In all of the discussion about the new industrial manslaughter laws in Queensland, the topic of directors and officers liability insurance has been overlooked. As mentioned in an earlier article
“….the Queensland Government has promised to ban insurance products that pay occupational health and safety (OHS) penalties imposed against employers.”
Occupational health and safety advocates are pushing for safety management and strategies to refocus on people by talking about “people-centric” approaches and recalibrating legislation to re-emphasise prevention. This push parallels society’s frustration with political strategies that favour big business, the under-investment in education and health care systems and companies that announce record profits at the same time as sacking staff. That frustration is becoming accepted by political parties that are starting to apply more people-centric policies or by countries and States that are appointing representatives from outside the mainstream political organisations.
At a closing event for National Safe Work Month on 1 November 2017, WorkSafe Victoria’s CEO,
In April 2017, WorkSafe Victoria created consternation in the farming sector by stating that farmers who own quad bikes must fit operator protection devices (OPDs) to the vehicles in order to operate them safely. The quad bike manufacturers took WorkSafe Victoria to the Supreme Court and, according to various media statements, the issue was dismissed before getting to Court and everybody won! On 26 October 2017, the current policy position of WorkSafe Victoria on operator protection devices (OPDs) was clarified.
Continue reading “Extraordinary, quiet, policy change at WorkSafe Victoria”
An odd media statement was released by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) on 23 October 2017 regarding the new international occupational health and safety (OHS) management system Standard ISO45001. Several days later Standards Australia released a statement that supported and clarified ACCI’s position
ACCI states that
“….the draft standard is still several months away from being finalised”.
Australia’s Productivity Commission (PC) released a 5 year productivity review called “Shifting the Dial“. It is one of those large government reports from which lots of people draw lots of conclusions. Chapter 3 in this report addresses Future Skills and Work within which occupational health and safety (OHS) is mentioned in a useful and important context.
The PC acknowledges the changing types of work that have been written about copiously elsewhere with varying degrees of alarmism. The Commission contextualises this rate of “transformative” change as the latest in a continuum of change and recommends this policy approach in relation workplace safety:
On 24 October 2017, Australia’s Ministers for Employment and Small Business announced a new taskforce led by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that will conduct an investigation into quad bike safety. What is different about this taskforce is that it is
Continue reading “New quad bike safety taskforce has a mid-2018 deadline”
Recently a public relations firm has been promoting a statement about workers’ compensation and occupational asthma in support of the Australasian Asthma Conference. The statement was a timely reminder of the 2015 report – The Hidden Costs of Asthma. These documents are aimed at the management of asthma rather than the prevention but, coincidentally, the Australian Government entered some legislative amendments in Parliament that will help with the prevention of this important condition.
The