The recent report on sexual harassment at West Australian mine sites deserves national attention for several reasons. The stories are horrific, partly because many of us thought such stories were in the distant past. The fact that many are recent should shock everyone into action.
The report “Enough is Enough”is highly important, but its newsworthiness seems disputable. Some media have covered the report’s release but the newsworthiness, in my opinion, comes less from this one report but from the number of reports and research on sexual harassment, bullying, abuse, disrespect and more in the mining sector over the last twenty years that have done little to prevent the psychosocial hazards of working in the mining and resources sector and especially through the Fly-in, Fly-Out (FIFO) labour supply process.
Australia currently has a lot of official inquiries into workplace issues that affect the occupational health and safety (OHS) of workers. It is almost impossible to keep up with them and, as a result, some important voices are being missed, but even if they spoke, there is a strong chance they will not be listened to. The Victorian Government has released the final report of the Inquiry into Penalty Rates and Fair Pay. There are two overt mentions of OHS that don’t seem to go anywhere.