Finding Reliable Information

Good practice means actions currently accepted within the adventure tourism and commercial outdoor sectors to manage safety. You must operate at good practice or better in order to meet your legal responsibilities. 

Knowing where to find and how to identify reliable good practice information is critical. It will often involve using a combination of technical advice and written resources. 

Technical advisors

Every operation must have sufficient technical knowledge specific to the activities, risks, hazards and context of their operation to make good safety decisions. People who fulfill this role are called technical advisors. They may be on staff or be contracted from time-to-time to give advice. 

Technical advisors must have a high level of competence and will usually hold a high level qualification in the activity. They must understand current good practice and have extensive knowledge, skills and experience sufficient to advise an operator including reviewing the policies, procedures and practices relating to the activity.

Note that audits under the adventure activity regulations use 'technical experts' as part of the audit process. They should not be confused with technical advisors as they are independent of the operator and fulfill a specific role within the audit process. 
 

Written resources

The private sector and government develop a range of written resources to support good practice, including guidelines, codes of practice and standards.

Download this guide to good practices sources listed by activity. The guide is developed with support from WorkSafeNZ and will be updated from time to time. Contact us with suggestions for additions to the table.

When deciding how much to rely on a document, ask the following:

• is it linked to a regulatory requirement?
• is it informed by suitable experts?
• is it current?
• do the majority of New Zealand operators consider the document represents good practice? 
• does it cover all relevant topic areas? If it doesn’t, access other documents to fill the gaps.

The good practice documents on this website, such as Activity Safety Guidelines and Good Practice Guidelines, meet the above requirements and are updated regularly.

There are many activity specific organisations, some of which have safety guidance material. While the quality may vary, this information may be helpful for providing safety management recommendations. Please consider the criteria above when considering how much to rely on the information. 

Audit team guide to good practice

This good practice guide for audit teams has been written to help audit teams determine what is good practice for adventure activities. It is a legal requirement to operate to good practice. The audit process is designed to check that an operator is meeting this legal requirement.