The first international speaker at this weekend’s Building Safety conference in Canberra, Australia was Rita Donahy, author of the One Death Is Too Many report into the UK’s construction industry safety performance, and a member of the House of Lords.
Donahy stressed that workplace safety is, and should be, a social issue and not treated as a special case.
Continue reading “Rita Donahy speaks at Australia’s Building Safety conference”
In May 2013 Fiona Austin (@upfrontfi) a lawyer with the Australian law firm, Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), tweeted:
“Great win in the Supreme Court! No more naming and shaming for health and safety offenders in Queensland”
The Supreme Court decision is an appalling situation over which OHS professionals and regulators should be outraged.
Austin and other HSF lawyers authored a longer article on the case and totally miss the point of why OHS offenders should be named. Shaming of offenders is a different matter.
The article explains how a decision under the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) may stop the OHS regulator in Queensland, Work Health and Safety Queensland, from listing the names of offenders on its website. Continue reading “Supreme Court decision limits public knowledge of OHS offences”
The May 2013 National Safety magazine has an article on safety leadership by Australia lawyer, Michael Tooma. It is a terrific article but it also highlights the lack of case studies of the practical reality of safety leadership in Australia and the great distance still required to improve safety. Tooma starts the article with
“It is widely recognised that strong safety leadership is integral to work, health and safety performance in any organisation.” [emphasis added]
Later he writes
“There is little doubt that safety leadership is a prerequisite to a positive safety culture in any organisation.”
These equivocations may indicate authorial caution on the part of Michael Tooma but they could illustrate that the role of safety leadership still remains open to question. Continue reading “Is safety leadership the panacea for unsafe workplaces?”
Following on from a look at the workplace safety-related elements of the current policy document of the Australian Labor Party, it is the Liberal Party of Australia‘s turn.
The Liberals, currently lead by Tony Abbott, are the Australian equivalent of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom and the Republicans in the United States and follow many of the free market principles that support capitalism. In terms of workplace safety, commitments are less obvious than those from the Left side of politics. Often workplace safety is wrapped in other concepts and there is an expectation that benefits to workers will somehow flow on from those benefits granted to employers and business, benefits frequently termed as part of productivity.
The Liberal’s policy document entitled: Our Plan, Real Solutions for All Australians lists the following productivity improvements: Continue reading “An OHS look at the Liberal Party’s policy document”
Occupational health and safety (OHS) regulatory agencies have existed for decades, originally with an enforcement role but increasingly aimed to prevention and education. It is fair to say the “2nd generation” of OHS regulators in Australia appeared in the 1980s. It is also fair to expect to be able to readily access the corporate memory and prosecutorial activity of the regulators, particularly since the growth in the Internet. Very recently WorkSafe Victoria reviewed its online database of OHS prosecutions excising prosecution summaries prior to 2012. This decision is a major weakening of the “state of knowledge” about workplace safety in this State, a decision that some have described as outrageous. How can one learn from mistakes if those mistakes are not made available?
Continue reading “How can one learn from OHS mistakes if those mistakes are hidden?”