Safe Work Australia is a fairly new configuration for Australia’s OHS department but it’s awards have been going for some years. On 28 April 2009 the awards were held in Canberra. The timings don’t seem quite right but that is the scheduling of these sorts of things in Australia. The award winners from the State … Continue reading “Safe Work Australia Awards 2008”
Below is an edited summary of the findings from the latest compendium of statistics issued by the Australian Safety & Compensation Council. The stats relate to 2006-07 primarily but with some comparative data from 2000-01 onwards. The full report is available for download as is a media statement from the Council Chairman, Bill Scales. 132 … Continue reading “Latest Australian OHS Statistics”
According to an AAP report on 10 March 2009, a harness saved one worker when a gantry collapsed. Several videos of the incident’s aftermath are available. The media report said “An elderly man plunged 40m headfirst to his death while his traumatised workmate was left dangling from a safety harness after a work platform suspended … Continue reading “The importance of a harness”
Part 2 of Risk & Reason book review from SafetyAtWork magazine 2003 Sunstein closes the chapter “Thinking About Risks” with a short reference to September 11 2001 with which he says that “acts of terrorism show an acute appreciation of the psychological phenomena..” Throughout the book, there are snippets that can be related to safety … Continue reading “Cass Sunstein, Risk, Cost-Benefit and OHS – Part 2”
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has commented on an article in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) entitled “The incidence of race-day jockey falls in Australia, 2002-2006”. The AMA summarises the report’s statistics “Falls occurred at a rate of 0.42% in flat racing and 5.26% in jumps racing. Although most falls occurred pre- or post-race, falls … Continue reading “Evidence of horse racing risks”
Every year newspapers and organisations undertake a “year in review”. OHS regulators are no different. As more statistics become available of the next few weeks, SafetyAtWorkBlog will provide the latest OHS statistics for 2008. The most recent are below. Western Australia According to a media release by WorkSafe WA: “In 2005/06, WA recorded 12 traumatic … Continue reading “Australian 2008 workplace statistics”
Around the turn of the century a father told me this “My son was 19 years old and he was killed in an accident in a small warehouse in a suburb of Toronto. In this little shop, it was a small business with only 4 or 5 people there. He got the job through a … Continue reading “Passport to Safety in Australia”