No defensible New Zealand figure for the cost of a business lacking a licence it needed (three asbestos removal prosecutions only)

What it is. None - the only fines found that turn on a business or worker lacking a licence are three WorkSafe asbestos prosecutions, too few and too unlike to summarise, and each fine covers a whole charge sheet.

Sample. WorkSafe's court summary register searched on "asbestos" (24 results on 2026-11-02), "licence" and "unlicensed" in building and construction. Three entries say the person removing asbestos held no removal licence and were decided under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015: Knight $3,000 (2 November 2018, an individual), Sibley $15,000 (11 November 2020, an individual) and Wilson Building Timaru Limited $66,000 (29 September 2023, a company whose worker was unlicensed). A fourth, Essential Homes ($30,000, 2020), was charged mainly with breaching a prohibition notice that included unlicensed removal. The licence regimes found are the asbestos removal licences (Class A and B) and the LBP scheme; no general contractor licence, prequalification or accreditation regime with a published penalty was found.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. A median of the three unlicensed removal fines ($15,000, range $3,000 to $66,000) was considered and rejected. A median of three is not a statistic, because the three differ twenty-two fold, two defendants are individuals and one a company, each fine covers the whole charge sheet (Wilson's reflects four days of exposure to other workers' fibres, not the missing licence alone), and all three already sit inside the nine-case set filed under site_compliance, so a second figure would count the same prosecutions twice. The cell is open for research that finds a licence, prequalification or accreditation regime with a published cost, such as a principal's panel exclusion, which this search did not reach.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2025), WorkSafe court summaries (prosecutions register): asbestos prosecutions in building and construction
  register entries found by the search term "asbestos" (24 results on 2026-11-02); each entry's "The offence" and "The decision" sections: dong-sh-auckland-limited, inspired-enterprises-limited, lawrence-gannaway, wilson-building-timaru-limited, ecologically-sound-demolition-limited, glenn-warwick-sibley, crafar-crouch-construction-limited-b, essential-homes-limited, topham-holding-limited, richard-john-knight, john-carstairs-robertson · source record

Considered and set aside

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Unlicensed restricted building work by an individual under the LBP scheme, a worker licence filed under people_compliance, not a licence the business holds.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Board disciplinary fines on licensed practitioners ($500 to $5,000 over four years, no average) are for poor work or supervision, not for lacking a licence.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 with no dollar amounts, and covers licensed individuals only.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 56 fines in 2023/24 with no dollar amounts; the same limit.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts of notices and prosecutions only, no dollar value and no licence cause.
• Hesketh Henry: An all-sector average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from 2018, with no split by licence or accreditation.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Construction's share of harm and deaths, with no cost figure and nothing on licences or accreditation held by a business.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: A company fined $351,563 on the whole section 36 duty after an unlicensed driver died; none of it can be attributed to a licence the business lacked.

non_compliance/company_compliance_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)