Six months ago, trade unions and occupational health and safety (OHS) advocates protested outside the Ballarat Council offices over the awarding of a construction contract to Pipecon, a company that was prosecuted over the deaths of two workers in a trench collapse several years earlier. Last week, the council decided to upgrade its procurement practices …
Australians are starting to understand that having something described as “gold standard” – most recently in relation to the contact tracing services of New South Wales – is as helpful as describing occupational health and safety (OHS) laws and systems as “best practice”. These phrases are optimistic bullshit and politically fraught. The fragility of these …
The Queensland Government has released the final report of its “Best Practice Review of Workplace Health and Safety Queensland“. Most of the media attention is given to the introduction of Industrial Manslaughter laws but there are some interesting recommendations and discussion on Enforceable Undertakings, insurance products and other matters of interest to business and safety …
First aid is one of the most neglected areas of workplace health and safety but, when required , vital. The neglect comes from it rarely being integrated into the safety management system and on relying of the advice from first aid training and equipment suppliers. “Why shouldn’t it be relied on? They’re the experts.” In … Continue reading ““Best Practice…First Aid”? – not sure”
A recent media statement from the New Zealand Department of Labour on all-terrain vehicle (ATV) safety is annoying and disappointing. On 15 September 2009, the Palmerston North District Court today fined farmer Trevor Mark Schroder $25,000 and ordered him to pay reparation of $20,000 to his employee John Haar over an ATV accident on 26 November 2008 that left … Continue reading “When ATV helmets are “best practice””
Regarding free access to some Australian Standards, an astute reader pointed me to a previous SafetyAtWorkBlog article from March 2023 and connected Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ 2026 Budget papers more closely to the issue of productivity and what was NOT included in the latest Budget – open access to government-funded research. At that time, I wrote: …
From July 2026, the official Australian Standards for occupational health and safety (OHS) management will become freely available. According to page 142 of Budget Papers Number 2, the Australian government will “…. provide $55.2 million over four years from 2026–27 (and $11.6 million per year ongoing) to support implementation of reforms to increase productivity.”...
