Change in the air on ventilation

One of Edward O’Donoghue’s recent Motion supporters in Victoria’s Parliament was Georgie Crozier, the Liberal Opposition’s Shadow Health Minister. In her speech in support of the Motion, she mentioned ventilation: “I have been asking for the audits of what has occurred in hotel quarantine under the new structure that the government put in after that …

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Playing the man and not the hazard

People like Ken Phillips continue to pursue Premier Daniel Andrews and others for alleged breaches of occupational health and safety (OHS) laws over COVID19-related deaths stemming from failures in Victoria’s hotel quarantine program. On March 17 2021, the pressure to hold the Premier to account increased in the Victorian Parliament, largely under the guise of …

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WorkSafe Victoria’s COVID19 OHS investigations

WorkSafe Victoria and its CEO Colin Radford have been pilloried by a couple of political and economic commentators recently, especially over the handling of the Hotel Quarantine Program. Radford and WorkSafe have wisely not reacted to the loudest voices and have continued their work investigating COVID19-related breaches of the occupational health and safety legislation. One …

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Seeking accountability in a pandemic

The Australian newspaper’s Robert Gottliebsen continues to bash the Victorian Premier and WorkSafe Victoria over the outbreak of COVID19 that originated from workers in the Hotel Quarantine Scheme. He insists that the government has occupational health and safety (OHS) responsibilities for the workers in the hotels, especially the security guards through which transmission to the …

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Alan Jones vs Dan Andrews

The calls continue for the Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews, to be charged with Industrial Manslaughter over COVID19-related deaths that resulted from a poorly-managed hotel quarantine program. This time the topic was picked up be one of Australia’s conservative big guns, Alan Jones. Jones hyperbolic rhetoric was on full display in his interview with Ken Phillips, …

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Hoists and petards

Many on the Conservative side of Australian politics want to see Daniel Andrews, the Victorian Premier, fall, especially over the use of security guards in hotels used to quarantine returning travellers who may have had COVID19. Some of Andrews’ critics are being mischievous by linking the Industrial Manslaughter laws that his government introduced to his, …

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Precarious Work, Pandemics and Australia’s Future – Let’s Not Forget the Link

This is a guest post by Michael Quinlan & Dr Elsa Underhill (links added). In mid- August 2020 Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews labelled insecure work as toxic and argued a fundamental policy reset was required into the future.  He stated: Insecure work is toxic. There is nothing good about insecure work, and when this is … Continue reading “Precarious Work, Pandemics and Australia’s Future – Let’s Not Forget the Link”