NSW Premier surprise guest at mining safety conference dinner

In a closely guarded secret, New South Wales Premier, Kristina Keneally attended the safety conference of the New South Wales Minerals Council.  Keneally (pictured right) had previous attended NSWMC functions but in her capacity as the, then, Planning Minister.

Her speech contained a fair amount of politicking as one would expect from a politician in an election year but regrettably safety got less attention than one would expect.  The Premier spoke more generally about her government’s achievements under her leadership and how she was able to set, and enforce, clear performance benchmarks in the previous Planning portfolio.

Dr Nikki Williams NSWMC spoke very highly of the minister, as one would expect, but had to tread a fine line in complements so that she would not be seen as endorsing the Premier in an election year.  Williams instead praised the person and praised very highly.  Clearly there is a mutual respect between the two women that could proceed into a useful business/political relationship. Continue reading “NSW Premier surprise guest at mining safety conference dinner”

Mining safety conference is shadowed by taxation debate

As there was in the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, there is a third member in the relationship at the New South Wales Mining Council (NSWMC) conference that is being held in the Hunter Valley this week – the Government’s response to the Henry review into Australia’s taxation scheme.

The CEO of NSWMC, Dr Nikki Williams has been interviewed repeatedly at the conference with workplace safety being the opening line from reporters before asking about Henry.  Only 24 hours after the release of the Government’s response very little detail can be expected from an interview.  By lunchtime Williams’ responses were polished as she outlined the potentials – mine closures, economic damage to regional towns……  The reality of the taxation changes to the mining sector is not really going to be understood for several more days.  Any direct impact on safety is highly unlikely.

Sadly safety is not getting much consideration in the media discussions however there are potentials in this conference that could extend well beyond the mining industry. Continue reading “Mining safety conference is shadowed by taxation debate”

Australia’s national safety award winners

This evening in Canberra, Safe Work Australia announced the winners of the 5th Annual Safe Work Australia Awards. The profiles below are provided by Safe Work Australia.

The winners are:

Best Workplace Health and Safety Management System – Private Sector

GHD, South Australia

“GHD South Australia uses an electronic workplace health and safety management system accessible to all employees and has a workflow element to ensure that the necessary safety analysis and reporting is undertaken for all projects. Continue reading “Australia’s national safety award winners”

How many safety awards are too many?

On 23 March 2010, SafetyAtWorkBlog questioned the need for so many government-sanctioned OHS awards and noted that there is little overlap between wellness awards and safety awards.

On 26 March 2010, Australia’s Safety Rehabilitiation and Compensation Commission (SRCC) announced a new category in its OHS awards that will

“recognise organisations that promote health and wellbeing in the workplace–long before employees are affected by injury.”

The SRCC is the organisation that looks after the OHS of

“the federal public service, the Australian Defence Force and national companies in the Comcare scheme.”

With the addition of this new category, the SRCC finally has awards that represent the continuum of worker health and safety from prevention to incident to rehabilitation or compensation.   Continue reading “How many safety awards are too many?”

OHS awards consider work/life balance but not vice versa

On 15 March 2010, the Australian Government congratulated the winners of, and participants in, the 2009–10 National Work–Life Balance Awards.

According to a media release from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations:

“The Awards…. recognise family friendly practices like flexible working hours, options for working from home, paid parental leave, job sharing, onsite carer’s facilities and study assistance.”
Teleworking and flexible working hours are both directly relevant to occupational health safety but also through the OHS elements of work/life balance.  But the National Work-Life Balance Awards Team told SafetyAtWorkBlog that
“No direct OHS performance indicators were included in the judging criteria for the 2009-10 National Work-LIfe Balance Awards.” Continue reading “OHS awards consider work/life balance but not vice versa”

Compliance campaigns not toothless

Regularly Australian OHS authorities announce campaigns in certain regions or for certain industries.   To some extent these campaigns are about raising awareness of OHS issues but the fieldwork by inspectors does have some real benefit for some employers and workers.

Often these campaigns result in scores of improvement notices being issued.  Safety improvements are a major part of this inspectorate activity so, to some extent, the more notices, the better.  But notices aren’t advisories, they are directions that require action. Continue reading “Compliance campaigns not toothless”

Safety awards and the new media option

In yesterday’s article on Kerrin Rowan, mention was made of how important local community support is.  A reader has drawn our attention to a front page article in the Plains Producer newspaper of 9 October 2008 (not available online)

It reminded us of the significance local newspapers have in the rewarding the achievements of local citizens and that the front page article, inversely, illustrates how almost all daily metropolitan newspapers ignore OHS and RTW award winners.  There seems to be no mention of Kerrin in the online site for The Adelaide Advertiser.

But then safety awards seem not to be newsworthy.  Daily newspapers seem to see safety awards as a marketing tool and throws them all in the PR basket, even those worthy of greater attention. Kerrin’s story is one of the few exceptional rehabilitation stories and yet even with this level of “human interest”, such a story is ignored.

The newspapers are happy to receive the advertising revenue for a half page ad inserted by the OHS regulator congratulating the award winners but no one in the newspaper publishers seems to see any newsworthiness in the award winners.

Perhaps it is time for the OHS regulators to give up trying for the attention of the traditional media and go Web 2.0 with blogs, Twitter and Youtube.  Although, SafetyAtWorkBlog would still be looking for the human interest.  Recently we did not report on some OHS award winners for OHS management systems, principally because it is difficult to describe explain such a system in an article.  What could be done is to report on the significance of the award for the winners but that does not assist readers with OHS solutions, one of the aims of our blog.

OHS people and blog readers like pictures and video.  They like to use the technological capacity of the internet in a combination that traditional media cannot match.  OHS regulators and award conveners could do more to support the newer media by a prompt turnaround in video or images from the awards night.  These are already produced before, or on, the awards nights but often take over a week, if at all, to be accessible to the media.  The new media and its readers want immediacy and immediacy allows the community to share in some of the exhilaration felt by the award winners.  Topicality is tenuous.

Some OHS awards have been running for over ten years but still gain no traction in the metropolitan newspapers.  Our advice is to embrace the new media and see where it leads.

Kevin Jones

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