Inspectors – Page 12 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Changing the OHS guard

John Merritt is leaving WorkSafe Victoria to head up the Environmental Protection Authority. Nothing special in such a move as such progression is part of many senior executive public servant’s career plans. But Victoria’s politicians have started to use this change for political point-scoring on the basis that Merritt is married to Victorian parliamentarian, Maxine Morand.

This is unfortunate but not surprising. The political argy-bargy implies that John Merritt is undeserving of his new appointment and this is not the case.

I have met John Merritt over a number of years and from before he became the executive director of WorkSafe in 2001. During his time with the National Safety Council of Australia, there was an air of optimism in this moribund organisation, the same air he brought to WorkSafe. I interviewed him regularly

Continue reading “Changing the OHS guard”

Cabinet-making compliance

In March 2008, in Western Australia, a 22-year-old worker was crushed to death when a stack of veneered chipboard sheets toppled onto him. This sparked an audit campaign of the cabinet-making industry in 2009 by WorkSafe WA about which some results were released on 12 January 2010.

Such results are not often covered in this blog but the number of improvement notices provide a useful summary of the persistent hazards present in this industry and on machinery that is used in a variety of workplaces. Continue reading “Cabinet-making compliance”

Potential risks of investigating workers compensation cases

According to a several media reports in the United States, a private investigator, Matthew Brady, who was investigating a workers compensation case whilst hiding in the woods was mistaken for a turkey and shot by the man he was investigating. Brady was operated on in the local hospital.

As the Workers Comp Insider Blog states:

“Investigator Brady was hit in the side, back and legs. He underwent surgery and presumably filed his own workers comp claim for what is surely a work-related – if highly unusual – disability.”

Kevin Jones

This may not work for OHS but why not?

On 9 November 2009 public submissions close on Australia’s model OHS Act but the move for harmonisation and, hopefully, a simplification for business and government continues in other areas.

The Australian Transport Council (ATC) met on 6 November 2009 and agreed on many Council of Australian Governments (COAG) matters concerning unnecessary bureaucratic duplication:

“ATC agreed to recommend to COAG that South Australia would be the host jurisdiction for the national rail safety regulator.

ATC also agreed to recommend to COAG that a host jurisdiction for the national heavy vehicle regulator be agreed, noting that New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have expressed interest.

It was agreed that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority will be the national regulator for maritime safety, responsible for regulating commercial vessels. This is a significant step towards national uniformity.”

There were several other initiatives mentioned – level crossing safety, a National Road Safety Council, minimum standard for taxi drivers.

But the recommendations above decentralise some of the bureaucracy. At the HR Leaders Awards recently, the CEO of Carnival cruise liners, Anne Cherry, said that many public servants exist in a unique policy environment of the capital city, Canberra, and the policies reflect this.

SafetyAtWorkBlog would like to suggest a change that could occur within the enforcement parameters of the OHS model law review.

Let’s consider a national mine safety regulator with offices located in each of the mineral resources regions of Australia. Could transport regulators have offices within, or just outside, major port facilities? Major hazards regulators in major hazards zones?

There is much information bandied around about flexible working arrangements and the use of new technology to unite isolated workplaces. How radical would it be to split the centralised OHS regulators’ offices into hazard-based offices in rural, regional and suburban locations? The inspectors would be adjacent to the hazard locations for enforcement and the advisers are on hand for assistance to industry. The locations could even be seasonal to deal with seasonal industries and labour forces.

OHS enforcement policies would remain the same, only the place of implementation and coordination would change.

Most OHS regulators already have a a couple of regional offices but mostly these remain in the outer suburbs of the capital cities. Some entire departments have relocated to satellite towns for cost reasons but also to provide employment opportunities outside the major population centres.

Could OHS be regulated and enforced across a country the size of Australia and through the major industrial and resource structures, without the concentrations of policy-makers and inspectors in city offices?

Kevin Jones

National scaffolding campaign

This week a national scaffolding safety campaign was launched in Australia. There are several sources for new and useful information about the campaign, two are below.

Mike Hammond of law firm, Deacons, has written a backgrounder on the need for the campaign and how to prepare for the compliance visits. Hammond lists the key messages form the campaign as

“The campaign is designed to ensure compliance with existing workplace safety laws in relation to scaffolding;
Increase industry awareness of the safety issues associated with using unsafe scaffolding;
Recent incidents have highlighted a need to be vigilant when erecting, altering, using and dismantling scaffolding; and
A wide range of trades that use scaffolding are exposed to significant risks of death and injury when the scaffolding does not comply with AS 1576.”

WorkSafe WA Commissioner Nina Lyhne said in a media release on 24 July 2009 that

“The construction industry is a high risk industry. Sadly, we still see a large number of injuries and deaths on construction sites.

WorkSafe [WA] focuses a lot of attention on education as well as on enforcement to reinforce the need for improved safety. Recent scaffolding incidents have led to the death of a number of workers and seriously injured others across Australia.

Industry is being advised of the intervention campaign, and inspectors from WA will be undertaking inspections over two months from 1 August to 30 September.”

Kevin Jones

The OHS recommendations the Australian Government rejected

According to the Communiqué of the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council on 18 May 2009, the following issues should be considered when drafting the new OHS legislation

“Application of the primary duty of care to any person conducting a business or undertaking

The panel recommends that the primary duty of care should be owed by any person conducting a business or undertaking. The objective of this recommendation is to move away from the traditional emphasis on the employment relationship as the determiner of the primary duty, to provide greater health and safety protection for all persons involved in, or affected by, work activity. Care needs to be taken during drafting to ensure that the scope of the duty is limited to matters of occupational health and safety and does not further extend into areas of public safety that are not related to the workplace activity. “

The first part of this is recognition of the variety of workplaces Australia now has, the number of people within worksites who are not employees and the previous issues of OHS and unpaid volunteers. It seems to expand to matters of public liability but then, curiously, pulls back to emphasise occupational health and safety. As Michael Tooma has noted, circumstances seem to have passed beyond the arbitrariness of the occupational categorisation. Continue reading “The OHS recommendations the Australian Government rejected”

Workplace safety can be funny

This week workplace safety on a building site received a much needed dose of humour. The Australian show “ThankGod, You’re Here” had a comedian enter a pretend building site and have to face questions from an OHS inspector as if he was the owner of the site.

The sketch has added impact because of its timing. It is hard to imagine this occurring ten years ago in a society and industry where OHS compliance was less valued, when hardhats were considered optional and when brightly-coloured vests looked stupid. That the sketch is funny is a measure of how OHS regulation and enforcement has matured and just how successful the OHS regulators have been in changing the society’s attitudes to workplace safety in Australia.

Also, it shows something more illustrative of comedy, more true. In the sketch there are some wonderful stunts done by a small earthmover. Only last year there was outrage, and fines, over some forklift stunts done for real by a young driver in Melbourne. The environment makes the difference between laughter and outrage.

The success of the TV show’s concept is also indicated by the issue of the 12-year-old welder on the building site. The comedian, Merrick Watts, removes the issue of age by insisting the young boy is actually in his fifties and just looks younger.

WorkSafe Victoria, whose logo is worn by the pretend inspectors in the sketch, have said that they did not pay for brand placement and that the show did not belittle the work they do. In fact the show “actually showed that we have a job to do and that there are good reasons for it.”

Kevin Jones

Category: Inspectors

Changing the OHS guard

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Cabinet-making compliance

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Potential risks of investigating workers compensation cases

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This may not work for OHS but why not?

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National scaffolding campaign

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The OHS recommendations the Australian Government rejected

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Workplace safety can be funny

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