Moree, Australia – November 25, 2010: A farmer performs a maintenance routine on his John Deere combine harvester in Moree a major agricultural area in New South Wales, Australia.
The Victorian “Labor” Government has submitted its Workplace Manslaughter legislation to its Parliament. Debate is likely to begin, in earnest, from November 12, 2019. There were several surprises on which various business associations have expressed concerns, one surprise was that businesses seem to have been ignored by the government.
In many ways, the challenges are less about the legislation than what those business associations plan to do about occupational health and safety themselves.
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There are a few occupational health and safety (OHS) matters in Australia that happened in the last week that are of note. SafetyAtWorkBlog has put together a quick list of those matters of interest.
Big Mental Health Challenge
“The Australian Capital Territory has appointed its first “dedicated psychological health officer [who] will equip workplaces with the tools and resources needed to support the social and emotional wellbeing of working Canberrans.
The psychological health officer will provide employees, managers and supervisors with support such as information sessions, accessible resources and training programs. WorkSafe ACT inspectors will also receive training and access to ongoing mentoring for responding to psychological hazards.”
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Earlier this years SafetyAtWorkBlog wrote about accusations of a conspiracy between WorkSafe Victoria, Victoria Police, and construction company McConnell Dowell, made by a trade union radio program “The Concrete Gang“. The accusations have been mentioned in mainstreammedia. SafetyAtWorkBlog has obtained more details of the incident.
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This week Safe Work Australia commenced another round of public consultation on the recommendations of the Boland Report. There was no hint of this at last week’s WHS Prosecution and Enforcement Conference. That conference had no speaker from SWA but it did have Marie Boland as a keynote speaker, and even she made no mention of this next stage of consultation. However, the conference was lively, challenging and revealing.
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SafeWorkSA’s CEO, Martyn Campbell, is fast becoming the highest profile occupational health and safety (OHS) regulator in Australia, partly because he has committed to communicating with stakeholders. Recently on the SafetyOnTap podcast Campbell, spoke about non-paper-based compliance. Given the current attention to safety clutter by David Provan and Greg Smith, his comments deserve some brief consideration.
Campbell was speaking about the importance of formalising OHS investigations through ICAM or root cause analysis and how proof of safety compliance comes through paperwork:
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The Victorian Government released its State Budget on May 27, 2019. The Budget Papers include some references to occupational health and safety (OHS).
Infringement Notices
The Budget Papers state that new infringement notices will be available for WorkSafe Victoria to use.
“Workplace safety will be improved through the introduction of infringement notices for a range of occupational health and safety offences, adding to the suite of compliance and enforcement tools available to WorkSafe Victoria.”
Labour Hire Authority Commissioner, Steve Dargavel,
Labour Hire is almost always seen in purely commercial terms of salaries, business costs, production rates, labour availability, migrant workers, and more. Occupational health and safety (OHS) is often seen as an add-on, a term that is included in a media story because it should be, not because the author has really thought about it or sees OHS as legitimate.
Australian States are beginning to introduce certification/regulations schemes for the Labour Hire industry as a result of the exposure of workplace abuses in this labour supply process. Not all States though. Queensland has one that has been running a year or so, Victoria’s is open for registration applications at the end of April 2019 and full operation before the end of 2019; South Australia began its system, but an election changed the political priorities and that scheme is in limbo. The other States are unclear on their preferences, but it is clear that there will be no national labour hire scheme.
Victoria’s Labour Hire Authority (LHA) Commissioner, Steve Dargavel, has just started his roadshow for explaining what the regulations are all about, how to apply, what it will mean and what it will cost. Importantly OHS and workers’ compensation are integral parts of the scheme and therefore part of what the LHA Inspectors will be looking at and enforcing.
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