I was honoured to speak recently at the monthly meeting of the Central Safety Group. As the meeting occurred during Safe Work Australia Month it seemed appropriate to stir debate about the nature of occupational health and safety (OHS) and how it applied. Here is a selection of points that I intended to make. Discussion … Continue reading “Stirring the OHS pot”
In some of his research into the operations of WorkSafe Victoria, OHSIntros provided this graph of workers compensation claims for psychosocial issues. Not only does it show the extent of the issue in recent years, it provides a clear historic starting point for the hazard – a hazard that has created an industry of its …
The final report into quadbike safety has finally been released by the University of New South Wales in a series of five papers and in the wake of Queensland coronial findings into nine quadbike-related deaths. (A New South Wales inquiry is currently underway) It has been a rocky road to get to this report as …
In June 2015 a research report was presented to a traffic safety conference in Gothenburg, Sweden that is set to reignite the debate on quad bike or all terrain vehicle (ATV) safety in Australia. The paper entitled “The Australian Terrain Vehicle Assessment Program (ATVAP)” (Paper No.15-0144-W in the Technical Papers section of the conference website) …
The Cancer Council of Western Australia has released a report (not yet available online)that states: “The number of occupationally caused cancers compensated each year equates to less than eight per cent of the expected number.” (Executive Summary) This is an extraordinary statistic but consistent with the history of occupational health and safety (OHS) statistics where … Continue reading “Cancer data needs to start a discussion on effective controls”
Many OHS professionals state that leadership is a crucial element to establishing a safety culture and then support this with examples of positive leadership. But some people fail at leadership and failure is often more instructional than success. Recently the CEO of Orica, Ian Smith, had to resign after his abusive manner resulted in the …
On 18 March 2015, the Melbourne office of Herbert Smith Freehills conducted a breakfast seminar that doubled as a launch for the latest edition of the CCH Wolters Kluwer book Australian Master Work Health and Safety Guide (reviewed recently). The seminar had three of the book’s authors talking about emerging occupational health and safety (OHS) …