Last year SafeWork South Australia was evaluated by that State’s Independent Commission against Corruption. A couple of years ago Martyn Campbell (pictured right) took on the role as the Executive Director. SafeWork SA had obvious challenges and Campbell has needed to recalibrate the organisation to meet contemporary standards and expectations.
SafetyAtWorkBlog had the chance to put some questions to Martyn Campbell recently. Below are his responses.
Australian research into occupational health and safety (OHS) is a lot less than research into other areas of business and management, especially in relation to the psychological wellbeing of workers at all levels of the corporate structure. As such, it has become common for experts, advocates and researchers from the social, non-work, public health areas to overlay general and broad research findings on to workplaces – they are, in effect, filling a vacuum. But just because the OHS research into psychological harm is thin or immature does not mean that work does not have its own characteristics.
Over many years OHS has produced research and guidelines that include the psychological effect of sexual harassment, but it has been ineffectual or ignored for may reasons. This submission is an attempt to illustrate the potential already in existence in Australia that could be used to prevent sexual harassment-related psychological harm.
Australia, as are many other countries, is in the transition phase for the latest Standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems – ISO45001. The Standard has been accepted by Australia as relevant to its jurisdiction and discussion seem quiet. However, the work of the technical committee on this Standard (SF-001) continues. The Head of the Delegation for Standards Australia responsible for the 45001 series of Standards, David Solomon, provided the following status update.
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) has formed a new International Technical Committee (TC283) that has been charged with the responsibility of developing the following standards that are in the suite of international Standards that ISO45001 leads.
The trade union movement was instrumental in showing that workplace bullying was a pervasive problem in Australian workplaces. Many Codes of Practice and guidances for workplace bullying and occupational violence were written shortly after the action by the Australian Council of Trade Unions almost two decades ago. But, for some reason, although sexual harassment was mentioned in those early documents, it never received the attention in occupational health and safety (OHS) circles that, in hindsight, it should have.
Perhaps a more sustainable and effective strategy would be to focus on the “harassment” rather than the “sexual”, or in
The policy platform of the Victorian Greens party has been publicly available for some time but there is only one paragraph in the 22 page document that directly addresses occupational health and safety (OHS):
“We voted for regulating labour hire, we will support criminalising wage theft, and we have called for industrial manslaughter laws.” (page 26)
But if a generous definition of workplace health and safety is applied there are several other policies of interest.
It was reported on October 11 2018 that Australia’s Health Minister, Greg Hunt, has called for:
“… state workplace regulators to immediately investigate risks to the health of stonemasons, and stop unsafe work practices.”
Some reports have said that a statement was issued:
“Mr Hunt issued a statement saying he and the Chief Medical Officer would raise the issue at a health COAG meeting in Adelaide on Friday. He said the meeting would be asked to consider whether a national dust diseases register should be developed.”
However the Minister’s Office has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that no formal statement has been made. This makes it a bit hard to determine what exactly he is asking for on the prevention of silicosis but the States have begun to respond.
The Victorian Minister for Health,
The Victorian Parliament continues to consider the Building Amendment (Registration of Building Trades and Other Matters) Bill 2018. According to one interpretation in the unofficial Hansard:
“This bill’s objectives are to deliver better outcomes for domestic building consumers and building practitioners through further improvements to the practitioner registration and disciplinary system, improve compliance with swimming pool and spa barrier standards and implement some recommendations of the Victorian Cladding Taskforce and the Coroners Court.”
There are many aspects to this Bill, one of which is occupational health and safety (OHS).