lawyers – Page 28 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

What is the OHS “public interest”?

On 7 May 2010 Judge Lacava of the County Court of Victoria increased the $A25,000 fine applied to A Bending Company to $A75,000.

WorkSafe’s Acting Director for Health and Safety, Stan Krpan, said in a media release:

“The fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions [DPP] found the original penalty inadequate, and the increase in the fine on appeal, demonstrates the courts’ attitude towards health and safety offences.”

The DPP made the appeal to the County Court after a request for review of the original fine was made by WorkSafe Victoria. According to the judge’s decision (not yet available online):

“The appeal by the Director is made pursuant to section 84 of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1989. The section gives the Director the power to appeal to this Court “if satisfied that an appeal should be brought in the public interest“.” [emphasis added]

So how was the public interest served by increasing the fine by $A50,000? Continue reading “What is the OHS “public interest”?”

Is OHS part of Labour Law?

The question in the title of this article came about from the release of a fabulous new book by LexisNexis- Butterworths – Australian Labour Law – Text, Cases & Commentary, 5th edition.

Through my introductory look at the book, it seems that occupational health and safety gets around half a page in a book of over 1200 pages. As an OHS reader I was disappointed, as I believe that OHS is an important subset of labour law. My belief is echoed by some Australian publishers who include, usually, a chapter on OHS in their labour law titles. LexisNexis has never been a publisher of OHS information with the market leader being CCH but with Federation Press holding the more quality and original sector.

One possible reason for the lack of OHS is that the authors, Marilyn J Pittard and Richard B Naughton are lecturers in labour law at Monash University and OHS does not feature in their program. Another could be that the book is a monolithic volume already and, perhaps, OHS could not be given adequate attention without adding a couple of pounds to the book and generating a manual handling risk.

It is hoped that LexisNexis realises there is a market opening for authoritative and fresh writing on OHS in Australia, particularly in this period of change due to harmonisation. The morphing of OHS in the areas of due diligence and risk management are particularly interesting to watch. Continue reading “Is OHS part of Labour Law?”

OHS needs plain language, consultation and corporate engagement

An earlier article today provided a reminder of a County Court judge’s criticism of OHS management-speak in a 2004 decision concerning the death of Robert Sergi on a rail bridge construction project near Geelong.

In response to some of the safety initiatives outlined to the Court by the lawyer for Leighton Contractors Ross Ray SC, Judge Gebhardt said:

“Mr Ray pointed to an array of safety initiatives introduced by his client and a welter of documentation was tendered.

I gained the impression from the documents tendered that some form of managerial “hocus pocus” bewitched the company which sought to satisfy the needs and interests of workers with hierarchical and self-serving layers of bureaucratic “bubble-squeak/’ what Mr Ray described as “complex speak”. When the language is destroyed, reality fades and there is no basis for sound and sensible communication. Workers are not instruments, but participants and conversation with them should occur on that basis.”

It is fair to expect that a judge would have come across a large amount of legal jargon through their career and that this could be an advantage in trying to translate management-speak but clearly, in the above situation, this is not the case. Continue reading “OHS needs plain language, consultation and corporate engagement”

Important OHS court decisions go unreported

On 20 May 2010 a Victorian magistrate fined an employer over $A500,000 following a workplace prosecution. Almost all of it went to charity, according to WorkSafe Victoria.

There are several issues raised by Magistrate Vandersteen’s decision:

Why to charity?
Why the particular charities?
Why not allocate the funds to OHS-related organisations or initiatives?
Why does the Magistrates’ Court not make court decisions publicly available?

The workplace incident that started this case was that in August 2008, a 40-year-old man had his arm ripped out of the socket when it became tangled in an unguarded post peeler. He was taken to hospital by an emergency ambulance helicopter where his life was saved. Continue reading “Important OHS court decisions go unreported”

Australian roundtable podcast on workplace bullying

On 21 May 2010, Boardroom Radio (BRR) released a podcast on workplace bullying that includes opinions from some worthy speakers.

Andrew Douglas, Managing Director at Douglas LPT;

Wayne Blair, Fair Work Australia Commissioner;

Gail Hubble, Barrister; and

Anna Palmer, HR Consultant, at Provenio Consulting

Some of the questions are a little peculiar such as whether current generations are more “vulnerable” to bullying. Speakers responded that there are more opportunities for bullying now due to new technologies Continue reading “Australian roundtable podcast on workplace bullying”

Lack of separation of pedestrians and forklifts results in $A24k fine

SafeWorkSA has released details of a successful OHS prosecution concerning forklifts, yet again. But the full judgement has more management information than is usual and deserves to be read in full.

The circumstances, according to a media release (not yet available online) are

“…an incident… in August 2007 in which a 56 year old delivery driver tripped over the tines of a forklift which was about to exit the curtained doorway of a cold-room.”

The judgement in the South Australian Industrial Court expands upon the charge:

“… that Kerafi, being the occupier of a workplace, had failed to ensure so far as was reasonably practicable that means of access to and egress from the workplace was safe. Continue reading “Lack of separation of pedestrians and forklifts results in $A24k fine”

Professor Michael Quinlan on Jeff Shaw’s legacy

The Australian newspaper on 12 May 2010 published an article that is an example of the type of article on the passing of former New South Wales Attorney-General Jeff Shaw that SafetyAtWorkBlog expressed concerns over. For most of the article Shaw’s alcoholism is the focus yet we should not judge a person only by their flaws but by their achievements.

SafetyAtWorkBlog interviewed Professor Michael Quinlan who was closely involved in some of the law reform work that Jeff Shaw instigated in the 1990s when he was the Attorney-General.

Quinlan echoed the opinions of Professor Ron McCallum over Shaw’s commitment to industrial relations and OHS law reform but spoke of a different set of legislation that Quinlan thinks was an important achievement of Shaw. Continue reading “Professor Michael Quinlan on Jeff Shaw’s legacy”

Category: lawyers

What is the OHS “public interest”?

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Is OHS part of Labour Law?

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OHS needs plain language, consultation and corporate engagement

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Important OHS court decisions go unreported

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Australian roundtable podcast on workplace bullying

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Lack of separation of pedestrians and forklifts results in $A24k fine

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Professor Michael Quinlan on Jeff Shaw’s legacy

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