In November 2009, the Safety Institute of Australia published its first edition of its peer-reviewed journal. At the time it was described as a good start. Also in 2009, another safety-related peer-reviewed journal was released and this one has avoided some of the SIA journal’s shortcomings…. in a way. For a small academic country this now makes three OHS journals. The … Continue reading “Another new Australian safety journal”
Further to the recent research and media blitz by Dr David Dunstan, the British Journal of Sports Medicine reports on some similarly themed research from Sweden. According to the BJSM “Doctors from the Karolinska Institute and the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, say that the term “sedentary behaviour” has come to mean … Continue reading “The risks in sedentary behaviour gain credence.”
On 15 December 2009, a New Zealand Court penalised two companies and a director with fines totalling over $NZ390,000 over an explosion in a coolstore that result in the death of one firefighter and injuries to others. In the comments section of a previous blog article the following questions were put to the New Zealand … Continue reading “Update on New Zealand cool store explosion”
One of the occupations with the clearest need for personal protective equipment (PPE) is that of a firefighter. There are few other industries where PPE has such a high priority in workplace safety but sometimes PPE can still be forgotten. A report on ABC radio and online in Australia on 11 January 2010 shows that … Continue reading “PPE can be a lazy OHS solution”
Reports are coming out of New Zealand that representatives of the Education Department are uncomfortable with being charged under the country’s OHS legislation following a fatal boiler explosion at Orewa College. On 24 June 2009, a boiler exploded at Orewa College in Northland, New Zealand. Initial media reports said that the boiler was being repaired the day after a … Continue reading “Boiler death puts OHS spotlight on New Zealand Education Department”
Australia has many safety awards programs. SafetyAtWorkBlog has reported on some of the practical solutions from the awards and lamented how the prominence of such solutions fades quickly as the mainstream media ignores them. The blog has also shown examples of a hard copy solutions database that existed in Victoria and Australia for a couple of decades. The … Continue reading “A good book of safety solutions case studies”
In late November 2009, the Victorian State Emergency Services (SES) was convicted of OHS breaches over the death of one of its volunteers and was fined $A75,000. The SES has chosen to allocate $A150,000 to a review of its safety management after strong criticism from the Mildura Magistrate, Peter Couzens. In answer to the title of this … Continue reading “How much does poor safety management cost?”