In December, Australian law firm Maddocks launched its 2023 Year in Review. Two items were directly relevant to occupational health and safety (OHS) – Sexual Harassment and Psychosocial Safety – both addressed by Catherine Dunlop. The size of the challenge ahead on both these topics was shown by the Australian Financial Review on December 7, …
Practicing my own advice of talking with people you don’t know at conferences, last night at post-conference drinks, I was told about love and protection....
The Victorian Parliament has been debating legislation the government claims is essential to fix a “broken” workers’ compensation system. There are a lot of elements to what is broken – premium increases, political access to WorkSafe finances, political topping up of WorkSafe finances, high numbers and costs for workplace mental health compensation claims and more. …
Burnout will continue to be a trend for discussion papers and marketing brochures for some time to come. A recent one, from Udemy Business is a good example of discussion without action. If we were to replace the word “burnout” with “stress”, the paper could easily have been produced over twenty years ago. Many of …
Recently a discussion of occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia’s construction industry during COVID-19 lockdowns was published. “What’s it going to take? Lessons Learned from COVID-19 and worker mental health in the Australian construction industry” is thankfully “open access” and well worth reading for its strong and controversial OHS recommendations, but it could have …
Australian trade unions are in a difficult position on the matter of workplace mental health. New regulations require employers and, to a lesser extent, workers to act on a positive duty to prevent psychosocial harm. However, how does one achieve the necessary changes without being financially penalised? Recently, the Victorian Secretary of the Construction, Forestry, …
On March 28 2023, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (the Chamber) issued an important media release called “Preparing for workplace psychological health reform”. As with most media releases related to occupational health and safety (OHS) matters, it received little attention. Anton Zytnik a consultant for the Chamber, warned against “mental health washing”, but …
