As October is Australia’s Safe Work Month there are several awards evenings. On 19 October 2017, Victoria’s WorkSafe conducted theirs. It was a sedate evening in comparison to previous events. Very few tables whoop-ed their nominations, the MC did not leer at the female waiters and none of the winners danced across the stage. But …
Industrial manslaughter laws passed through the Queensland Parliament on October 12 2017. The debate about the laws on that day is an interesting read as it illustrates some of the thoughts about workplace safety in the minds of policy decision makers, business owners, industry associations, trade unions and safety advocates. Lawyer for Herbert Smith Freehills, … Continue reading “Industrial manslaughter debate reveals commitment and misunderstandings”
The Queensland Government is in the middle of a debate in Parliament and the media about the introduction of industrial manslaughter as an offence related to serious occupational health and safety (OHS) breaches. It is both a good and a bad time for this debate. The laws are likely to pass but the debate is …
One of the best elements of Sidney Dekker’s new Safety Differently documentary is that he is only in it for a few of its thirty minutes. It is not that he has nothing to say but the expected audience for this documentary would already be familiar with Dekker’s take on Safety Differently. This documentary provides …
Jim Ward is hardly known outside the Australian trade union movement but many people over the age of thirty, or in the occupational health and safety (OHS) profession, may remember the person Esso blamed for the Esso Longford explosion in 1998. Just after the nineteenth anniversary of the incident that killed two workers and injured …
Leo Ruschena has been a fixture in the occupational health and safety (OHS) scene in Victoria Australia for many years. In a short while he retires from his work as an OHS Lecturer with RMIT University. Retirement often means that knowledge and wisdom becomes less accessible to the public so SafetyAtWorkBlog spent some time with …
The World Congress on Safety And Health 2017 has awarded some media producers for their occupational health and safety (OHS) themed productions. Below is one of them. There is some thematic similarity to WorkSafe Victoria’s Homecoming campaign, specifically to the child wait for the Father to return from work and the mother on the phone, … Continue reading ““Shoelaces” – a safety ad that is impossible to ignore”