The latest paper from OHSIntros has been released, focusing on work-related fatalities in Victoria for 2017. These papers are produced independently but with good analysis. It’s not on the scale of “big data” but it does not need to be.
This article looks at the farm deaths data in the report, asks some long-overdue questions and offers radical safety scenarios. Continue reading “Safety radicalism needed for farm safety in Victoria”
This article is part one of an edited version of a keynote presentation I made at the a special WHS Inspectors Forum organised by WorkSafe Tasmania. The audience comprised inspectors from around Australia and New Zealand. I was asked to be provocative and challenging so posed some questions to the audience about how occupational health and safety (OHS) is managed, regulated and inspected.
The audio of the presentation is available at SoundCloud and Podbean and below.
“The purpose of this session is to provide insight into the future challenges for work health and safety regulators due to changes in the nature of work, the workforce, supply chains, and the social and political environments, and encourage inspectors to consider how the way they do their work may need to change to meet these challenges.”
Be Critical
I encourage you all to analyse what you say, what you are told, what you do and how you do it. Too often we accept information and our situations uncritically and I want you to question everything, including what you read in this article.
ON 22 November 2018, two days before the State Election, the Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance released a document called the “Release of costing of election commitment“. Most of the media attention was on the removal of a self-imposed “debt cap” by Treasurer, Tim Pallas, but there is an interesting footnote that seems to involve using some of WorkSafe Victoria’s premium income as a dividend to fund infrastructure.
Attachment A – “Summary of Labor’s 2018 Election Commitments” – lists the following table (figures are in millions):
Footnote 3 says:
The Victorian Liberal/National Coalition’s election platform is available on-line, or at least an outline is. On 21 November 2018 a couple of days out from the State Election, Opposition Leader, Matthew Guy, released the Coalition’s 6-page plan for their first 100 days in office, should they win on Saturday.
The State Platform of the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia makes no mention of occupational health and safety (OHS) but there are many beliefs that would be dramatically affected if OHS is not managed appropriately.
Further to this morning’s article, the Victorian Greens provided the following information:
“The Greens believe that:
- Every employee deserves to be safe in the workplace
- Going to work should not involve putting lives at risk
- Harsh penalties should be in place to deter employers from cutting corners on workplace safety
- The law must provide justice for victims and families should preventable accidents occur in the workplace
Earlier this year, Nina Springle MP called on the Victorian Government to introduce corporate and industrial manslaughter laws. You can read more about it in the link below:
https://greens.org.au/vic/news/media-release/keeping-victorians-safe-work
In other states around Australia, the Greens have continually been strong advocates for industrial manslaughter laws.”
The policy platform of the Victorian Greens party has been publicly available for some time but there is only one paragraph in the 22 page document that directly addresses occupational health and safety (OHS):
“We voted for regulating labour hire, we will support criminalising wage theft, and we have called for industrial manslaughter laws.” (page 26)
But if a generous definition of workplace health and safety is applied there are several other policies of interest.
The Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party has had its 2018 policy platform available online for sometime. Given that the State election is on November 24, 2018 it is timely to look at the ALP’s new, or restated, commitments.
In its section on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) the ALP claims that its support of WorkSafe Victoria’s
“…behavioural change campaigns has seen a reduction over time in workplace injury and death, however there remain some businesses which continue to show little regard for the safety of their workforce.” (page 17)