When the HSE Act was introduced in New Zealand in April
1993, one of the prime aims of the Government was to signal to the industry. The
Government's recognition of the employer as the key person responsible for
safety and health in the workplace and to actively encourage employers to self
manage the health and safety function. Because of the significant change in the
philosophy behind the new legislation, and because of the inherently
conservative nature of the mining industry, it has taken some years for both the
industry and the regulators to reach the stage of considering the framework in
which a controlled degree of self management can proceed.

In this paper, some of the issues
relating to the legitimacy of the process are considered, some of the questions
raised in the minds of those charged with implementing the legislation are
discussed, and the views of some eminent authors are examined.

The latter part of the paper focuses on a
programme called the Reduced Site Surveillance Programme, which grew out of Goal
2 of the New Zealand Mining Inspection Group's 5-Year Strategic Plan. The
programme is described in some detail, and the criteria applied at each stage of
the programme is discussed. The paper concludes with the author's expectations
of the longer term outcomes of the programme.