economics – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Why the Intergenerational Report Matters More to OHS Than Treasury Realises

This week the Australian Government released its latest Intergenerational Report (IGR). It does not discuss occupational health and safety (OHS) directly, but it does cover some of the socioeconomic factors within which OHS must be managed.

The report’s projections on ageing, labour supply, climate, care demand, migration and fiscal pressure shift safety from a narrow focus on acute hazards to a long‑term, systemic challenge centred on chronic exposure, job design, psychosocial harm and workforce vulnerability. The IGR is important for our consideration of work-related harm.

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Migration Politics and Work Health and Safety

Like many other countries, Australia’s political debate seems dominated by immigration issues. This week, after Federal Minister Tony Burke announced the government’s revised immigration policy, Queensland primary producer Joe Moro linked migration to occupational health and safety (OHS) and labour availability.

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There is a Duty of Care But No Duty to Act

Australian work health and safety (WHS) law rests on the deceptively simple proposition that those who create or control risks must eliminate them, or reduce them so far as is reasonably practicable. It is a neat legal phrase that also hides much of the workplace reality.

Anyone who has spent time in workplaces knows how difficult it is. Most occupational health and safety (OHS) decisions are not reviewed by an inspector, challenged by a worker, or tested in court. They are made inside businesses, under commercial pressure, by people who may genuinely want to do the right thing but are also trying to meet production, budget and staffing demands. Too often, the employer’s view of what is “reasonable” becomes the working standard until something goes badly wrong.

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Redesigning Risk — Quinlan and Mazzucato Unite to Make Work Safer

Whenever Mariana Mazzucato publishes a new book, she appears in the press everywhere as part of book tours and promotions. Her latest book, The Common Good Economy, is likely to be as influential on government and international policymakers as her other books have been. Australia’s Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, pays close attention to her perspectives. These perspectives relate to the management of occupational health and safety (OHS) because they present a different or tweaked sense of corporate morality, under which workers should be safe and healthy.

This article is not a review of the Common Good Economy book, although it is very good. Instead, I compare Mazzucato’s approach on work to Professor Michael Quinlan‘s take on precarity.

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Why Safety Culture Is Not Enough

I don’t know which professional discipline has had the most effect on the management of work health and safety in Australia, but I do know that accounting has been neglected. Accounting and its companion discipline, Governance, have several research concepts that Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) should consider.

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Reframing Workplace Safety as an Economic Strategy for the 2026 Budget

In just over a month, Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down the 2026 Federal Budget. While political attention will focus on cost‑of‑living pressures and international instability, the Budget also presents an opportunity to rethink how Australia could treat occupational health and safety (OHS) as an economic lever instead of just a business cost.

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How Regulatory Ideology Shapes Work Health and Safety Outcomes

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers and economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz are old friends. One of their conversations was turned into the lead article in the February edition of The Monthly (paywalled). Several of their thoughts impinge on how occupational health and safety (OHS) laws are applied and may be reformed.

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