New Zealand has just passed the biggest overhaul of workplace health and safety law since 2015. The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill refocuses the system on critical risks, strengthens the codes of practice businesses follow, and gives smaller businesses a lighter compliance load. I wrote about what that means for your training in a separate piece.
There is one thing the reform does not touch: you still have to know who is on your site. For any business where contractors, visitors and staff come and go, that duty sits at the centre of keeping people safe, and it is the first thing WorkSafe asks about after an incident.
Why site access is a critical-risk issue
The reform points businesses at the hazards most likely to cause serious harm. On a real operational site, a lot of those hazards travel in with people. A contractor who has not been inducted walks into a live forklift aisle. A visitor wanders into an area with hazardous substances. A subcontractor without the right certification starts work they should not. Controlling who comes on site, and confirming they are inducted before they start, is core safety work. It keeps untrained people away from the things that can hurt them.
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, a business's duty of care extends to anyone on its site, including contractors and visitors. Being able to produce an accurate record of who was there, and evidence that they met your entry requirements, is a practical part of meeting that duty. The reform sharpens the focus but leaves this firmly in place.
Where clipboards and spreadsheets fall short
Most sites still run access on a paper sign-in sheet at the gate or a spreadsheet someone updates later. Both have the same problems. They are not real-time, so in an evacuation you cannot say for certain who is still inside. They do not check anything, so an un-inducted contractor signs the sheet and walks straight in. And the record is only as good as people's memory to sign out, which means the audit trail has holes exactly where you need it.
When WorkSafe turns up, or worse, after something has gone wrong, "we had a sheet somewhere" is not the position any business wants to be in.
What good looks like now
A site that is on top of its access can do four things at any moment:
- See a live, accurate list of exactly who is on site right now, ready for an evacuation or an audit.
- Stop anyone whose induction or training has expired, or was never done, before they get past the gate.
- Let contractors and visitors register and complete their induction before they arrive, so nobody is filling in forms at the entrance.
- Produce a clean record of who was on site, when, and for how long, without anyone chasing paper.
A simple tool built for exactly this
This is the problem SiteKey was built to solve, and it is a Capability Solutions product, so it comes from the same team we work with on training. It gives a New Zealand site a simple way to manage access without clipboards or expensive enterprise software.
Everyone scans a QR code at the gate on their own phone, with no app to download. SiteKey records their arrival, checks their induction or training is current, and adds them to a live on-site list. Contractors pre-register and complete their induction before they arrive. Anyone who is not compliant is stopped at the gate rather than waved through. At the end of the day, anyone still showing as on site is signed out automatically, so the records stay clean. And because it links to a training platform, the site induction someone completes online is what opens the gate for them, so compliance and training run as one system rather than two.
It is a flat fee from $30 a month with no per-user or per-scan charges, and it is up and running within days, not months. That matters most for smaller operators, who under the reform have a lighter compliance load but still need to manage their critical risks and stay audit-ready without spare admin time.
What this means for your site
The reform is a sensible prompt to focus your effort where serious harm actually happens. For most operational sites, one of those places is the front gate. Knowing who is on your site, confirming they are inducted, and being able to prove both is not the part of health and safety the reform makes optional. It is exactly the part it wants you to get right.
Common questions
Does the Health and Safety at Work Act require site access records?
The Act requires a business to identify and manage risks to anyone on its site, including visitors and contractors. Keeping an accurate record of who is on site is a practical part of meeting that duty of care, and it is what WorkSafe looks for in an audit or after an incident. The 2026 reform sharpens the focus on critical risks but does not remove this underlying duty.
Does the health and safety reform change site access obligations?
The reform refocuses the system on critical risks and lightens some compliance for small businesses, but the core duty to manage risks to people on site and to show who was there does not change. On construction, industrial and logistics sites, contractor access, inductions and plant are clearly in critical-risk territory, so site access control stays central.
How does QR code site sign-in work?
Each person scans a QR code at the gate with their own phone, with no app to download. The system records their arrival, checks their induction or training is current, and adds them to a live list of who is on site. They scan again to sign out, and anyone still showing as on site at the end of the day is signed out automatically.
We are a small business. Do we still need site access records under the reform?
Small businesses have a lighter legal floor under the reform, but they still must manage their critical risks and be able to show who was on site if WorkSafe asks. A simple, low-cost system is the least-effort way to stay audit-ready without paperwork, which matters most for small operators who do not have spare admin time.
Want to see who's on your site in real time?
SiteKey gives your site QR sign-in, contractor compliance gates and a live evacuation list, from $30 a month, running within days. Book a quick demo and see it on your own site.
Visit SiteKey Get in touchThis article is general information about site access and the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, and is not legal advice. Health and safety law is changing and remains subject to political change before it takes effect on 1 April 2027. For advice on your specific obligations, consult your health and safety adviser or current WorkSafe New Zealand and MBIE guidance.