Is lockout tagout required by law in New Zealand?

The short answer

New Zealand does have a lockout rule. It is not in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 or the 2016 General Risk and Workplace Management Regulations. It sits in regulation 17 of the Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995, which stayed in force when the 1992 Act was repealed and was amended by the 2015 Act.

Regulation 17(1) requires that machinery is not cleaned, maintained or repaired

until every control device has been secured in the inoperative position by the use of locks or lock-out procedures or other equally effective means.

It also requires every part of the machinery, including any extension or attachment, to be secured against movement first, including inadvertent movement.

The word tagout does not appear in regulation 17 or in the other New Zealand health and safety instruments we checked. Tags, personal locks and group lockout boxes come from WorkSafe guidance and from the standards WorkSafe points to.

The regulation almost nobody cites

Search for this question and you get WorkSafe's lockout page, equipment suppliers, and procedures that cite United States and United Kingdom rules. WorkSafe's page Keeping workers safe with machine lockouts, last updated in January 2021, relies on the Health and Safety at Work Act and the AS/NZS 4024 series of standards. It does not mention regulation 17.

One common error follows from that, the belief that New Zealand has no specific lockout law and the duty is only the general one in the Act. Another is the belief that the United States OSHA lockout rule, 29 CFR 1910.147, applies here. It does not. It appears as a reference in at least one published New Zealand company lockout procedure and on a New Zealand supplier's site.

What regulation 17 allows

The regulation is narrower and more flexible than a lockout standard.

• It applies to cleaning, maintenance and repair of machinery. Regulation 12 extends its duty on employers to a person who controls a workplace.
• It accepts locks, lock-out procedures, or other equally effective means. A lock is the plainest way to comply, but the regulation does not demand one if another method is equally effective.
• Where machinery has to keep moving for the work to be done, regulation 17(2) allows it, provided a safe procedure is set up and followed every time, only the part that must move is set in motion, and only workers adequately trained for the task carry it out.

The regulations carry no penalty of their own since 2016. A failure to lock out is enforced through the duties in the Health and Safety at Work Act, mainly section 36, which requires safe plant and safe systems of work so far as is reasonably practicable.

What WorkSafe adds

WorkSafe's guidance fills in the practice. Its machine lockout page says:

As the PCBU, you must have a safe and effective lockout procedure and you must make sure your workers are trained in the procedure or are supervised when they carry out the procedure.

The same page and WorkSafe's January 2021 quick guide Keeping workers safe when servicing machinery set out the steps:

• shut down and isolate every energy source, and release stored energy
• each worker attaches a personal lock to the lockout point for each energy source
• attach a tag warning other workers that the machinery is locked out
• for group work, a supervisor fits a multi-lock hasp
• keep master and spare keys locked away from the work area

One line on the lockout page deserves more attention than it gets:

Do not use programmable logic controllers (PLCs), key lockable emergency stops or similar selector switches as the only method of isolation and lockout.

The status of AS/NZS 4024

AS/NZS 4024 Safety of machinery is referred to by WorkSafe but is not called up by the Act, the 2016 regulations or regulation 17. WorkSafe's good practice guidelines Safe use of machinery say the standards provide guidance only, and that complying with them does not guarantee compliance with the Act and regulations. WorkSafe still tells businesses to use them as the benchmark.

The 2027 changes make this a critical risk

The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 comes into force on 1 April 2027. It adds a schedule of hazards that are treated as critical risks, and WorkSafe lists cleaning, maintaining, repairing, inspecting and operating machinery and plant among them. The bill as introduced tied that entry to regulation 17 of the 1995 regulations.

That matters most for businesses with fewer than 20 workers. From April 2027 their core duties apply to critical risks, and machinery servicing is one of the named ones.

A sensible order of work

1. List every machine that gets cleaned, cleared, adjusted, maintained or repaired, including the jobs done during a shift.
2. For each machine, find every energy source: electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic, gravity, springs and stored pressure.
3. Write a lockout procedure per machine that names each isolation point and how stored energy is released.
4. Give each person a personal lock with one key, and tags that show who locked out, when and why.
5. Train the people who service the machines and the people who operate them, and supervise until they are competent.
6. Check the procedure is followed, especially on quick jobs like clearing a jam, and review it when a machine changes.

Common questions

Sources

• Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995, regulations 12 and 17
• Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, sections 30 and 36
• WorkSafe, Keeping workers safe with machine lockouts
• WorkSafe, Keeping workers safe when servicing machinery, January 2021
• WorkSafe, Safe use of machinery good practice guidelines
• WorkSafe, What is a critical risk?