A Long-Overdue Step Toward Reclaiming Our Great Outdoors

I’ve always believed we New Zealanders are a "Great Outdoors" people at heart—adventurers, explorers, and families who thrive in the rugged beauty of our land. But I’ve watched, with growing frustration, as that spirit has been chipped away. Restrictive safety laws, the stifling grip of COVID lockdowns, and the rise of absent fathers have undermined the outdoorsy, adventurous life I grew up with. It’s taken a toll on our nation’s physical and mental health—once the envy of the world as the healthiest place to raise a family.

The Moller children around about 1960

That’s why I’m thrilled about a proposed law change to the Health and Safety at Work Act, that’s long overdue.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/556809/law-change-makes-those-running-outdoor-activities-responsible-for-injuries-not-land-owners

Take it from me—someone who’s lived this loss firsthand. Since moving to Wellington in the 1970s to set up and run the ACC’s sports and recreation injury prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation programmes, I’ve run and cycled through a farm adjacent to Wellignton City, called Long Gully. I’d occasionally slip the family who owned it a few dollars as a thank-you for letting us roam their land. They were generous enough to even allow mountain-biking races over their property. But the day the current workplace safety laws came into force, those gates slammed shut. The owners, fearing liability, barred our access. I was gutted—honestly, I mourned the loss of that freedom.

This amendment, pushed by Workplace Safety Minister Brooke van Velden, shifts the responsibility for injuries during outdoor activities from landowners to those running the show. I think it’s brilliant. For years, I’ve seen councils, farmers, and private landowners like the Long Gully family unfairly saddled with liability for accidents they couldn’t possibly control. Why should a farmer face legal headaches if I twist an ankle on their land? It’s nonsense, and it’s scared too many into locking us out of the places that define us.

Back at the ACC, we lived by a simple principle: encourage people to be adventurous while keeping them safe. That meant eliminating real danger but keeping the risk and excitement that make the Great Outdoors so alive. This law gets that balance right. It’s decades late, if you ask me. Our outdoorsy way of life has been strangled by red tape, leaving my children and grandchildren stuck indoors and too many of us afraid to explore. I can see the damage in our bodies—more obesity, lazier lifestyles, a generation less fit than mine. And I feel it in our minds, too—anxiety and depression creeping in where fresh air and open spaces once kept us grounded. The lockdowns made it worse, and without fathers around to teach resilience and lead us outdoors, we’ve lost something precious. I want it back - to be Freerangers.

With this change, I see landowners freed from unfair blame, opening up farms, forests, and parks for hunting, biking, trekking—whatever gets us moving. It puts the responsibility where it belongs, with the activity operators, and the individuals, while still asking landowners to manage risks tied to their own work. It’s fair, it’s sensible, and it’s a chance for me to reconnect with the land I love—maybe even get back into Long Gully one day.

Our health—mine, yours, our children’s—depends on getting out there again. This isn’t just a legal fix; it’s a lifeline to who we are. I’m ready to lace up my boots and rediscover the wild, rugged New Zealand I’ve always cherished.