Recently Australia’s Minister for Resources, Madeleine King, spoke at an event hosted by the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The speech aimed to reassure the State’s mining sector to not feel threatened by the new Australian Labor Party government. However, her words about sexual harassment were a little odd.
According to the publicly released speech, King said this on the issue of the labour shortage in mining and resources:
On a chilly night in Ballarat, over a hundred people gathered outside the Town Hall, within which the City Council was meeting, to let the Council know that the awarding of millions of dollars of ratepayers’ money to a local company that admitted to breaching occupational health and safety (OHS) laws and that led to the deaths of two local workers was not acceptable.
The event seem coordinated by the local Trades Hall Council, for the usual inflatable rat and fat cat were next to the ute, which was blasting out protest songs. Almost all the speakers were trade unionists, although one was Andy Meddick from the Animal Justice Party. The protest may not have achieved the changes that many speakers called for, but as is the case with these types of events, Council has given some ground with a likely review of the OHS procurement criteria.
In November last year, Pipecon was found guilty of breaching its occupational health and safety (OHS) duties concerning the deaths of two of the company’s workers in and from a trench collapse. An offence to which the company pleaded guilty. (Details of the incident and prosecution can be found HERE – search for Pipecon). The Ballarat Council has awarded the company a road construction project valued at over $2 million. Should the Council have done so? How does this decision affect the deterrence message that OHS prosecutions are supposed to generate? What does this say about the criteria used in procuring services?
On August 26 2022, Australia’s Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, spoke at a union conference. This is not an unusual event for Ministers, but the timing of Burke’s address was less than a week before a major Jobs and Skills Summit – the hottest political event in town at the moment. The transcript of the speech provides clues and hints as to how occupational health and safety (OHS) may or may not be discussed.
There is an early indication that safe workplaces are important (heart skips a beat), but then it seems shunted to the side. Burke said:
Commitments to occupational health and safety (OHS) not only appear in Parliamentary debates on workplace safety. Last week, Labor Party politician Will Fowles reiterated the Victorian government’s OHS commitment in a speech about justice amendments and the police.
“This justice legislation amendment bill also establishes a legislative framework for the restorative engagement and redress scheme to support current and former Victoria Police [VicPol] employees who have experienced past workplace sex discrimination or sexual harassment.
Deterrence has always been a major aim of enforcing occupational health and safety (OHS) laws and prosecuting wrongdoers. But the legal system and medical coverage have become so convoluted that the deterrent potential has declined.
In light of many workplace sexual harassment scandals in Australia, the Victorian Government established a task force to look at the issues and make recommendations. That task force has released its findings, the government has responded, and the media has focused on mainly one issue – non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) – missing out on other important information. And questions like, why did Victoria have the task force at all?
