Earlier this year the former Dunedin resident was deputy chairwoman of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety.
She was in Dunedin to discuss the taskforce's recent recommendations and Government moves to implement them in a keynote address to a seminar attended by more than 80 health and safety practitioners and specialists at the University of Otago.
Mrs Rose noted the Government was establishing WorkSafe New Zealand, a Crown agent body, in response to taskforce recommendations. The Government was already taking steps, but the taskforce report was ''a call to action'' for everyone involved, and not about anybody ''abdicating responsibility''.
''This is about everyone doing their bit,'' she said.
Not just Government but also workers, company management and boards of directors had a shared responsibility for health and safety, Mrs Rose said.
She said in an interview New Zealand's relatively high rate of workplace deaths and injuries was ''unacceptable''.
The seminar was organised by the Otago branch of the New Zealand Institute of Safety Management.
Tony Rigg, the institute's Auckland-based national manager, said the taskforce had clearly identified key health and safety issues and the time had now come to greatly reduce workplace deaths and injuries.
Mrs Rose is a former New Zealand police national manager, road policing, and is an executive adviser at the Office of Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.
