Last week was the deadline for feedback on New Zealand's work health and safety regulatory system and while it was rushed and feels messy, I thought it might be interesting to share my submission with you.

I've summarised David Eager's latest article that explains the concept of benefit-risk and the historical development of the new benefit-risk assessment standard. His article will be a pivotal resource to help New Zealand get back on track, balancing safety with the benefits of risk in play. Let’s embrace this approach and bring vitality back to our communities!

We can’t talk about health & safety and play, specifically the topic of children having independent outdoor adventures, based on international data. We need New Zealand data. But where is it? Not in one simple place, so I had to go digging. I’ve had an adventure of my own – an indoor digital-based adventure to find and crunch the numbers so you don’t have to. That’s not a real adventure though, so now it’s time for me to go outside and play, but before you do the same, and before you tell your kids to go on their own outdoor adventure, you need to read this.

Benefit-risk assessment (BRA) is the practice of including the benefits of an activity (whether it's for a product, facility/infrastructure, or activity delivery) as part of the health and safety (H&S) / risk management (RM) documentation and decision-making process. This is crucial for the play, active recreation, and sport sector in New Zealand.

In 2015 I wrote an article talking about my thoughts on the looming health and safety reforms from a parkour perspective. Besides cringing at reading old writing (like listening to your own voice?), my opinions have only been reinforced by experiences in the world of parkour, play, and parenting. I was given the prompt to write this topic again after reading an article series on ‘overprotective parenting’ that pulls together themes relating to the myths and realities of childhood risks and health and safety.

There has been a recent incident shared on social media that caught my attention for numerous reasons. Its relationship to my ongoing interest in parkour, health and safety, risk, and policy, however, has inspired me to write.

One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is: What kind of leadership do I want for the parkour community? If FIG is staking a claim, I need to assess their character to see if they possess the character and leadership qualities that I admire.

On February 24th, 2017 Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) published a press release that announced their intent to “develop … [parkour] … in order to broaden even further the appeal of [gymnastics]”. This has caused a global controversy and significant kickback from the international parkour community who, largely, wish to govern themselves.

My experience with parkour is a very tangible and personal example of how the – varying degrees of – discomfort involved in physical training has resulted in greater feelings of comfort – i.e. quality of life. If someone feels clumsy or disconnected from their bodies and/or claustrophobic or trapped within the city, then sustained parkour practice – a form of discomfort, at least initially – may enable and empower them and their bodies when in a city space (I realise parkour is not only an urban practice – don’t hear what I’m not saying). They now know how to move and how to navigate their world with greater degrees of confidence.

The International Gymnastics Federation want parkour for themselves. I’m sorry, this is indisputable. But, we’re not seers, so we don’t know what the exact future of parkour under FIG would look like. We need to look at our sister activities who set a precedent for us.

The Health and Safety Reform Bill is currently before parliament (see more here and here). This reform to the current Health and Safety in Employment Act is taking place in an attempt to reduce workplace injury and death by 25% by 2020. That’s a worthy goal, a goal that everyone should support. However, I don’t wholly support the methods that are being proposed in order to achieve the goal. I’m going to use a story from the parkour world to describe my reasoning.