In 2016, a survey of General Practitioners (GPs) conducted by Monash University identified that GPs frequently struggled with patients involved with workers compensation and that mental illnesses were particularly problematic.
In January 2018 Monash University, with the support of major institutions and safety
Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, has been prominent in recent seminars about sexual harassment, particularly in the entertainment industry. In February 2018, Jenkins spoke at a seminar in Melbourne hosted by Screen Producers Australia and provided strong advice on how businesses can control sexual harassment.
Jenkins began her presentation with an uncomfortable reminder that business has been lax in addressing unlawful workplace behaviour.
“Every year something like 1,000 people are killed at their work in this country. Every year about half a million suffer injuries in varying degrees of severity. 23 million working days are lost annually on account of industrial injury and disease.”
The existence of this statement is of no surprise to occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals. Similar statements are made all the time. The sad surprise of this quote is that it appeared in 1972 on page 1 of the Safety and Health at Work – Report of the Committee 1970-72, otherwise know as the Robens Report.
Perhaps it is time to begin contemplating what OHS fundamentals we should apply in the next generation of workplace safety health and wellbeing laws ?
February 2018 is an important month for the SafetyAtWorkBlog as it is the 10th anniversary of the blog’s operation and the 1st anniversary of our subscription service.
Firstly, I need to thank the over-100 subscribers who have shown their appreciation for an independent voice on workplace health and safety. I do not claim to be right but I do claim to be provocative and provide a fresh perspective on OHS. I have had particularly positive feedback on the recent series of articles on sexual harassment and OHS.
The funds from subscriptions have provided me with the opportunity to attend local and international OHS conferences in 2017 and to provide exclusive reports back to subscribers. It has also allowed me to commission some works from other OHS people outside of Australia – a unique report on the OHS of wildlife rangers will be appearing shortly.
For those several thousand followers who don’t subscribe, I hope you appreciate the occasional free-access articles, the statistics certainly indicate there are plenty of you out there. Some basic stats for the SafetyAtWorkBlog in its first year of subscriptions include
I hope that the subscribers will resubscribe this year and that they will encourage others to. Some will automatically have their subscriptions renew automatically, other subscriptions will expire (depending on the purchase process you chose) and require a manual purchase.
Regardless I think it is the best $200 you will spend on your OHS state of knowledge this year.
I need also to thank the tireless work of the people at Concatenate who designed the website from the ground up and continue to do so.
Best Regards and Thanks
Several past SafetyAtWorkBlog articles have been posted in SoundCloud as audio files. One article is a reading of two articles from last year about Queensland’s industrial manslaughter laws.
The other reminds us that sexual harassment and sexual assault did not appear in relation to Harvey Weinstein accusations. The Australian Human Rights Commission report into sexual assault on university campuses provides an additional context to sexual harassment and workplace health and safety.
Both articles are also available below:
Industrial Manslaughter
Sexual Assault in Universities
A recent SafetyAtWorkBlog article promoted in LinkedIn has generated many responses, mostly from people who have not read the whole original article, about whether sexual harassment is or is not an occupational health and safety (OHS) matter. Below is a summary of some of those comments. Continue reading “Commenters split on who manages sexual harassment”
Victoria is the latest Australian State to introduce laws into Parliament that establish a licencing scheme for labour hire operators. The Labour Hire Licensing Bill 2017 was read into Parliament on 14 December 2017 (Hansard, pages 55-61)
The Bill is compatible with the laws passed recently in Queensland and South Australia which apply a universal licencing scheme rather than a sectoral one as preferred by some organisations. This should make the scheme easier to administer as it removes demarcation disputes and, as pointed out by the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Luke Donnellan, removes loopholes of opportunity for avoiding obligations – a critical consideration in a sector that has shown such disregard for legal obligations. Continue reading “Victoria joins the push for licencing labour hire”