Category: accountability

There but for the Grace of God ….. the “evaluation” of SafeWorkSA

South Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) regulator, SafeWorkSA, is being investigated by that State’s Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC).  SafeWorkSA has been subjected to several inquiries over recent years but the current ICAC one is perhaps the most significant, and one that is generating a lot of local discussion, and that should be watched by all OHS professionals, Regulators around Australia.

It is important to note the specifics of the Inquiry or “Evaluation”. 

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Objections, support and deterrence

Several of the articles in the Safety At Work special edition on Industrial Manslaughter mentioned in a previous post were from a July 2004 Building Trades Unions Conference at which Reverend Fred Nile, Katy Gallagher and John Della Bosca spoke.  Below are some of the interesting quotes raised but before we reach them, in August 2004, the Federal Government, through its then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Kevin Andrews, issued a media release saying:

“This is in stark contrast to the ACT’s punitive industrial manslaughter law which simply places employers and employees in an adversarial workplace setting. Industrial manslaughter laws are unnecessary and can only create uncertainty for employers and employees.”

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Industrial Manslaughter and the Big Picture (2004)

In 2004, the hottest occupational health and safety (OHS) topic was industrial manslaughter.  In Melbourne, there were seminars on the topic that easily topped 200 participants.  However it was also a year of confusion and fear, which may have accounted for the good seminar attendance figures.

At that time I was producing an online PDF Magazine and I devoted a whole edition to the topic. Now it is a time capsule of the issues and objections raised at the time which provide a useful context to the current debates. Here is my article on the issue from August 2004, slightly edited with links included, where possible.

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Talking about OHS could remove the need for Industrial Manslaughter laws

Gaby Grammeno has been writing about workplace health and safety (WHS) issues for longer than I have.  Her work for Workplace OHS, a subscription OHS news service, includes an “ask an expert” service and her latest is a comparison between the OHS/WHS laws involving “reckless endangerment” and “industrial manslaughter”.

The article is of interest to OHS people and reinforces some of the legal opinions on the proposed introduction of industrial manslaughter laws in Victoria.  There is disparity in sentencing and financial penalties in Queensland laws compared to potential Victorian ones and one includes “serious injuries” where the other addresses deaths.  But the issue of penalty sizes is a sideshow to the intended purpose of these types of laws – deterrence.

Will a penalty of A$3.8 million have a greater deterrent effect than A$3.1 million? 

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Dreamworld – this week and beyond

Managerial representatives of Dreamworld appeared at the second week of the inquest into the deaths of four patrons at the Australian theme park in 2016.  The week ended with Dreamworld’s parent company Ardent Leisure advising the Australian Securities Exchange of the departure of the current Chief Executive Officer, Craig Davidson. So what does this all mean?

Safety Management

Early last week, Dreamworld’s former safety manager, Mark

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Don’t “say anything to anyone..” – Dreamworld inquest

The first week of the two-week inquest into four fatalities at the Dreamworld theme park in Queensland has concluded.  It has substantial occupational health and safety (OHS) management lessons for Australian businesses in a similar way to that of many recent workplace disasters.  Those lessons are basic and the hazards are well-known in the OHS profession. Journalists Jamie Walker and Mark Schliebs, in the Weekend Australian newspaper, provided an excellent review (paywalled) of the lessons from that first week.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has not written about the deaths on the, now discontinued, Thunder Rapids ride because there has been an

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Duty of Care to the safety and health of “others”.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has released a very good report about Australia’s immigration detention centres which includes a long discussion on duty of care to detainees under Common Law. The report, “In Poor Health: Health care in Australian immigration detention” does not include any discussion on the duty of care under work health and safety (WHS) legislation however it can be argued that the Australian Government, through its supply chain, chain of responsibility and contract management, also has a duty of care to detainees under health and safety laws.

Several recent legal actions and workplace safety guidance indicates that clarification about the duty of care on physical and psychological risks to “others” is overdue.

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