Business View Oceania | May 2021

37 38 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA MAY 2021 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA MAY 2021 NEW ZEALAND SECUR I TY ASSOC I AT ION (NZSA) members to find out what’s happening around the world. “We also run several special interest groups that bring those members together on a common interest. One of those is around training and professional development; putting aside their own company agendas and just looking at what’s good for the industry. Certainly, a big part of that is networking and getting to know each other and what their issues are. “As part of our member benefit programs, we offer access to advice and templates around health and safety. We also run a free HR advisory service and a free business continuity template program. Where we can, we try to make our benefit programs free. And part of the rationale for that is to help small companies that don’t have that resource. Large companies have their own team of HR specialists in-house. For the smaller providers that’s a significant cost and a risk for them. So we try to make the programs free where we can.” BVO: How is the industry changing with regard to technology? Morrison: “When you talk about guarding, you talk about a person doing something that may use technology to assist in doing the job better and perform it more safely. From that side of the business, it is still a very person-driven operation. When we come down to the electronic systems, technology has changed a lot – we now have things like facial recognition, etc. which is certainly a quantum leap forward from what was available 15 to 20 year ago. I’ve talked to a few companies who admit that security isn’t a sexy business but also, perhaps, people don’t have an appreciation for some of the areas we do get involved – in around the electronic side, for example.” BVO: What role does NZSA play in government relations for the industry? fundamental change to the law that covers our industry. “On a more recent level, using COVID-19 as an example, the government came out with rules about who comprises essential services – where those workers were able to continue working to provide essential functions. Initially, security wasn’t listed within those roles, but through some quick lobbying, we were able to bring sense to that and get security recognised as essential service workers. Without that our members would have been shut down. Instead, the security industry overall has grown over the last year and most of our members have come through in a strong position.” BVO: How will NZSA continue as a viable voice for members in the future? Morrison: “As an industry, we’re looking at fairly consistent growth and I don’t see that changing. I’d suggest that we want to continue to be that voice for the industry; that people in the industry see NZSA as being the recognised party that has been representing them in the press, with government, and ensuring that we represent the best interests of our members going forward. “I’d certainly like to recognise the workers in the security industry over the last year. It’s been very trying times with lockdowns, etc. and I think there is fairly wide recognition that the industry has stepped up. That we’ve met a lot of the challenges and that comes back to people doing the right thing. And all those workers involved in the industry should definitely be commended for that.” Morrison: “We come under the purview of the Ministry of Justice and we have a very good relationship with our ministers. We have regular meetings with them; we certainly advocate for the Ministry. There are several areas where we get involved with statutory committees but it seems to be more on advocacy, rather than directly contributing towards policy development. “Two recent issues come straight to mind. One was around our licencing – those laws were written in 2010 and they’re sort of past their ‘use-by’ date. To change law is quite a difficult process and fairly time consuming. However, we’ve been able to work with the Ministry of Justice to get some work-arounds through changing regulations, so it made the licencing clearer and a lot more relevant than, perhaps, the law actually states. That’s an example of a