Category: government

Australian safety awards are important but require rebooting

The 6th annual Safe Work Australia awards concluded a couple of hours ago.  The event was an opportunity to meet Australians prominent in the safety profession, celebrate innovation and to acknowledge individual efforts.  The winners’ achievements were largely significant but there are problems with the OHS award processes across Australia and the Safe Work Australia Awards reflected some of these.

The event, held at Parliament House, included a good collection of corporate, legal and  government decision-makers in the audience of 350 guests.  The Industrial Relations Minister, Chris Evans, delegated Senator Jacinta Collins (media statement available HERE) to attend the function and she expressed a rudimentary understanding of workplace health and safety.  She,  like many others, stated that “all workplace incidents are preventable”, a statement whose value is becoming dubious.  If safety professionals desire evidence-based decision making, someone needs to research the “preventable” statement as it risks creating unreasonable expectations of safety in the community, if it has not already.

Category 1: Best Workplace Health and Safety Management System

  1. Private Sector – Ballina Bypass Alliance
  2. Public Sector – Courts Administration Authority

Category 2: Best Solution to an Identified Workplace Health and Safety Issue – CSIRO Livestock Industries Continue reading “Australian safety awards are important but require rebooting”

WorkCoverSA CEO faces hard tasks as new report damns WorkCover’s performance

Late April 2011 is becoming a period of turmoil in the South Australia’s WorkCover Corporation, on top of the government’s political turmoil from the sudden resignation of the Industrial Relations Minister, Bernard Finnigan, and a minister being charged with child pornography offences.  According to inDaily on 21 April 2011, WorkCover’s Deputy CEO, Jeff Matthews, and Chief Financial Officer, Ian Rhodes, left the organisation suddenly.  CEO Rob Thomson (ex-Workcover New South Wales) says that the positions were axed as part of a restructure.

On 27 April 2011, the most recent review into WorkCover’s operations was released.  The March 2011 report finds that the state’s workers compensation scheme

“…shows little evidence of improved return to work performance, in spite of very heavy referrals to and cost of vocational rehabilitation compared to comparable scheme.” Continue reading “WorkCoverSA CEO faces hard tasks as new report damns WorkCover’s performance”

Brodie’s Law on bullying needs more consideration for workplace application

Recent attention on the presentation of the Crimes Amendment (Bullying) Bill 2011 to the Victorian Parliament has, understandably, focussed on the changes to the criminal code. However some of that attention should also have been given to the existing rules and control measures under workplace law, particularly considering that the proposed amendments, commonly referred to as Brodie’s law, are being described in the context of workplace bullying.

WorkSafe Victoria’s 2005 guidance on workplace violence and bullying specifies what elements of the Crimes Act 1958 could be relevant to workplace bullying:

  • Intentionally or Recklessly Causing Serious Injury
  • Intentionally or Recklessly Causing Injury
  • Threats to Kill
  • Threats to Inflict Serious Injury
  • Stalking

The inclusion of the last item may surprise some who have been reading only the newspaper coverage of Brodie’s Law as there was a clear implication that the application of stalking to workplace bullying was new.

Law firm Clayton Utz reminds us that workplace bullying remains undefined in the Crimes Act and that the Bill

“… extends the definition of the pre-existing offence of stalking by expanding the definition of that offence to pick up the type of behaviours that are typical of workplace bullying.”

If the Bill passes the Victorian Parliament, the OHS regulator will need to amend its advice on workplace bullying to reflect the expanded definition of stalking. But as can be seen by the bullet points above, changes to guidance may be minor as stalking is already seen as a potential element of workplace bullying. Continue reading “Brodie’s Law on bullying needs more consideration for workplace application”

Online media slams Workcover SA report

Online newspaper, Indaily, has released a report by DeakinPrime which summarises a November 2010 summit conference on workers compensation.  DeakinPrime facilitated the summit

InDaily focuses on the following criticisms, amongst others, from the report:

  • a silo approach by Workcover
  • the lack of feedback
  • injured workers were not the prime consideration of Workcover
  • politicisation was leading to instability
  • a disassociated claims management process.

These criticisms are present in the full report  but the presence of criticisms should not surprise as the nature of these summits are usually twofold – the creation of innovative solutions and an avenue for complaint.  Continue reading “Online media slams Workcover SA report”

Trade unions enter debate on profits vs safety

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has issued a media release aimed at addressing or countering some of the concerns over new OHS laws expressed by the business community and some politicians recently.

Ged Kearney

ACTU President Ged Kearney has said

“Attempts by employer groups to weaken the new regulations are yet another example of business putting profits before safety….. Employer groups called for a national set of health and safety laws, and we would have thought that business would welcome a tough approach to OHS regulations.”

Sympathy for business is unlikely from the union movement but some sympathy is warranted.   Australian business was promised that new work health and safety laws would reduce the business costs of complying with laws that differed from across a number of jurisdictions.  As companies begin to assess the impacts of new laws on their own business operations, as all companies surely must do, they are noticing additional costs for compliance. Continue reading “Trade unions enter debate on profits vs safety”

Dis-harmonisation over OHS laws

Victoria’s largest OHS conference and trade show has ended.   The shadow of the impending harmonisation of OHS laws hung over both events.  The OHS message throughout the conference was one of nothing to worry about. WorkSafe’s Ian Forsythe felt that Victoria was well-placed for minimal disruption as the OHS laws in that State had been thoroughly reviewed by Chris Maxwell QC in 2003.  Forsythe described the current OHS review as “Maxwell on steroids”, a good line for the conference audience but one that reflects the, often, smug approach of many Victorians to the harmonisation process, an approach not shared elsewhere as shown by a front-page article in The Australian on 9 April 2011.

The Business Council of Australia is concerned about the different interpretations of the laws by each of the states.  This has been a possibility from the very start of the reform process because the focus was always harmonisation, not uniformity. Continue reading “Dis-harmonisation over OHS laws”

Australian lawyers comment on Brodie’s Law

Clayton Utz lawyers have looked at Victoria’s new bullying-related law changes for their relevance to workplace safety management and have found the following.

“Is this an issue for employers?

Yes and no.

Theoretically, even before these proposed amendments, certain types of workplace bullying already fell within the definition of stalking.  In one sense, therefore, this doesn’t change the situation much – employers already had the potential problem of, for example, dealing with keeping apart at work a victim and stalker subject to an intervention order.

In another sense, this is clearly an important change.  More types of workplace bullying are now criminalised, and public awareness of bullying issues will certainly have been increased by the publicity surrounding this Bill.  We can therefore expect a rise in complaints and the number of victims coming forward, and not just in Victoria, as other States and Territories have stalking laws that could cover at least some types of workplace bullying.”

Clearly the awareness of bullying in the workplace is already high but these laws are likely to make the management of this issue more complex and and challenging. Continue reading “Australian lawyers comment on Brodie’s Law”

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