Category: risk

Dirty tricks in quad bike debate

This week an online entity has been establishing itself on various social media platforms as “Say No To OPDs”, “Ban The Bar” and combinations of those phrases. These sites are asking people to make submissions to the current inquiry into establishing a quad bike safety standard which is being managed through the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) at the instigation of the Federal Government. This is not an inquiry about quad bike safety; that occurred last year with the ACCC report handed down earlier this year. It is an inquiry about a specific element of safety but this has not stopped a coordinated online push to reject the ACCC’s broader safety and product design recommendations.

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What does the recent election result mean for workplace health and safety?

This article was written after a request from the Safety Institute of Australia and distributed to its members on June 4, 2019. Some additional links have been added.[If you want exclusive OHS-based articles, contact Kevin Jones directly]

So, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) did not win the Federal Election that most people expected it to win.  As a result, Australia is likely to NOT see, at a national level:

  • “a harmonised industrial manslaughter offence”,
  • An implementation of all of the recommendations of the Boland Report, nor
  • “a national advisory committee made up of representatives from each state and territory who have been personally impacted by a serious workplace injury or death to develop recommendations for federal, state and territory governments to act upon.”
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Glyphosate – read the label, assess the risk, take precautions

The debate on the risks of using glyphosate products to control weeds continues to ripple around the world largely sparked by the global penetration of media reports from the United States. It is important to look at the risks without the unique litigation climate in the United States. A recent Australian report by SBS television emphasises to the occupational health and safety (OHS) risks of glyphosate.

The report started with mention of reviews into the use of glyphosate products by New South Wales councils and the Victorian Government. It would disappointing if such reviews had not already been conducted given the glyphosate was identified as possible carcinogenic several years ago. That change in the state of knowledge of a hazard should have been sufficient for all glyphosate users to reassess their risks.

This was followed up by information on the residual environmental impacts that was reminiscent of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring but is not strictly an OHS matter.

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Farm safety gets more funding

Further to the recent article on the Victorian Government’s Budget Papers, farm safety programs received the funding to support the pledges made by the Australian Labor Party in last year’s Victorian election campaign. As with many occupational health and safety (OHS) announcements, details are hard to obtain but the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) has helped.

The Victorian Budget papers pledged funds to

  • employ two additional Farm Safety Officers.
  • increase health checks for farmers.
  • deliver a new campaign to raise greater workplace safety awareness.
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A strong safety conference

The Safety Institute of Australia continues to rebuild its member services, its finances and its reputation. In fact, it is so confident in its future that it has changed its name and brand to reflect this path. From July 2019 it will be known as the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS). A critical element of the SIA/AIHS strategy is it national conference, the second of which was held in Sydney at the end of May 2019, and it is worth asking whether the conference matched the Institute’s renewed pathway.

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OHS inaction is “a complete disgrace”

Matthew Peacock is an award-winning Australian journalist and one of the very few in Australia who can bring an informed and nuanced perspective to the topic of occupational health and safety (OHS). Last week he was invited to speak at the dinner of the Safety Institute of Australia‘s Conference. According to some delegates, he roasted the OHS profession; to others, he set the profession a deserved challenge.

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More voices raised about quad bike safety

According the Weekly Times newspaper on May 8 2019 (paywalled), Mojo Motorcycles remains committed to the Australian quad bike market. Polaris acknowledges that

“…. ATVs will go the way of the dodo.”

The Farmsafe and National Farmers Federation (NFF) Workforce Committee, Charles Armstrong, has, in Farmonline National, described the threats by Honda and Yamaha as

“….. an astonishingly infantile reaction from otherwise respected multinational companies.”

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