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Varanus Island Report released

On 10 October 2008, the Western Australian Mines and Petroleum Minister, Norman Moore, released the final report into the Varanus Island pipeline explosion. Sadly due to legislative restrictions the report is not being made available in an electronic edition accessible through the internet. However, hard copies can be requested from the government.

Recent media statements indicate that “the immediate physical cause of the gas explosion at the island’s gas production facility operated by Apache Energy Ltd was the rupture of the 12-inch gas sales pipeline.”

Some media reports mention the dreaded n-word – negligence. Apache Energy has stated that investigations into the

Varanus Island explosion were premature and based on an incomplete investigation

Contrary to most incident investigation techniques known to SafetyAtWorkBlog, Apache Energy says that it will continue to investigate in order to determine the “root cause”.

Since the incident, there has been a change to a conservative State government so the statements contain a political edge. The current Minister says that the terms of reference were too narrow and did not allow for investigation into “regulatory oversight” however deficiencies in this area were illustrated through media reports in the weeks following the incident.

The Minister has not ruled out ordering a “a full and independent investigation into this issue… at a later date” but I suspect only if there were political benefits rather than safety benefits. There are a considerable number of voices supporting a broader inquiry from unions and industry groups

The report is said to identify the following three contributing factors:

ineffective anti-corrosion coating at the beach crossing section of a 12-inch sales gas pipeline, due to damage and/or dis-bondment from the pipeline;

ineffective cathodic protection of the wet-dry transition zone of the beach crossing section of a 12-inch sales gas pipeline on Varanus Island; and

ineffective inspection and monitoring by Apache Energy of the beach crossing and shallow water section of the pipeline.

Mr Moore stated that

“Under the safety case regime, the operator is required to identify hazards and assess risks to health and safety and to implement control measures to reduce those risks. The ongoing inspection, monitoring and maintenance of control measures are associated with those risks and the management regime. The report has indicated that Apache and its co-licensees may have committed offences under two pipeline Acts.”

A Senate inquiry is looking into the economic impact of the Western Australian gas crisis and the State Government’s response to the incident.

Is technology the solution to everything?

Today, I received a media statement by the Acting Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Mark V. Rosenker. He said that new technologies have the potential to substantially reduce rail incidents. Rosenker is quoted as saying

“Just think how far computer and GPS technology has developed in the past 10 years.”

He urged the delegates at the International Railroad Safety Conference in Denver, Colorado on 6 October 2008 to

“… be forward thinking. Work closely with the highway industry to develop useful, intelligent transportation safety systems that can prevent accidents at grade crossings.”

In mid-September 2008, the a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train collided in Chatsworth, California, killing 25 people. The engineer of the Metrolink train was using new technology – he was texting on his mobile phone instead of paying attention.

I can’t see how the new technologies that Mark Rosenker discusses:

electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) braking, acoustic bearing detectors, wheel impact detectors, … truck performance detectors [and] intelligent transportation systems (ITS)…”

would have stopped the deaths of 25 people in Chatsworth?

I realise that the NTSB investigation into the Chatsworth collision has a way to go but I will be listening for some non-technological control measures to be proposed as well. The NTSB is going to need to keep up its “qualification, training and oversight of employees” that it has implemented in the last decade or so becasue clearly in the case of the Metrolink engineer, Robert Sanchez, these techniques failed.

Corporate accountability – Lessons from Lehmans

Yesterday,the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld Jr, faced an inquisition at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It was uncomfortable to watch but fascinating.

Video of the hearings shows the questions focused on Fuld’s accumulation of wealth in the good times and the retention of wealth in the bad times. There are parallels with the non-financial accountability of corporate leaders on matters such as workplace safety and corporate social responsibility.

The chair of the committee, Henry Waxman, spoke of company documents that

“portray a company in which there was no accountability for failure”.

Waxman said he was troubled by the attitude of Fuld where Fuld would not acknowledge any wrongdoing. Fuld did accept responsibility for the failure of the company but would not accept that his behaviour or the behaviour of the company he lead, contributed to the failure. In other words, Fuld would not accept that his company had a culture that may have contributed to the bankruptcy.

There will be more of this type of inquiry and in many countries other than the United States. OHS managers should not sit back and watch the chief financial officer squirm with discomfit and anxiety for the way that the financiers handle this crisis, as there are important lessons about their own accountability, responsibility and disaster planning.

Is consultation really a “two-way exchange”?

Talking about safety in the workplace is, by far, the best way to introduce and foster a healthy OHS environment. OHS regulators in Australia have been pushing this for sometime.

A colleague of mine has pointed out an apparent anomaly in relation to consultation posted by WorkSafe Victoria on their website earlier this week. In relation to Provisional Improvement Notices, WorkSafe says

“Consultation can still be said to have occurred even if:

* the duty holder does not respond to the HSR [Health and Safety Representative] in a reasonable time or at all. In this case, the HSR can take the failure to respond into account before deciding to issue the PIN. There does not have to be a two-way exchange – only the opportunity for this to occur;”

This sounds odd to me and I hope that one of the SafetyAtWorkBlog readers may be able to explain.

My colleague posed this question on the issue of consultation:

“If the duty holder generated an OHS issue and the HSR did not respond, would there still only need to be an ‘opportunity for this to occur’?”

It seems a far question when workplace consultation is supposed to be a “two-way exchange”.

New Work Safety Ads from Australia

Twenty years ago, I was at a FutureSafe conference in Sydney, Australia, where Eileen McMahon of WorkSafe Victoria showed a series of graphic ads. The audience were impressed and roundly supported the use of such ads in their own States.

At the time confronting ads were de rigueur as road safety campaigns had been using the same technique for a while. Ads from both government authorities won critical acclaim and many awards.

Confronting workplace safety ads recently ran on Canadian television to a mixed reception. WorkSafe Victoria has clearly adapted these ads and their concepts to the Australian circumstance in its campaign that was launched on Australian television on 5 October 2008.

The Australian ads have emphasised the lack of information and induction provided to young workers. Rather than having the incident victim talk to the camera, WorkSafe emphasises the confused thought processes of a young person in a bakery being unsure of how to operate a machine safely, a young man experiments with a nailgun, and a young person scalded in a commercial kitchen.

In The Sunday Age, WorkSafe CEO, John Merritt, said that the graphic content was to gain the attention of young workers:

“It’s confronting, it’s not pleasant, but young workers have challenged us to confront them with the reality of what happens…”

“The guts of this campaign is to say to young workers: for goodness sake, if you’re not sure about something, speak up.”

“”It was clear from the research that nothing else would have impact.”

Media reports make no acknowledgement of the Canadian campaign which seems a little odd given the similarities of the kitchen-based ad, in particular.

The challenge of this type of ad is to run it for just long enough to make an impact but not so long that viewers get “graphic fatigue” – particularly important for appealing to young workers. This is also a lesson that should have been learnt from the original WorkSafe ads a couple of decades ago. The combination of both a workplace safety campaign and road safety campaign using the same techniques limited the effectiveness of both.

There is no doubt about the validity of the safety risks in WorkSafe’s target market but it is vital that these ads be balanced with the more gentle and parent-friendly “homecoming” ads and the workplace inspector ads aimed at business operators. All three should be broadcast over the same period in order to provide the broadest context and the one that reflects the reality.

Clearly, the WorkSafe ad campaign is intended to maximise the retirn on the advertising budget by generating media debate. This was vrtually acknowedlged by John Merritt when he said

“There will undoubtedly be a conversation and a debate about that message.”

A danger with this tactic is that the ads become the story rather than people discussing the safety of young workers. Let’s watch who supports the ads and who criticises.

OHS uniformity is looking unlikely

Michael Tooma, a lawyer with Australian law firm Deacons, has stated

“Despite the enthusiastic manner in which the harmonisation agenda has been pursued, and the appearance of progress in that regard, it is likely that the quest for uniformity in OHS laws across Australia will remain elusive.”

His reasons for this statement in a recent edition of Safety Solutions magazine (August/September 2008) are

The National OHS Review was set up to develop model legislation for implementation in each State jurisdiction;
Duty of Care is absolute in two States, Queensland and New South Wales;
“Reasonable practicable” is not applied in each State to the same extent;
The New South Wales right for unions to undertake prosecutions for OHS breaches;
Not each State has a legal forum dedicated to handling OHS prosecutions;
The level of enforcement of OHS law is inconsistent between States; and
The level of maximum penalty available.

Tooma is worth listening to for lots of reasons but principally he seems to be less wrapped up in political baggage compared with other OHS legal commentators.

Tooma seems to favour an industrial or OHS court because of the substantial jurisprudence that has been achieved through the New South Wales Industrial Commission. I support the expansion of this type of court as NSW decisions, regardless of legislative differences, can be particularly useful is clarifying the most suitable OHS interventiosn for particular hazards.

He also says that enforcement must be consistent. This is true or else, if given the chance, an employer could undertake certain hazardous tasks in the jurisdiction where enforcement or prosecution is less effective and active.

This relates, in a way, to Tooma’s last point on penalties. An OHS offence in Victoria could lead to jail but in Tasmania, not. A monetary fine of over $1 million could apply in some States with only $180,000 in another.

It seems that the fantasy of one OHS law for Australia will remain a fantasy. The trick will be whether, after months of government review and hundreds of submissions, there will be sufficient consistency across the States. The likelihood is that we will be slightly better off but still with State variations. We have a little less red tape but red tape nonetheless.

My question will be, was it worth it?

What does the government mean by “flexibility”?

Australian governments have all missed the solid, positive support that workplace safety can provide in pushing through useful OHS, and industrial, initiatives. It would be a courageous employer who argued against any initiative that is intended to imporve the level of safety in any workplaces.

The Deputy Prime Minister and IR Minister, Julia Gillard, reminded me of this when she spoke about the intoriduction of the government’s Fair Work Australia authority. I have written elsewhere that the time is right for the Minister to also announce a “Safe Work Australia” authority which can arise out of ashes of the Australian Safety & Compensation Council. I would suggest that Safe Work Australia could also use the structure of the Workplace Ombudsman, have Comcare for the paperwork, establish a dedicated OHS stream in the justice system and use the moral authority of a new independent OHS Ombudsman. This would be my mix for a strong, fair, independent and national OHS process for Australia.

In Gillard’s speech on Fair Work Australia though, she provided little hope of such an achievement. This government continues to consider OHS as a separate discipline (or perhaps a subset) to Industrial Relations except when business accuses the unions of gaining IR advantage through OHS actions. OHS could be legtitimately used to present consultation and consensus in a united IR strategy but there is little indication of that, indeed the gulf is widening.

In Gillard’s speech on industrial relations she mentions “promoting workplace flexibility” as an important part of the platform. This appears a couple of lines after a mention of “business flexibility”. These are not interchangeable terms and seem to be included to soften the message, as there is no further mention, or expansion, of these concepts.

In HR and OHS terms we are looking at flexible work structures that can reduce workplace hazards, improve staff retention, increase career longevity and provide sustainable productivity. Whether this is workplace flexibility or business flexibility seems to depend on which end of the management structure you come from but there should be no ambiguity in government statements on the issue of flexibility. Then again maybe staff health, safety and welfare is only a distraction.

Category: government

Varanus Island Report released

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Is technology the solution to everything?

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Corporate accountability – Lessons from Lehmans

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Is consultation really a “two-way exchange”?

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New Work Safety Ads from Australia

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OHS uniformity is looking unlikely

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What does the government mean by “flexibility”?

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