Innes Willox of the Australian Industry Group is a well-established figure in Australia’s political and industrial landscape. As such he was a good choice to be the first speaker at a small safety conference in Melbourne Australia.
The best speakers about workplace safety are often those who do not speak about safety but those who speak about a world that includes occupational health and safety (OHS).
Australia has a political structure of States and Territories existing within a Federation or Com
monwealth. Legislative change has a smooth journey when political stars are aligned, where the same political party is in power at State and Federal levels. Federal change is even smoother when the same political party has control of both houses of Parliament. Not surprisingly, this ultimate combination is rare and could be as damaging to occupational health and safety (OHS) as it can be beneficial. The recent OHS harmonisation process is a good example of a political mess.
This may be the reality of Australian politics but it doesn’t need to be.
Several Australian States have
The Western Australian Government is getting serious about making its occupational health and safety regime consistent with the strategies and operations of the other Australian States. On 27 August 2017, Premier Mark McGowan stated, in a media release, that
“Penalties for workplace safety offences haven’t changed for 13 years. The substantial increases reflect the seriousness of ensuring the safety of Western Australian workers.”
Coincidentally, as an article about quad bike safety was being uploaded to this blog, details of the release of Tasmanian coronial findings were received. The findings were released by Coroner Simon Cooper on August 25 2017 and were not reported widely.
The Coroner investigated seven deaths related to quad bikes but only two occurred on workplaces or as part of performing work – Heather Richardson and Roger Larner. Curiously, WorkSafe Tasmania did not investigate these work-related deaths. Continue reading “Tassie Coroner releases his safety findings on 7 quad bike deaths”
The Queensland Government has released the final report of its “Best Practice Review of Workplace Health and Safety Queensland“. Most of the media attention is given to the introduction of Industrial Manslaughter laws but there are some interesting recommendations and discussion on Enforceable Undertakings, insurance products and other matters of interest to business and safety professionals.
The Queensland Government announced the review earlier this year, particularly, in response to fatalities at Dreamworld and Eagle Farm. A Discussion Paper was released in April.
Industrial Manslaughter
Industrial Manslaughter laws have been floating around Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS), legal union and political sectors for many years. Only the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) introduced such a law and the Crimes (Industrial Manslaughter) Amendment Act 2003 remains in effect.
The significance in this Queensland report is that the document is entitled “Best Practice” so the panel, based on its own experience and the many submissions it received, adds considerable weight to these controversial laws.
Last week Optus’ Director of Work Health and Safety, Geoff Hoad, spoke enthusiastically of the new international occupational health and safety (OHS) Standard ISO45001 as a “gamechanger”. It is a gamechanger as much as any management Standard can be, which is, in reality, as much as any company allows it to be. Hoad’s presentation included other comments, some that were not kind to the OHS profession.
Hoad was scathing about the current Australian OHS management Standard
Day 2 of the SAFETYconnect conference commenced with a disrupted panel discussion comprising four representatives of Australia workplace safety regulators. Each representative provided a 10 minute presentation about their agency and their plans. Curiously almost all of them discussed their strategic plans which varied between three and ten years but almost all contained the same aims, targets and challenges.
Some of the most interesting content was in the more practical stream of the conference.