consultation – SafetyAtWorkBlog

The Potential of Safety Impact Assessments

For decades, countries around the world have required that major projects undergo an assessment before they can proceed. Australia has gone further, with the once‑in‑a‑generation reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 passing Parliament in November 2025 and rolling out through 2026. These reforms introduced legally binding National Environmental Standards and a new National Environmental Protection Agency. So here’s the question we keep dodging: why don’t we also have Safety Impact Assessments (SIA)?

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Do HSRs Matter More Than OHS Professionals?

A recent occupational health and safety (OHS) prosecution appeared to involve elements of both worker and employer complacency. Earlier this year, the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) circulated a media release titled “Returning to Work: Peak Safety Body Warns Complacency Costs Lives.” The issue of complacency deserves some examination.

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When Consultation Fails, Psychosocial Safety Fails With It

The Human Resources and Human Rights sectors in Australia are increasingly realising how useful the occupational health and safety (OHS) structures, laws and processes can be to preventing harm related to bullying, sexual harassment and gender-based violence. Recently, a joint presentation by Dr Rachel Cox from Canada and Associate Professor Belinda Smith from Australia (pictured above) highlighted this cross-sectoral awakening.

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Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country

Safe Work Australia has just published a summary report of its review into best practice. It is a curious document, essentially a summary of the perspectives of many organisations interested in occupational health and safety (OHS), particularly regarding OHS laws. It is an important distinction that this review was not about OHS but the laws that we use to provide safe and healthy work.

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Haggling for Haggling’s Sake and Sacrificing the Ambit

What does occupational health and safety (OHS) have to do with Industrial Relations? It depends on who you ask. I think it is integral, but many, such as the trade union movement, seem to call on OHS only when needed, and then in the shallowest of ways.

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“She simply had too much work to do” – WorkSafe Awards 2025

Psychological safety dominated the 2025 WorkSafe Victoria Awards held in late February 2026. (At somepoint, WorkSafe is going to have to bring the awards back to the Safety Month schedule of October) This is perhaps not surprising, as psychological safety and psychosocial hazards remain hot issues in Victoria, but some other important finalists shone.

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The Work‑From‑Home Debate Needs Less Theatre and More OHS

A recent radio forum on working from home reinforced the political motivation behind promoting it as a legal right and also highlighted the knowledge gaps we have about it. Occupational health and safety (OHS) was mentioned in the discussion, but its core significance was again downplayed.

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