I have been humiliated many, many times over my 60+ years, but rarely at work. The last time was when a manager discussed my competence in my occupational health and safety (OHS) adviser’s job in front of my colleagues. I came to a workable relationship with him, but I have never forgotten. It pushed me to complete the most minimal OHS qualification available in Australia, a Certificate IV in OHS. This is my memory of that humiliation and the CertIV experience.
Although I have expressed concerns about the application of AI data analytics at the recent Safe Work Australia (SWA) Research Summit, I think it is important to list the 15 Leading Ideas that the analysis process identified from the summit. Some of these will seem like the bleeding obvious, but these outcomes will inform SWA’s research agenda and strategy.
There are several ways to write about Safe Work Australia’s recent Research Summit. This is the first article and will discuss a couple of features of the summit and ask if the summit achieved its aims.
The Australian Psychological Services has provided some excellent advice on what to look out for when arranging speakers for October, which is both Mental Health Month and National Safe Work Month.
The community in Melbourne, Australia, has been talking about little else but a sex abuse scandal in the childcare industry. (It makes a difference from talking about beef wellingtons.) The media and the government are announcing and investigating various regulatory and enforcement options to prevent a recurrence. This abuse is a grave concern and not one that was unexpected, as earlier inquiries had identified the risk. The prevention of sexual harm to children has an occupational health and safety (OHS) context that should not be ignored.
In January 2025, Kilvington Grammar was fined over $100,000 for breaches of occupational health and safety (OHS) laws related to the death of one of its students, 16-year-old diabetic Lachlan Cook, who was on an overseas school trip. The best source of publicly available reports on this case appears to be the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. This article does not discuss the incident but focuses on the sentencing decisions and their relevance to OHS.
This week, the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS, formerly the Safety Institute of Australia) is hosting its national conference in Melbourne, Australia. The heyday of occupational health and safety (OHS) conferences seems to have passed in Australia as, perhaps, was confirmed by the varying responses to last year’s World Congress on Safety and Health at Work. But expectations for this week’s conference are high; at least mine are.
But are those expectations too high? There is a direct competitor for OHS ears and eyes (no matter the arguments) in the same building at the same time, the Workplace Health and Safety Show. The AIHS Conference needs to work hard to retain its prominence and, most importantly, its influence. It is worth reflecting on how this messy situation came about.
