Kevin Jones – Editor
For over twenty years I have been active in the area of occupational health and safety, culminating in running my own OHS consultancy for almost ten years.
Recently I have had an opinion piece published by Business Spectator and Crikey.com has reused one of my blog articles on the Beaconsfield Mine rockfall of 2006.
In August 2009, Business Spectator published an article on the workload of Australia public servants and how it was involved with a major political scandal.
An article for National Safety magazine has been completed and shouldwas published in May 2009, concerning the application of insurance products to cover the fines and penalties relating to OHS.
Over time the demand for my company’s services have changed from demands for safety consulting to safety writing and commentary.
For many years, I published the SafetyAtWork magazine, a regular online publication for safety professionals, through subscription, that was distributed globally.
From this developed a weekly OHS bulletin for Australian safety professionals. The bulletin has led to a similar product being produced for members of the Safety Institute of Australia since 2005.
In 2005 I wrote the Editorial for The Journal of Occupational Health and Safety Australia and New Zealand – “A culture of terror: the risks of occupational violence” was provided to the December 2005.
I contributed substantially to the 1st edition of the WorkSafe Victoria publication – Manual Handling in the Food Industry, and provided literary support to Ballarat’s Farm Safety Training Centre in writing the WorkSafe guidance “Dairy Safety – A Practical Guide”.
An article about the potential infectious hazards from security card lanyards appeared in the April 2008 edition of Management Today, a magazine published for the Australian Institute of Managers.
Col Finnie – Contributor
G’day people. Col Finnie here, director of a safety advisory business, fini:OHS. Kevin invited me to start making regular contributions to his blog; I like the boy, and liked the idea of contributing to his blog. So here I am.
Quick background to me. Many years working for WorkSafe Victoria heading up the OH&S legislation drafting unit (1989 – 2000). (And no, I’m not a lawyer.) In 2000 I decided I’d done me time in legislation and helped set up a new guidance material editing and writing unit in WorkSafe. I headed up the itty bitty tech writing unit (2 of us) until early in 2004 when I bailed from the Victorian Public Service to have a crack at running my own business. Primary passion is finding ways to deliver OH&S advisory stuff that works for small businesses.
My contributions to this blog will most often be hints and tips on common OH&S issues that can cause problems for small business, lots of businesses in fact. I provide this sort of stuff for clients and I reckon it’s time to “spread the love”. I may well be tempted to jump on a soapbox every now and then and have a rant about a general OH&S topic – all rights reserved on that one.
In my blog articles I don’t rabbit on about all the associated legislative background to the hints and tips, I’ve found that few if any people want to know anything about that sort of stuff – they want solutions.