Governments use legislation and the threat of punishment as a deterrent for dangerous actions and poor decision-making. Imposing harsh consequences is hoped to change the behaviour of companies and individuals. Occupational health and safety (OHS) laws are no different with deterrence being used to justify the introduction and enforcement of Industrial Manslaughter laws, for instance.
The Australian Senate’s current inquiry
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.”
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.
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
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
Victoria’s Trades Hall has criticised the Master Builders Association of Victoria (MBAV) over its opposition to Industrial Manslaughter laws. The MBAV’s opposition is described as “tired” by Trades Hall in a small article in the OHS Reps SafetyNet Journal which illustrates how the gap is unbreachable.
This is what the OHS Unit of Trades Hall said about the
With little surprise, at the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Conference in Victoria on 26 May 2018, Premier Daniel Andrews has included the introduction of Industrial Manslaughter laws as a formal part of the campaign for re-election in November 2018.
According to his media release, if re-elected,
“.., employers will face fines of almost $16 million and individuals responsible for negligently causing death will be held to account and face up to 20 years in jail.
A re-elected Andrews Labor Government will make sure all Victorians are safe in our workplaces, with the offence to also apply when an employer’s negligent conduct causes the death of an innocent member of the public..”
There are a lot of steps between an incident and Industrial Manslaughter charges.