American legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein does not write about occupational health and safety (OHS) directly, but he writes about the society in which OHS operates. In November 2022, he reviewed an economics book in an article called “Accounting for the Human Cost.” OHS may have a strong moral core, but one can argue that it is more of an economic discipline due to the necessity for analyzing costs and benefits to gauge compliance with laws and regulations.
Recent statistics on farm safety by AgHealth Australia reported in an earlier article, have also garnered attention from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The focus is on the number of deaths associated with side-by-side (SXS) vehicles, and farming seems to be treated as a special work health and safety case. Farming is not exceptional but represents different cultural values that deserve greater attention.
The Australia Institute is a progressive (Left-leaning) research institute that recently commemorated its 30th anniversary with a book called “What’s the Big Idea?” Contributors are compatible with the Institute’s ideologies, but some chapters overlap with occupational health and safety (OHS).
Recently, the Weekly Times reported* some disturbing statistics about farm-related deaths in Victoria. It summarised the AgHealth Australia data as:
“Farm deaths have doubled in the past 12 months, with vehicles the leading contributing factor, as farmers and authorities label the issue an emergency.
Seventy-two people died and there were 133 serious injuries in 2024, new AgHealth Australia data shows, up from 32 deaths in 2023 and 55 in 2022.
In Victoria, there were 16 deaths in 2024, up from seven in 2023.”
Recently former WorkSafe Victoria executive, Dr Narelle Beer, penned an article in LinkedIn called “Going to work should not kill you!” The article is a good introduction to occupational health and safety (OHS) but some important points are overlooked or unexplored.
Australia has learned much from its consideration of psychosocial factors that can generate psychological harm in workers over the last decade. By the end of 2025, all Australian jurisdictions will likely have re-emphasised the psychological elements of employers’ and workers’ occupational health and safety (OHS) duties. However, the legislative changes are likely to fail to improve workers’ mental health because at least one of those psychosocial factors is too confronting and uncomfortable to employers.
At the end of February 2025, a farmer in England was jailed for 12 months following a successful prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive. In 2022, the farmer, Neil Speakman, drove over his three-year-old son, Albie, in a telehandler that Speakman was not qualified to use and had restricted visibility. Speakman was jailed after he failed to ensure the health and safety of his son.
If this type of incident had happened in Australia, it is uncertain whether a farmer would receive a custodial sentence because the community may feel that the farmer and their family would have “been punished enough” by the loss of their child. Why can England do what Australia resists?
