Category: law

Podcast tackles Safety Culture

Cabbage Salad BannerThe latest episode of the Cabbage Salad and Safety podcast is now available and includes a discussion on the perennial occupational health and safety (OHS) debate over Safety Culture.

Siobhan Flores-Walsh and I discuss the role of safety culture and its influence on contemporary safety management.  The definition is fluffy and this is part of the challenge in improving a company’s safety culture.  I think the podcast episode is a useful primer on the issue to those who are just making contact with the concept and of interest to those of us who are already dealing with safety culture and people’s expectations for it.

Cabbage Salad and Safety podcasts are changing all the time and we read all the feedback and comments that listeners have emailed in. Please have a listen and email me your thoughts for future episodes or please comment below if you prefer.

 

Kevin Jones

Corporate culture on show from ASIC at the Governance Institute

20160731_211159On 22 July 2016, the Governance Institute of Australia conducted a seminar at which John Price (pictured right), a Commissioner with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) discussed Board and Organisational Culture.  The issue of culture has been an important discussion point with ASIC and Australian businesses recently and this discussion included consideration of the role of occupational health and safety (OHS).

Although the seminar was not a speech, the discussion paralleled many of the points that Price made in this May 2016 speech.   The speech is a useful insight into how an Australian corporate regulator sees culture and it is not very different from how the OHS profession sees it.  Price references the Criminal Code that

“…defines corporate culture as including an organisation’s attitudes, policies, rules, course of conduct and practices.”

He also said that

“Culture matters to ASIC because poor culture can be a driver of poor conduct.”

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Royal Commission into juvenile detention should include OHS

Vision of the mistreatment of children in juvenile detention centres in Australia’s Northern Territory was aired on the ABC Four Corners program on 25 June 2016.  Within 24 hours, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a Royal Commission into juvenile detention.  The treatment shown was not new and had been known by the NT Government and Ministers for several years but the quick decision for a Royal Commission shows the political influence of television and current affairs programs.  Although not yet written, part of the Royal Commission’s terms of reference should be the investigation of the workplace safety context of juvenile detention centre management and the treatment of the young inmates. Continue reading “Royal Commission into juvenile detention should include OHS”

“We are the safest” – No, only half right

Governments around the world love to be able to claim their State or Country as the safest in the world, when they can.  Australia has been plagued by such claims between various States but a report released on July 6 2016 shows that such claims are only half the story.

The Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) released its report about “Work-related injury and illness in Australia, 2004 to 2014“. The report makes this extraordinary finding:

“Across Australia, there are twice as many estimated work-related injuries as there are accepted workers compensation claims. This indicates that many injuries do not progress into the nations workers compensation systems” (page 2)

This statement seems to indicate that political statements made on the basis of workers’ compensation data, the major rationale for most of the “we are the safest” statements, are only half right!

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“Cabbage Salad and Safety” podcast launched

KJ SFH HeadshotIt has been my intention for many years to establish a conversational podcast with a workplace safety lawyer. The opportunity to pitch the idea occurred earlier this year and the first episode of Cabbage Salad and Safety is now available.

Siobhan Flores-Walsh of Corrs Chambers Westgarth (pictured right with the author) was the lucky lawyer and she has been enormously supportive also providing the recording equipment, personnel and opportunity. Continue reading ““Cabbage Salad and Safety” podcast launched”

When culture has an agenda

The topic of culture is a critical consideration in the improvement of occupational health and safety (OHS). Each company should be aiming for a an active and healthy workplace and safety culture but the term “culture” continues to be difficult to define and poorly understood by the community.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has written about the culture discussion as it relates to

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