law – Page 183 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

WorkSafe prosecutes Dept of Corrective Services and G4S

In June 2010 WorkSafe WA began investigating the 2008 death from heat stroke of 46-year-old aboriginal elder Mr Ward. According to one media report :

“A broken air conditioner forced Mr Ward to endure temperatures above 50 degrees during the non-stop, four-hour journey to face a drink-driving charge in court.”

The same article noted that in June 2010 the Director of Public Prosecutions Joe McGrath announced that no charges would be laid against two security guards over the 46-year-old’s death.

On 19 January 2011, WorkSafe announced that it

“… will prosecute the State of Western Australia (Department of Corrective Services), government contractor G4S Custodial Services Pty Ltd (formerly GSL Custodial Services Pty Ltd) and the two drivers involved in the death of Mr Ward in January 2008.”

WorkSafe notes in its media release that

“A Coronial Inquest was completed in May 2009, with the State Coroner Alastair Hope concluding that all four parties [listed in the above quote] contributed to the death.” Continue reading “WorkSafe prosecutes Dept of Corrective Services and G4S”

NZ Coroner presses for changes in quad bike safety

One of New Zealand’s coroners, Ian Smith, has set a safety challenge to the OHS regulatory and quad bike distributors. In the coronial findings (not available online) into the 2008 death of 21-year-old beekeeper, Jody Santos, Coroner Smith has recommended to the Ministers for Transport and Labour:

“The Court endorses the new educational and enforcement programme being proposed by the Department of Labour, but considers that both Ministries undertake an immediate investigation to consider the mandatory installation of:

(i) The compulsory wearing of helmets when operating ATVs in any circumstances; and

(ii) The installation of a roll bar on all A TVs/quad bikes; and

(iii) The installation of lap belts on all ATVs/quad bikes.”

The Department of Labour (DoL) specifically requested that the Coroner remove the mandatory installation recommendation. Continue reading “NZ Coroner presses for changes in quad bike safety”

Is capitalism anti-safety? Systemic failures in oil industry

The Wall Street Journal and other media around the world have reported on systemic failures of the global oil industry and government regulators identified by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. These articles are based on the release of a single chapter, Chapter 4, of the final report due for release on 11 January 2011.

A media release from the Commission includes the following findings from Chapter 4

“The well blew out because a number of separate risk factors, oversights, and outright mistakes combined to overwhelm the safeguards meant to prevent just such an event from happening. But most of the mistakes and oversights at Macondo can be traced back to a single overarching failure—a failure of management. Better management by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean would almost certainly have prevented the blowout by improving the ability of individuals involved to identify the risks they faced, and to properly evaluate, communicate, and address them.”

“. . .the Macondo blowout was the product of several individual missteps and oversights by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean, which government regulators lacked the authority, the necessary resources, and the technical expertise to prevent.”

“The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.”

“What we. . .know is considerable and significant:

each of the mistakes made on the rig and onshore by industry and government increased the risk of a well blowout;

the cumulative risk that resulted from these decisions and actions was both unreasonably large and avoidable; and

the risk of a catastrophic blowout was ultimately realized on April 20 and several of the mistakes were contributing causes of the blowout.”

The significance of these quotes is that the Commission is critical of an industry and not just a single company. Continue reading

Rainbow windmill deaths continue to affect the local community

In March 2010, SafetyAtWorkBlog reported on the deaths of two farmers in the rural town of Rainbow in Victoria. They died when a windmill they were transporting on a property made contact with overhead power lines. The deaths continue to be a difficult topic of discussion throughout the Wimmera-Mallee, as I found out over the Christmas holiday season.

The coronial inquest into the deaths of John and Michael Helyar began in Horsham in November 2010 and will continue in April 2011. Some of the inquest reports in the local newspaper make for harrowing reading but also provide an important insight into the decision-making process that occurs at the site of a workplace fatality and one that involves close friends.

The two articles are

Coronial inquest into tragedy at Rainbow, and

Inquest hears of agonising drama at Rainbow

Kevin Jones

Quad bike safety issues continue with no end in sight

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been following the discussions about safety of all-terrain vehicles and quad bikes for some time. This is because the use of these vehicles encapsulate so many of the issues that workplace safety needs to deal with:

Safe design
Personal protective equipment
Hierarchy of controls
The line between private activity and work activity
Personal responsibility
The “nanny state”
Regulatory safety guidance
Industry-based codes of practice

On 19 December 2010, the New Zealand Sunday Star Times ran a feature article on quad bikes, written by Amanda Cropp (I can’t find the article online but please send a link if you can) entitled “Risky Business”. The article is a fair summation of many of the perspectives and attitudes to quad bike safety.

For those readers who like statistics, Cropp writes that

“The annual ACC [Accident Compensation Corporation] bill for quad bike-related injuries is around $7 million, and Hobbs’ claim was among 2533 in 2009, a sizeable increase on the 457 new claims accepted in 2000.” [link added] Continue reading “Quad bike safety issues continue with no end in sight”

Telling is better than being exposed

Many OHS laws place obligations on employers to notify regulators ( ) of any particularly serious (often defined) incidents. In many jurisdictions regulators are sometimes informed of work-related hospital admissions, for instance, even if employers do not notify. But there is substantial benefit in notifying the regulators early.

Anecdotal evidence shows that by facing up to the reality that an incident has occurred is less costly in the long term as this shows that one is aware of one’s OHS obligations and willing to apply them.

The wisdom of reporting incidents in a timely manner is perhaps illustrated by a 17 December 2010 article in The Age newspaper. It is rumoured that incidents involving apprentice tiler Kane Ammerlaan may not have been reported to the OHS regulator in Victoria, WorkSafe.

Prompt reporting may not have been able to improve Ammerlaan’s situation relating to the fall but investigations into this possibly life-changing incident could have begun much earlier, and when evidence was easier to collate.

Ammerlaan also alleges that:

‘Through my six weeks I was constantly abused. There was a lot of verbal abuse; they’d throw stuff at me; I was shot with a nail gun on a few occasions.”

This may raise, yet again, the safety issue of the treatment of young workers and apprentices; an issue on which the community seems to require regular reminding.

Kevin Jones

Make buying a business a safe choice

A recent prosecution by SafeWorkSA illustrates an odd situation but one of considerable importance.

The media release of 15 December 2010 reports on the the penalties given to Hermes Precisa Pty Ltd (A$24,600) and Salmat Document Management Solutions Pty Ltd (A$22,400) for breaches of OHS law in May 2008. The circumstances of the offence are:

” A male plant operator was working with a large guillotine to remove the spines from stationery, when his fingertips were crushed by the clamp of the machine, necessitating their eventual amputation. He remains employed by the company.

The investigation revealed that the employee had received only verbal training and instruction on the use of the machine, and was required to use a wooden block to square up stacks of papers that were to be trimmed.

SafeWork SA told the court that the wooden block was insufficient to protect the worker’s hand and neither company provided safe systems of work for the task involved. A purpose-built blocking tool that did protect the operator’s hand had been lost a year previously. “

The obvious lesson from the incident is in the last paragraph – maintain safety equipment and replace what is broken or lost.

But the curious element of the prosecution is that it is rare for two companies to be prosecuted and guilty for the one offence. Continue reading “Make buying a business a safe choice”

Category: law

WorkSafe prosecutes Dept of Corrective Services and G4S

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NZ Coroner presses for changes in quad bike safety

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