Just before Christmas in 2023, Antoinette Lattouf was taken off-air by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation halfway through her five-day contract as a radio fill-in. It sparked an acrimonious unfair dismissal dispute. Last week the Australian Labour Law Association held a webinar on the case which touched on the occupational health and safety (OHS) perspective.
The latest edition of New Zealand’s excellent occupational health and safety (OHS) magazine, Safeguard (long may it reign…. in hard copy), included its annual income survey of OHS professionals. Some Australian organisations also do this, but their findings can be expensive to access.
I ran Safeguard’s data summary through AI to provide a text-based profile of a “typical” NZ OHS professional. It offers an interesting contrast to what we have in Australia.
Australia’s efforts to enhance the health and safety of its workers are hindered by the constitutional framework, which assigns responsibility for occupational health and safety (OHS) to local jurisdictions.
Recent comments by a Federal Minister on sexual harassment illustrate this dilemma, which is not restricted to OHS.
I have been writing about the safety of quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles for many years. The debate over quad bike safety was one of the most complex and vicious I have ever seen. In some minds, the issue has been resolved in Australia, but farmers continue to die from these vehicles.
Below is a brief 5-minute video about some of the OHS issues associated with these vehicles. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, especially if you think a book about the issues would be worthwhile.
The audio will be available soon on the SafetyAtWorkBlog SoundCloud feed.
SafetyAtWorkBlog followed the quad bike safety saga, and dozens of exclusive articles are available for subscribers.
I have had a very positive response to my short audio summaries of SafetyAtWorkBlog articles available through SoundCloud. These free 5 or 6-minute monologues are intended to be short, thought-provoking chats about various aspects of occupational health and safety.
Almost a dozen have been posted over the last few weeks on topics such as suicidality, farm safety, compliance, ethics, COVID-19, seminars, and new books.
If you are interested in quick digestible thought pieces, please consider a free subscription through SoundCloud.
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As Victoria shivers in the middle of its Winter and a cop-killer runs loose in the mountains in the middle of the state, it may seem odd to think about the occupational health and safety (OHS) context of working in excessive heat. However, give us a couple of months, and it will be a hot topic again in the Southern Hemisphere. (First and last weather pun, I promise)
A recent article in The New York Times (paywalled) examined excessive heat in Spain, providing useful details on the changes being implemented—some old, some new.
Two major Australian media outlets are continuing to focus on the issue of working from home (WFH), criticising the concept and some local political moves. WFH offers some significant mental health benefits that are being largely ignored. The front page of The Australian newspaper for September 1, 2025, provides the latest example.
