A major barrier to change is that Australia, as a whole, has never subjected its occupational health and safety (OHS) laws to a detailed analysis to determine whether the legislation and the supportive documentation works. To be clearer, Australia has never subjected its laws to a “safety clutter” analysis. No one seems to have tried …
Many companies have bloated workplace procedures. Many of these seem to involve workplace health and safety. Some people blame this on a bureaucracy designed in the olden times by someone, that somehow still exists and is maintained by someone or some process that no one sees or knows. Some prominent Australian researchers have looked into …
Victoria’s Sentencing Advisory Council is conducting a public inquiry into sentencing and penalties for breaches of occupational health and safety (OHS). Public hearings are continuing, and the inquiry is receiving some well-deserved media attention. ABC’s The Law Report recently devoted an episode to Industrial Manslaughter laws and the sentencing inquiry. The IM section of the …
Occupational health and safety (OHS) is rife with ideas that refuse to die even though they are not supported by evidence. OHS management is dominated by a belief that Executive Leadership is either the answer or the first place to start change. Leadership and OHS are dangerously intertwined. Perhaps an assessment of Zombie Leadership is …
Occupational health and safety (OHS) has never had a profile as high as that of the environmental protection movement. OHS has never had a single, focused advocate like Greenpeace to make it visible. OHS activists do not hang banners off Tower Bridge or throw eggs at politicians (yet). One of the characteristics shared by OHS … Continue reading “Can we laugh at workplace health and safety?”
In November 2023, Australia’s National Heavy Vehicle Regulator released a “case learning” about a successful prosecution and sentence that the NHVR described as “One of the most serious examples of a breach under the HVNL [Heavy Vehicle National Laws]” The seriousness of the breach is perhaps reflected in the fine of A$2.3 million. It is …
Safety signs can be a mix of symbols, colours and words. On a recent vacation in the United Kingdom, I saw a configuration of pedestrian crossing signs that challenged my interpretation of signs I had seen since I was a child. I wondered if this new configuration still communicated the essential safety message....
