Bunnings will put new defibrillators in five of its stores including Dunedin.

Staff at Dunedin's Bunnings store are celebrating after the company backed down on a hardline policy against defibrillators.

Dunedin staff were told last week that the store's staff-funded defibrillator, a machine which can restart a person's heart, had to be removed and given away.

But after negative reaction on Facebook and in the media, the company said on Wednesday it was reviewing its decision.

New Zealand general manager Jacqui Coombes said the company would be putting new defibrillators in three stores which had units – Dunedin, Gisborne and Nelson – and in two other large stores which it did not identify on a trial basis.

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"The health and safety of our team members and customers is very important to us and we will ensure that there is a seamless transition."

Coombes said the machines that had been promised to community groups would be still be given away.

A Bunnings Dunedin staff member, who asked not to be identified, said the mood at the store had lifted noticeably since the company's reversal.

"Staff morale has lifted 110 per cent and customers have been coming in and saying, 'good on ya'."

The worker said staff had fundraised for the machine in memory of a colleague who had a fatal heart attack two years ago.

Although the colleague had been at home rather than work, the worker said he still believed there was a good argument to have the machine in store.

"In Dunedin you do get snow, we do get frost and it sometimes can take quite a while for an ambulance to arrive at the scene...Most of the big places around Dunedin have got one."

Bunnings has not explained its original policy or its latest decision, and did not answer whether it might put the machines in all its stores.

But Sharron Gilmore, whose husband Peter died of a heart attack in a Bunnings store in Wellington 10 years ago, welcomed the news.

"I'm very pleased about it because I've always maintained they should be in there."

She said a defibrillator would probably not have saved her husband, "but for many people, it's just the ticket".

And the matter had at least raised the level of public debate about the need for the lifesaving devices.

"Statistics tell you how many lives it's saved."

Relations between Bunnings and its union members have been tense in recent months as workers object to a new roster system.

Maxine Gay, retail secretary for First Union, said Bunnings workers were grateful for the "tremendous public support" they had received and they hoped this decision signalled "a more conciliatory and even-handed approach to workers' issues".

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