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Category: Andrews
Business case seems to miss worker safety
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Victoria announces a new OHS review
On 11 February 2016, the Victorian Government announced a review into occupational health and safety (OHS) but you would hardly have noticed. The media release gained little attention in any of the mainstream press and yet its terms of reference are quite broad. It will be interesting to see how the review panel sets its agenda.
But, hang on, wasn’t there already some sort of review into WorkSafe Victoria?
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Political disregard for OHS…. again
In 2014 during an election campaign (now Premier of Victoria) Daniel Andrews stated:
“Labor will introduce random breath testing for all Members of Parliament during sitting weeks” and
“Labor will also legislate to give the Chief Justice, the Chief Judge and the Chief Magistrate the power to require these random tests of the judiciary.”
At the time potential drug and alcohol testing on Victorian construction sites was topical.
This week the first pledge was dropped and the second was obfuscated. Where was the safety justification for this pledge in the first place? What was Andrews thinking?
Drug and alcohol testing does not improve workplace safety, so why have it?
Testing for drug and alcohol effects in workplaces sounds sensible but what do you do when there is no evidence that it improves worker safety or reduces risk? Apparently ignore the evidence, create industrial tension and impose unnecessary costs on industry.
The Australian national government and the Victorian (State) government have both pledged to introduce drug and alcohol testing for the construction sector. The Victorian Government also promised to introduce drug and alcohol testing for parliamentarians but everyone expects a backdown on that election pledge.
Recently two researchers in Adelaide, Ken Pidd and Anne Roche published a research paper in Accident Analysis & Prevention asking “how effective is drug testing as a workplace safety strategy?“. The abstract states:
“…the evidence base for the effectiveness of testing in improving workplace safety is at best tenuous.”
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Workplace bullying report lost in the political frenzy
Earlier this year Victorian MP and Minister for Small Business, Adem Somyurek, was accused of bullying his Chief of Staff, Dimity Paul. This week, Somyurek resigned from his Cabinet position but not without a press conference in which he stated that the issue was political payback and that his resignation is no admission of guilt.
As you can see from this very brief summary, party politics has infested this instance of workplace bullying, and to such an extent that the important and solid investigation report into the incident is being missed. The reports are publicly available and deserve to be carefully considered rather than relying on some of the current media coverage. Continue reading “Workplace bullying report lost in the political frenzy”
Secrecy is hard to understand
Over two months ago, SafetyAtWorkBlog sought basic and innocuous information from the office of Victoria’s Industrial Relations Minister, Robin Scott (pictured right at the Workers Memorial in April), about the MacKenzie review in to WorkSafe Victoria that was announced in February 2015. No response was received until 28 July.
A spokesperson for the Minister advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that all details of the review are Cabinet-in-Confidence and therefore cannot be released until Cabinet has discussed the review. An update will be available when that occurs.
It seems odd that information, such as an inquiry’s terms of reference, should be so hush-hush.
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