Any OHS strategy needs to generate spillovers

Reading Safe Work Australia’s latest ten-year strategy forced me to think creatively. SWA’s discussion of Persistent Challenges suggests controls that are almost all at the Administrative Control level – education, awareness, knowledge, training, understanding, support, communication and more.  This is after admitting that: “Injury and fatality rates have fallen significantly over the last decade. However, progress has slowed.” Page 5 How can …

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Trucking inquiries scare the Conservatives

Australia’s newspapers have recently reported on the moves by the Federal Government to review the safety and working conditions of the country’s truck drivers. As expected, The Australian newspaper is painting this as the Government paying back its ideological and financial backers – the trade unions – and the resurrection of the Road Safety Remuneration …

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A fair dinkum fair go?

A New Work Relations Architecture is a radical book for Australia. Radical because its authors are proposing industrial relations reform, and Australia has had very little of this since Prime Minister John Howard‘s attempt with Workchoices in 2005. Radical also because it has taken inspiration from the Robens approach to occupational health and safety (OHS) …

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Engineering controls are possible, and they save lives

The issue of quad bike safety has largely disappeared from the mainstream media. This is largely due to the decline in opposition to installing Crush Protection Devices (CPD) on newly-purchased quad bikes in line with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) mandated safety standards. On November 24 2022, the ACCC released statistics that showed …

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You don’t have to talk about OHS to talk about OHS

On November 16 2022, Tony Burke, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, spoke at the National Press Club in Canberra. Although his portfolio has occupational health and safety (OHS), workplace health and safety was mentioned only once in passing. In this instance, that’s okay because he is trying to pass a major piece of industrial …

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Past findings may offer strategies for the future

Further to the recent article about the 2004 Maxwell Report, it is useful to note the recommendations peppered throughout the report, as collated by K Lee Adams. Although aimed at the Victorian Workcover Authority and WorkSafe Victoria, these are interesting ideas that could be asked of any occupational health and safety (OHS) authority currently. Some …

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SafeWorkSA’s approach to psychological harm is as much as it can do but doesn’t have to be

The harm presented by working in Australia’s mining sector has been a concern for a long time. Over the last decade or two, the psychosocial harm from the same work has come to the fore. The occupational health and safety (OHS) responsibility sits clearly with the employers who, in Australia, are often well-resourced national and …

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