The Asylum creeps in: health and safety edition

A reader emails me that the revised health and safety regime, which brings criminal penalties for company directors, will also apply to voluntary organisations. He writes:

I know you write periodically about crazy laws and being inside the asylum. As you might know, I'm a scout leader. A volunteer. One of things that I have enjoyed in scouting is the ability to let children and youth take risks. You know, tackle bullrush, climbing trees, crossing rivers, hiking, making and playing with gun powder, making their own bows and arrows (one shot an arrow clean through a window without breaking it :) ) and so on.

They keep making changes to health and safety laws which potentially undermine the ability to do this. The first was throwing in volunteers in the Health and Safety in Employment Act back several years ago. That added to our paperwork and probably did restrict some activities at the margin (but not hugely), which was a pain at the margin but that seemed to be all. But they are currently making a couple of other changes which increases costs to volunteer organisations and I'd predict the benefits are negative once they take into account lost consumer surplus from eventual changes and reductions in volunteer activities. You can find one mentioned at 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/63962701/New-safety-reforms-threaten-volunteers  

and another at
 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1412/S00202/new-sentencing-act-exposes-businesses-and-individuals.htm 

They might not have any impact, but.....! Since volunteer organisations fall under the jurisdiction of the health and safety in employment act you can see why the sentencing act changes are a potential problem for them. It also seems to me to undermine the no-fault basis of the ACC scheme. I think ACC has some problems, but the no-fault provision is incredibly useful in not having to worry about frivolous lawsuits to extract payments to avoid the costs of the suits going to court, which then result in noticeable restrictions on people's activities, such as children playing where there is any tiny risk of an injury!

The link to the Manawatu Standard article has since died; I don't know whether they pulled it because the government has issued a very recent clarification, or if some other error has occurred. Can anybody confirm how the changes to legislation will be affecting volunteer organisations?

I also found a press release from an insurance company warning outfits to get liability insurance because ACC no longer shields against lawsuit:

Ms Cross says that under the previous legislation even the most serious accidents would rarely result in reparation awards over $100,000, “but with this new law, the figures are likely to be significantly higher.”

Ms Cross says that businesses should seek advice from their broker whether their statutory liability policy has the required level of cover, as this amendment will have potential impact when there is a breach of the Health and Safety legislation.

She pointed out that companies would not be able to insure themselves against any penalties but could get insurance that would cover reparation and legal costs.

Ms Cross says she will be working closely with her clients at Crombie Lockwood to prepare for this law change.

“At this stage it is still a bit unclear how the courts are going to use this new tool, but you wouldn’t want your company to be the guinea pig.”

I'd thought that the basic deal with ACC was that we gave up our right to sue in exchange for a mandatory kinda-ok-but-really-kinda-not insurance programme, with the whole thing making sense because U.S.-style tort excesses are worse. I suppose that potential damages are here limited: if the most that a party can be liable for is 20% of the total ACC claim, and if ACC doesn't really pay that much, then potential liability stays below that in the States.