WorkSafe Victoria is very keen for the safety advice and management discipline to become professional. It is providing considerable technical and financial support to the Safety Institute of Australia and other members of the Health and Safety Professionals Alliance (HaSPA). The current status of HaSPA in Australia has been discussed in other SafetyAtWorkBlog articles. HaSPA … Continue reading “An Ombudsman for the safety profession”
A new Bachelor degree in OHS is being offered at the University of Queensland. Professor of Occupational Health and Safety Mike Capra says in a media release that “graduates would become a new generation of highly-trained OHS specialists who would be in demand due to a workforce shortage.” The New South Wales WorkCover has had … Continue reading “New Bachelor degree in OHS”
WorkSafe and the Safety Institute of Australia are at the forefront of pushing for a defined level of competence for the safety professional. WorkSafe identified this need many years ago and has been working on establishing alliances with safety professions since then to achieve its aims. Significantly similar issues have been discussed in the United … Continue reading “Should OHS regulators be involved in the competence of professionals?”
On 31 March 2009, Australian trade unionists (pictured below) protested outside the Safety In Action Conference. The crowd was objecting to the presence of Ms Janet Holmes a Court, the chair of John Holland, as a keynote speaker. As Dave Noonan, CFMEU Construction Division national secretary, put it “It is an outrage that a company … Continue reading “Safety conference protest”
Last weekend Dr Eric Wigglesworth passed away after a long illness. Eric was a strong advocate for safety education and research over decades in Australia. I heard Eric speak several times in my professional career and remember being taught about his incident theories at university.
Over the last few years his profile has increased in the public sphere as he was the (only) Australian expert on the issues related to level crossing incidents.
At the end of March 2009, the Safety Institute of Australia (Victoria Division) is conducting its annual Safety In Action conference. In order to help promote the conference the SIA organised for several conference speakers to be filmed. The filming occurred in early-February 2009 and the short 10-minutevideos will be available at the Safety In … Continue reading “Upcoming OHS Videos”
Professor Michael Quinlan of the University of New South Wales believes that the influence of Australian trade unions in improving OHS conditions should not be underestimated or past achievements, forgotten. In talking with Kevin Jones in a recent podcast, Quinlan said that the persistent accusation of unions using OHS as an industrial relations tool … Continue reading “Union influence on OHS – interview with Professor Michael Quinlan”