Safe Work Australia’s (SWA) latest consultation on quad bike safety is another reminder that fatalities and serious injuries continue despite years of guidance, rebates, training campaigns and polite encouragement. The evidence laid out in SWA’s consultation paper shows that harm has persisted even after “extensive education and awareness efforts”, so voluntary approaches have reached their …
Agricultural safety has come to the fore in Australia and New Zealand over the last few weeks. Safe Work Australia (SWA) has commenced a public consultation on the safety of using a quad bike for work. It is quite revealing and limited....
Earlier this month, I was critical of occupational health and safety (OHS) and farmers and asked “So what can WorkSafe teach them about safety that farmers don’t already know?” The death of dairy farmer Brad Collins following an incident involving a quad bike is the type of death that could have occurred and been reported …
Occupational health and safety in Australia continues to have a low political and commercial profile, but that does not deny that we have significant OHS contributors. At a recent awards ceremony, WorkSafe Victoria recognised Tracey Browne (pictured above) for her contribution to OHS. But other speeches raised other interesting OHS issues, especially regarding farm safety....
Most of you will have been able to determine some of my values from the thousands of articles I have written here, but sometimes it is worth stopping, reviewing and clarifying. I met a friend in Zurich of a different political leaning from mine last week who, in a simple way, confirmed some of my …
Recently WorkSafe Victoria revealed that in 2025: “In the first half of this year, 174 Workcover claims have been lodged from the construction industry, from falls alone. A further 34 businesses have been charged and another 28 duty holders faced legal action, accumulating more than 2.54 million in fines, undertakings and costs. That already tops …
I have been writing about the safety of quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles for many years. The debate over quad bike safety was one of the most complex and vicious I have ever seen. In some minds, the issue has been resolved in Australia, but farmers continue to die from these vehicles. Below is a … Continue reading “Audio summary on Quad Bike Safety”
