerning\u201d and draws attention to a wider issue around how product safety regulation is conducted and monitored.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe run a really high trust model here in New Zealand when it comes to product safety, and that means the onus is imported out to either the manufacturer or the importer to make sure they that they have testing in place to reassure the public that products are safe,\u201d he told Ryan Bridge TODAY.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe legal obligation is on them. We don\u2019t really have regulators who are going out there and ensuring that this model is working appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duffy said the problem stemmed from the existing regime being designed to keep costs low by shifting the burden of testing onto businesses.<\/p>\n
He believed regulators needed to \u201cat least be probing the edges\u201d of the testing process to ensure it was satisfactory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s perfectly reasonable, as you say, for a consumer who reads a warning or a recall notice that has come through a government agency or a regulator to assume that that regulator has had some skin in the game, and isn\u2019t just blindly relying on testing results that they\u2019ve been provided by the businesses in question,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy has expressed concern over the Guardian report’s findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an inherent conflict between the company that wants to make money off selling this product, that\u2019s providing you the information to endorse it, and independent testing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duffy said the public was being let down by conflicting information throughout the process, and that people with children who may have been exposed needed \u201cclarity\u201d on what to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Guardian article has come out and is sending a separate message to what the regulators in Australia, the regulators in New Zealand and the businesses involved have been sending.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we really need our regulator to step in and provide New Zealanders with clear information on what the actual status of this situation is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue came to light last year when an Australian laboratory unintentionally detected asbestos in play sand products while analysing samples for staff training and machine testing.<\/p>\n
Authorities on both sides of the Tasman were only notified after a lab analyst mentioned it during a podcast interview.<\/p>\n
This prompted inquiries by WorkSafe New Zealand, leading to the recall of Educational Colours and Creatistics coloured sand products<\/a> on November 12.<\/p>\n By December, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had issued recalls for five suppliers\u2019 products<\/a>, affecting about 74,000 units sold nationwide.<\/p>\n The Warehouse and Warehouse Stationery later issued a voluntary recall for their Uniti sand art product in April<\/a> after MBIE approached them with a positive test result for traces of asbestos.<\/p>\n The contamination involved a form of asbestos called tremolite, a naturally occurring mineral that is more carcinogenic than the chrysotile asbestos typically found in older building materials.<\/p>\n Initially, MBIE and the Ministry of Health echoed the \u201clow risk\u201d sentiment published by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in its recall notices.<\/p>\n