LegalSAFE is New Zealand’s most trusted health & safety law conference, bringing together health and safety professionals, consultants and managers over four days in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and, for the first time, Queenstown.
LegalSAFE aims to provide practical solutions to your health and safety compliance questions. It is your best opportunity to not just meet your compliance obligations, but to create healthier, safer workplaces overall.
We look forward to welcoming you to LegalSAFE 2022.
The Safeguard events team
Mike Cosman
Partner, Cosman Parkes
Mike is one of New Zealand’s most highly regarded health and safety practitioners with over 42 years’ experience in operational, management, policy and strategic roles. He has a varied regulatory background in the UK and New Zealand and has worked as a strategic consultant to many of the leading public and private sector organisations over the last 14 years including as a member of the Independent Taskforce and Forestry Safety Review. In 2020 Mike was awarded the Safeguard Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to health and safety. Mike’s extensive work with the Institute of Directors, boards and executive teams means that he has a good understanding of their needs, whilst in his role as Chair of NZISM’s Board he helps promote professional development and accreditation for all those working in the field. Having been an investigator and prosecutor, Mike now provides expert advice in legal proceedings and keeps a keen eye on developments in this field. He is currently involved in some of the most significant cases before the Courts.
Samantha Turner
Barrister, Stout Street Chambers
Samantha is a Barrister at Stout Street Chambers. Prior to this she headed the employment group in Wellington for Simpson Grierson. She has extensive experience in employment law and health and safety. Samantha is regularly involved in a wide range of employment law matters, from litigation to strategic advice. She assists clients with managing and resolving employment relationship problems (particularly stress and bullying claims), union-related issues, grievances and disputes. She reviews and drafts employment agreements, independent contractor agreements, and more general communications between employers and employees.
Logan Miller
Principal Consultant, LM Safety
Logan has worked with several large New Zealand Corporations, all the way down to the sole trader in improving health and safety within their businesses.
In more recent years, he has conducted several extensive investigations, having either lead or been a part of nine independent workplace health and safety investigations involving WorkSafe. Of these, two have ended in prosecution and three resulted in duty holder reviews. In addition to this, he has managed over 100 WorkSafe notifications of injury or incidents, completed one enforceable undertaking and been a party to two others - of which have included four deaths of either customers, members of the public, or workers.
Those who know Logan can attest to the fact that he is a very approachable and pragmatic person, passionate about safe work, and has a knack for effective communication.
Grant Nicholson
Partner, Anthony Harper
Grant Nicholson is a lawyer at Anthony Harper, a national law firm. Grant specialises in workplace health and safety, and has been prominent in the sector for a long time. He has been involved in investigations and prosecutions arising from many of New Zealand's highest profile workplace incidents and is currently working on cases relating to forestry, transportation/logistics, and infrastructure incidents, the Whakaari/White Island volcano eruption, and the tornado at Ports of Auckland's Wiri container port.
Desai Link
Group HSE and Risk Manager, Brosnan
Over his career, Desai has developed a unique approach to health and safety. Desai creates Health and Safety systems that focus on the most relevant and crucial safety aspects in construction and translate into simple, workable solutions for all personnel. Desai understands the relationship between safety, quality, and productivity. His approach is based on the premise that when people are safety-empowered, they will achieve greater outcomes in all other areas. He has completed several Degrees, including a double-degree Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Arts (History) at Murdoch University (WA) in 2008, as well as a Graduate Diploma of Occupational Health and Safety at Edith Cowan University (WA) in 2018. His strength lies in translating complex legalese into simple, workable solutions for all personnel relevant to their field of work. Desai is a firm believer in education, training, and engagement as the cornerstones of effective HSE and risk management. He has developed a risk-based approach to health and safety that focuses on crucial systems and their effectiveness. It is built around worker engagement on specific tasks, which means more time is spent in the areas that matter rather than just compliance. Desai has worked on significant projects across New Zealand and Western Australia and is a foundation member of the Vertical Construction H&S Practitioners Group.
Jeanette McKeogh
Director of Health, Safety & Wellbeing, Ministry for Primary Industries
Jeanette has been leading health and safety for over 5 years at MPI and has seen health and safety grow from two staff to a separate directorate with a team of 12 dedicated health and safety practitioners. Previous to MPI, Jeanette has worked in health and safety roles at the Ministry of Education and WorkSafe. Jeanette’s earlier career experience was in health policy and regulation and included developing a minimum standard for general practice.
Jeanette is passionate about health and safety and particularly enjoys the diversity of work at MPI. MPI’s health and safety interests range from ports, helicopters, zoos, forestry, farms, fishing vessels, wallabies and meat processing plants but to name a few. MPI contracts and works alongside a number of other government agencies, regional councils, the primary sector, the private sector and volunteers. The nature of these relationships may be contractual, or via funding or regulatory arrangements.
Jeanette is a strong advocate of MPI’s commitment to actively protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of our people and partners as a vital part of MPI’s important role to grow and protect New Zealand.
Fiona McMillan
Partner, Lane Neave
Fiona is the Partner of the employment law team of Lane Neave, Auckland and commenced her career with Lane Neave in 2007. Fiona specialises in assisting employers with all employment law related advice including collective bargaining, independent external investigations and human rights commission matters. She acts for employers across a number of industries including providing pro bono advice to the Stroke Foundation of New Zealand. Fiona regularly represents employers in Mediations, Employment Relations Authority Investigation Meetings and the Employment Court. Fiona acted as Counsel on the leading case on penalties – Borsboom v PVT Limited and the leading case on union discrimination – Lamont and Others v Ritchies Transport Holdings Limited. In 2022, Fiona was named in the Doyle’s Guide New Zealand as a recommended Employment Lawyer. Fiona has also been recognised in Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners as a leading employment and health and safety practitioner in New Zealand.
Vonda Engels
Vonda Engels, Special Counsel, Chapman Tripp
Vonda advises clients on all aspects of employment law and health and safety. She assists a number of the firm’s key clients on a full range of contentious and non-contentious employment matters, and has represented clients in the Employment Court, Employment Relations Authority and in mediation with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Vonda regularly advises clients on difficult issues concerning bullying, mental health and illness in the workplace including the overlap between an employer’s employment and health and safety obligations. Vonda has a keen interest in employment investigations and has carried out a number of independent investigations into conduct and culture issues. Vonda also has experience in assisting clients to manage their health and safety risks by providing compliance advice and training. She also has experience in assisting employers with health and safety investigations and responding to prosecutions by WorkSafe.
Marie Wisker
Marie Wisker, Partner, Chapman Tripp
Marie advises clients on a wide variety of commercial disputes, specialising in employment law and health and safety. She works with a number of the firm’s key clients, many of whom are large employers. With a broad range of general commercial experience, Marie can provide practical advice relevant to the clients’ commercial objectives. She helps clients manage employment and health and safety risks through compliance advice and training, and has spoken at a number of conferences on both employment and health and safety. Marie assists clients on the full range of employment and health and safety matters, including difficult issues relating to mental health where employment and health and safety overlap. She has advised clients on issues regarding personal grievances, employee mental health issues and represented clients responding to investigations and prosecutions by WorkSafe.
Paul Robertson
Paul Robertson, General Manager HSW, Auckland Council
Paul has spent his career leading and supporting health, safety and wellbeing for a number of large and complex organisations in New Zealand and Australia, across a wide range of industries in both the public and private sector – including Massey University, Downer, Lion, KPMG and Fonterra. Through his career he has developed a high level of understanding of the organisational drivers of risk, and the importance of worker engagement in achieving safe and healthy outcomes in the work that they do.
He has extensive experience in the management of critical risks, contractor engagement, and haoura/wellbeing, and is passionate about addressing the impact that work has on individuals, Whānau, and communities. At Auckland Council, Paul is supporting the executive team and chief executive in their vision of being an exemplar for how organisations support kaimahi to be safe, healthy and well at work, and in their lives.
Kelly Hanson-White
Chief Advisor, Regulatory Excellence, WorkSafe
Kelly’s current role within WorkSafe NZ is to provide thought leadership on regulatory excellence across the organisation, as well as with other government agencies and external stakeholders. She is also serving her second three-year term as a member of the Attorney General’s Legislation Design and Advisory Committee (LDAC). LDAC advises government agencies on matters of good legislative design, and Kelly provides a regulator’s perspective. Her early career was in the education sector before moving into policy roles in work health and safety, where she was instrumental in the development of HSWA and the first phase of supporting regulations.
Andy Bell
Partner, Lane Neave
Andy has worked in dispute resolution and litigation since admission to the Bar in 2002. Andy has two specialist areas of interest in his practice, namely employment law and relationship property. Formerly, Andy was the principal at Bell & Co, a boutique dispute resolution firm. The practice of Bell & Co merged with Lane Neave in January 2022. Andy brings to the table a deep understanding of what it is like to run a small or medium business and the demands on people leaders. Andy is an experienced litigator who regularly represents clients in the key tribunals and Courts of New Zealand. Andy has extensive experience in mediations and is one of the most prolific practitioners in Wellington that engages in MBIE employment mediation work. Andy has considerable interest in negotiation-based practice and the psychology and drivers of parties in negotiations.
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