Some of Australia’s top work health and safety experts have stressed, to Safe Work Australia, the need for a single national OHS regulator. Many also called for a radical overhaul of workers’ compensation and insurance structures to achieve a combined insurance/compensation similar to that of New Zealand, the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC). These calls were made in a whole [...]
All posts for the month August, 2011
Australian OHS experts call for a single OHS regulator and a unified insurance system
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 30, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/30/australian-ohs-experts-call-for-a-single-ohs-regulator-and-a-unified-insurance-system/
Suicide challenges the OHS profession
Safety and risk professionals often need to consider the “worst case scenario”. But we hesitate to look at the worst case scenario of workplace mental health – suicide. On 26 August 2011, Lifeline presented a seminar to Victorian public servants that was brilliant, confronting and worrying. Lifeline campaigns on suicide prevention and it seems to [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 29, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/29/suicide-challenges-the-ohs-profession/
Santos slapped with stale celery over near-miss
More often than not people are disappointed by the sentences handed out by Courts on OHS breaches. Even with sentencing guidelines, the ultimate decision rests with the judgement of the Court. Today’s $A84,000 fine against Santos Ltd appears low considering that the incident had the potential to be catastrophic and the company has just reported [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 23, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/23/santos-slapped-with-stale-celery-over-near-miss/
Concerns increase as Australia’s OHS law changes loom
Conference organisers IQPC started its two-day Safety in Design, Engineering and Construction conference on 16 August 2011. The most prominent speaker on day one was Barry Sherriff of law firm, Norton Rose. Sherriff spoke about OHS harmonisation‘s impact on the Australian construction industry. Over time Australian labour lawyers generally have moved from saying that Victorian companies [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 19, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/19/concerns-increase-as-australias-ohs-law-changes-loom/
Farmer rescued from rare tractor rollover incident
Tractor rollovers are far less frequent in Australia than in previous decades due, principally, to major safety campaigns and financial rebates for the compulsory fitting of rollover protection structures (ROPS). This fact makes the near death of a Victorian farmer on 17 August all the more surprising. The most detailed report on the rescue, to the moment, is by [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 17, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/17/farmer-rescued-from-rare-tractor-rollover-incident/
Similarities between the regulation of environmental and workplace safety
In June 2011, Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA) released a revised Compliance and Enforcement (C&E) policy. There seemed to be some similarities to WorkSafe’s C&E policy, developed in 2006, so SafetyAtWorkBlog spoke this afternoon to John Merritt, who became the CEO of the EPA in early 2010 after many years as the executive director of WorkSafe Victoria. [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 17, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/17/similarities-between-the-regulation-of-the-environmental-and-workplace-safety/
New quad bike poster establishes a safe operation benchmark
In July 2011, it was noted that the quad bike manufacturers had revised the wording of their poster about quad bike safety. The website that provided an online version of that poster is now under redevelopment. However Australia’s Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) has released its own poster outlining the basic elements of quad bike [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 12, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/12/new-quad-bike-poster-establishes-a-safe-operation-benchmark/
Politics slows the safety regulation process in Australian oilfields
On 8 August 2011, the Australian Financial Review (not available online) reported on a letter from the head of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Agency (NOPSA), John Clegg, that criticised the Western Australian government’s regulatory regime for offshore petroleum exploration. The crux of the letter was that WA does not require energy companies to develop a “safety case” [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 10, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/10/politics-slows-the-safety-regulation-process-in-australian-oilfields/
Fatigue management is getting clearer but is competing for attention
As a discipline for study, fatigue still seems to be in its early days and this presents a challenge for safety professionals and researchers. Everyone knows what fatigue is because at some time we all suffer it, but try to define it and it is different things to different people. Transport Safety Victoria (TSV), a division of [...]
Posted by Kevin Jones on August 9, 2011
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2011/08/09/fatigue-management-is-getting-clearer-but-is-competing-for-attention/
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