The tenuousness of safety culture

Only a few days ago, SafetyAtWorkBlog questioned the usefulness of vision statements.  A leaked internal memorandum from the structural mechanical process division of John Holland reported in the Australian media on 27 April 2009 shows just how tenuous such statements can be. According to an article in the Australian Financial Review (not available online, page … Continue reading “The tenuousness of safety culture”

National OHS Review – initial comments

Several OHS colleagues on an international discussion forum have expressed some opinions on the final report of the Australia’s National Model OHS Law review. Safety Alerts One asked that better and more frequent safety alerts be published by the regulators and that those reports be based on fatalities, injuries and near misses.   There is … Continue reading “National OHS Review – initial comments”

Different political approaches to level crossing safety

In the Melanie Griffiths movie, Working Girl, her character gained inspiration by linking an article in the social pages of a newspaper with a business article in the paper, much to Sigourney Weaver’s professional embarrassment.  This week SafetyAtWorkBlog received a similar confluence of information. Following a fatal level crossing collision in Queensland between a passenger … Continue reading “Different political approaches to level crossing safety”

Australian CEOs and workplace safety

One of the tasks I have in my consultancy is assisting the Safety Institute of Australia to promote their Safety In Action conferences.  As part of this I have been able to provide some videos from the May 2008 conference.  The videos are excerpts from the presentations of four of the chief executive officers and company directors who spoke … Continue reading “Australian CEOs and workplace safety”

Pipeline explosion may lead to invocation of emergency powers

This post is receiving a lot of attention from around the world so, although, at the moment, the workplace safety issues have diminished, it is interesting to note that The Australian newspaper for 12 June 2008 reports that the Premier, Alan Carpenter, has acknowledged that he may need to invoke emergency powers to seize control … Continue reading “Pipeline explosion may lead to invocation of emergency powers”