More details are appearing of the findings of an independent inquiry into mental health and suicides in the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), a report whose release has been stalled by the United Firefighters’ Union (UFU). According to the inquiry’s chair, in an article in the ABC news website, Dr Peter Cotton, “…the MFB has … Continue reading “Firefighters’ mental health”
Proud to be one of ThunderMaps’ “Top 5 health and safety blogs”. “Direct, holistic, and genuine is what you can expect to find in Kevin Johns (sic) – an award-winning Australian H&S advocate’s blogpost. Kevin has successfully tackled H&S at both macro and micro level. From convincingly arguing workplace safety as a critical part of … Continue reading “A top 5 health and safety blog”
Cost is the last consideration in occupational health and safety (OHS) but is usually the first consideration in all other decisions. “Can we afford to improve something? No. So let’s do something else”. There is something fundamentally skewed in determining the cost-benefit analysis when it comes to workplace safety. For several years Safe Work Australia (SWA) …
[This article from 2015 was previously password-protected and is now available to all] Recently a couple of media outlets referred to a report produced by Citi into workplace safety issues related to the top 100 companies on the Australian stock exchange. The report, “Safety Spotlight: ASX100 Companies & More” (not available online), provides a useful …
Australian workplace mental health advocates often seem to shy away from discussions of suicide, perhaps because suicides are not a regular occurrence at work or because work-related suicide remains stigmatised. To better understand this overlap between suicide and mental health, and the working environment, it may be useful to look at the Japanese experience where work-related … Continue reading “Japanese depression contrasts the Western understanding of workplace mental health”
Barry Naismith‘s third report into the operations and performance of WorkSafe Victoria was released on July 22, 2014. Naismith produces these reports through a combination of publicly available information in the press, a dive into the resources of the WorkSafe Library (visit before it moves to Geelong) and requests to WorkSafe. This level of analysis … Continue reading “Independent analysis of WorkSafe Victoria”
On March 30 2016, the Andrew Victorian Government released the final report of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. Family violence, otherwise known as domestic violence, is not strictly an occupational health and safety (OHS) but the mental health effects can flow into the workplace and, some argue, fails to deter family violence. The final …