Category: agriculture

What will the Liberal/National coalition do for Victoria on OHS?

The Victorian Liberal/National Coalition’s election platform is available on-line, or at least an outline is.  On 21 November 2018 a couple of days out from the State Election, Opposition Leader, Matthew Guy, released the Coalition’s 6-page plan for their first 100 days in office, should they win on Saturday.

The State Platform of the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia makes no mention of occupational health and safety (OHS) but there are many beliefs that would be dramatically affected if OHS is not managed appropriately. 

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Two exemptions to Victoria’s Industrial Manslaughter laws

Every industry sector should have its own occupational health and safety (OHS) conference.  This allows for specific OHS topics to be presented but also provides for a broader context. The recent conference conducted by the Victorian Branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) was a great example.

So close to a State election and in the lead-up to a Federal election it was not surprising that the trade union movement’s Change The Rules campaign gained attention, as did the push for the introduction of Industrial Manslaughter laws, in the presentation by Dr Paul Sutton.

The main points of his presentation are familiar and have been reported on previously but this presentation included news about two exemptions to the laws which may raise uncomfortable questions. 

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Glyphosate presents an OHS problem but maybe OHS is the path to a solution

Occupational health and safety (OHS) related decisions are made on the state of knowledge about hazards and it is up to OHS people to make sure the state of knowledge is at its best so that the best decisions can be made.  But what do you do if the state of knowledge on a hazard seems to be made purposely uncertain and that uncertainty is leading to the status quo, which also happens to provide a huge income for the owner of the product creating the hazard.

This seems to be a situation at the moment in Australia in relation to the use of the weedkiller, glyphosate, marketed heavily by the global chemical company, Monsanto.  The alleged corruption of data on which OHS people and workers base their safety decisions was perhaps one of the most disturbing elements of the recent ABC Four Corners program on the chemical (

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Queensland enforces its labour hire laws while Victoria is still working theirs out

Sunset over Lockyer Valley, in South East Queensland, Australia.

The Queensland government was the first Australian State to introduce a licencing scheme for the providers of contract workers and temporary labour.  As a result, enforcement activity by the regulator there will likely set the scene for similar actions in other States particularly as Victoria has opened it public consultation on its labour hire regulations. Sadly workplace health and safety seems to have been overlooked in Victoria’s draft labour hire regulations and current consultation process.

Last week the Queensland Government

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Labour Hire safety challenges

Victoria has passed legislation to licence the labour hire industry. Occupational health and safety (OHS) gets a mention, in some ways.

The objects of this Act seem fairly straightforward:

  • ” to protect workers from being exploited by providers of labour hire services and hosts; and
  •  to improve the transparency”

The explanatory memorandum sounds promising. Clause 23 says:

“Subclause (1) states that if an application for a licence or renewal of a licence is made by an applicant who, at the time of making the application, is conducting a business that provides labour hire
services, the applicant must include with the application a declaration that, to the applicant’s knowledge, the applicant complies with the various laws that are set out so far as they relate to the business to which the licence relates. Examples of
such laws include workplace, taxation and occupational health and safety laws.”

The good news is that OHS is stated as an example of the type of information required in a licence application. 

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ACCC slaps down the FCAI on quad bike safety

On June 5 2018, Sharon O’Keeffe of the North Queensland Register newspaper aired the response of the Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Mick Keogh to claims from the Federated Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) on the safety of quad bikes and crush protection devices (CPDs). O’Keeffe says “the gloves are off”.

In March 2018, the ACCC announced its intention for a mandatory safety standard for quad bikes, or All Terrain Vehicles (ATV,) that included CPDs. 

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Good data but never enough

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) released two statistical reports on May 16 2018, one concerns eye injuries and the other, hospitalised injuries.  Some occupational injury data is readily accessible, particularly on eye injuries.

“Eye injuries in Australia 2010–11 to 2014–15” states this about occupational injuries Continue reading “Good data but never enough”

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