Western Australia’s transition to harmonising with the Model Work Health and Safety laws is progressing, according the recently released Budget Papers for 2019/20.
Volume 1 of Budget Paper No 2 lists some significant issues for the Government and specifically the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety:
Three days out from Election Day, Opposition (Labor) Leader Bill Shorten gives occupational health and safety (OHS) a shout-out (sort of).
On May 13 2019 the Australian media published articles based on research (released after embargo) conducted by the RMIT’s Centre for Innovative Justice and about victims of crime which those advocating for Industrial Manslaughter laws should seriously consider.
The Age newspaper reports
“Victims of crime felt let down by the system when offenders pleaded guilty to a less serious charge and did not proceed to trial ‘‘ because they wanted the opportunity to tell their story’’ , …..”
and that
“One victim interviewed during the research said they felt left out of discussions with the OPP when charges in their case were downgraded from murder to manslaughter for a plea of guilt …”
Occupational health and safety (OHS) seems a little ahead of the game here as relatives of deceased workers have been integrated into OHS consultation in both Queensland and Victoria. Relatives had a very strong voice through the Senate Inquiry into Industrial Deaths. Victim Impact Statements have been possible in the Courts for many years but Industrial Manslaughter laws add an additional depth to the participation of victims of industrial crime, and an additional risk of false promises.
In June 2018, Rick Sarre, now the Dean of Law at the University of South Australia’s School of Law, wrote an article in The Conversation titled
“Why industrial manslaughter laws are unlikely to save lives in the workplace“. On the eve of the #safetyscape conference and an upcoming conference on enforcement in which presentations on Industrial Manslaughter laws will feature, SafetyAtWorkBlog asked the very busy Professor for an update on some of the themes and thoughts in his article. Below are his responses.
A week out from Australia’s Federal Election and a major national workplace health and safety conference in Sydney, I produced a video update and a podcast about some recent SafetyAtWorkBlog articles, some new books and what’s coming up in this blog.
If you are able to attend the #safetyscape conference next week, chase me down for a selfie. upload it to Twitter or Instagram and receive a month’s free subscription to the SafetyAtWorkBlog.
The Victorian Government’s inquiry into the on-demand, or gig, economy has released 100 of its public submissions. Occupational health and safety (OHS) is a second-order consideration in the structure and regulation of this evolving work sector in a similar way to how OHS was considered in the inquiries into Labour Hire, but it is still there and several of the Victorian inquiry submissions mention it. Sadly, not always in a helpful way.
According the Weekly Times newspaper on May 8 2019 (paywalled), Mojo Motorcycles remains committed to the Australian quad bike market. Polaris acknowledges that
“…. ATVs will go the way of the dodo.”
The Farmsafe and National Farmers Federation (NFF) Workforce Committee, Charles Armstrong, has, in Farmonline National, described the threats by Honda and Yamaha as
“….. an astonishingly infantile reaction from otherwise respected multinational companies.”