Prominent investigative journalist, Matt Peacock, has died from pancreative cancer. Few of us are lucky enough to save people’s lives, some of us change the world. Matt did both. He was never an occupational health and safety (OHS) specialist but his impact on the world of work, especially in Australia was profound and, probably, unmatched. …
Last week the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) National Conference contained some excellent speakers and one or two stinkers. (I will not be reporting on the last speaker of the conference, who spent his first ten minutes “roasting”. i.e. insulting the delegates!) Safe Work Australia’s Marie Boland was an important and informative speaker …
The calls for banning engineered stone‘s importation are curious and likely to be acted on later this week. Politicians, unions and some OHS associations have undertaken a risk assessment and determined that elimination is the most effective harm prevention strategy. Previous risk assessments of silicosis have been reported on in this blog for some time …
Last week it became illegal for a new or second-hand quad bike to be sold in Australia without a crush protection device (CPD) fitted at the point of sale. This achievement has been decades in coming and has involved bitter fighting between advocates of safety and the sellers and manufacturers of this equipment. This blog …
This past week most media have been reflecting on the last twelve months or the decade. There are two ways of applying this practice to the SafetyAtWorkBlog – statistics and most-read. Let’s look at statistics first. This year the SafetyAtWorkBlog posted 225 articles, not including this one, with an average word count of 1,030 words … Continue reading “Most-read OHS articles in 2019”
Matthew Peacock is an award-winning Australian journalist and one of the very few in Australia who can bring an informed and nuanced perspective to the topic of occupational health and safety (OHS). Last week he was invited to speak at the dinner of the Safety Institute of Australia‘s Conference. According to some delegates, he roasted …
On November 11 and 12 2012, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will broadcast “Devil’s Dust”, a two-part movie about asbestos in Australia. This is not a documentary on asbestos-related diseases. It follows the story of investigative journalist Matt Peacock from the 1970s to the present day in parallel with the corporate machinations of James Hardie Industries … Continue reading “Devil’s Dust – Australian movie on asbestos and corporate morality”
