Tag: politics

A consistent approach to developing public policy is required

Australia is a Federation of States.  This does not just mean that each State is a different colour of the schoolroom map.  Each State has its own duties to its citizens from within the overall scheme of running a country.

There has always been a tension between the two levels of government and currently the management of health care facilities is the cause of friction, as reported, for instance, in The Age newspaper on 23 October 2009.   The current tension in this sector illustrates a trend that extends beyond health and into workplace safety legislation, human resources and social policy.

The Victorian Health Minister, Daniel Andrews,  is reported to have said that Canberra’s “health bureaucrats [are] remote and incapable of understanding the day-to-day needs of patients.”

“”You can never take it as a given that decision makers and policy makers at the bureaucratic level in Canberra understand how you deliver care in a bed, in a ward or in a country town, because they don’t do that: it’s not their world.”

This argument echoes some of the concerns being raised over the national harmonisation of OHS laws. In such a large country as Australia there are going to be cultural, demographic and geographical variations that a centralised system cannot service.  The Federal Government is hoping to harmonise workplace safety but it has already taken over industrial relations and is strongly threatening a takeover of health.  Why the inconsistency?

On 22 October 2009 at the HR Leadership Awards ceremony in Melbourne, the CEO of Carnival, Ann Sherry, said that centralised policy makers in Canberra are making important decisions from within a rarified world.  Sherry is a member of a review panel into the Australian Public Service (APS) and she identified several features of the APS, and shortcomings, as the service aims to become “world’s best practice in public administration”.  Amongst them:

  • 42% of public servants are younger than 45 years;
  • a highly educated workforce;
  • senior public service positions are centered in Canberra.

The last characteristic Sherry said has led to a disconnection between service design and delivery, echoing, to some extent, the concerns of Daniel Andrews on health policy.

It seems that there are many reviews and investigations occurring into how various industries and sectors in Australian business and government should be structured for the future, a future that is likely to be very different, climatically, economically and demographically.  But there is not a consistency in approaches, or at least one that is readily understood, even though the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, talks repeatedly about “nation building“.

The Australian Government has the best chance in a long time to set the country on a path of sustainable growth.  The United States, under President Barack Obama, has a similar opportunity.  Governments have an obligation to plan for the long-term benefit of their countries ands citizens, not the short-term gains of their political donors, political parties and lobbyists.  This obligation  is as relevant in occupational health and safety as it is anywhere.

Kevin Jones

Unintended consequences of inadequate preparation

The Australian Government instigated a rebate scheme for ceiling insulation for domestic homes in order to the climatic impacts of heating one’s home.  The rebates effectively make insulation free and, as a result, there is a boom in insulation installation.

As with any boom in any industry, there is an influx of new workers.  The Australian newspaper reports the death of an installer in Brisbane in mid-October 2009 and the shortcomings this death illustrates.

The article says that the rebate scheme has been so popular that fibreglass batts are not available so installers are using foil-based reflective insulation.

“Master Electricians Association president Malcolm Richards said the foil-based products should be banned in established homes because untrained installers were stapling foil on to live electricity wires.  He said the practice was the cause of last week’s tragedy in Brisbane and electricians were being increasingly called on to repair dodgy work.”

Firstly, electricians are always being called on to repair the botched electrical work of others.  Secondly, it’s not the fault of the foil suppliers so it seems unfair to ban a legitimate insulation product.

The Master Electricians Association is facing the problem that others face every day, unqualified workers doing the work normally undertaken by qualified workers.

The political opportunism by some in this article is regrettable.

The Australian Government should have learnt from its computers-in-schools initiative/debacle that there are ancillary costs with any government program and that these costs should be considered in the policy development and/or have relevant organisations consulted so that the necessary support services are prepared for the plan’s launch and operation.

The computers-in-schools program did not consider the software costs to use on the free computer for ever secondary school student.  The LPG conversion rebate did not consider the scale of demand.  The solar panel rebate scheme was cancelled even though the demand was great.  The home insulation scheme has drawn inexperienced installers into the industry.  All good intentions harmed through poor planning and some of that harm can be the death of workers.

Kevin Jones

Employer concerns on OHS law review

In support of the Safety Show mentioned in a previous article, the organisers have issued a media release which provides illuminating quotes on the issue of the Australian Government’s program for review of OHS laws:

One of those keen to comment is exhibitor at The Safety Show and chief executive of the Australian Federation of Employers and Industries, Garry Brack [significantly NOT a speaker at the Safety Conference ED.].

“We are concerned about the content of the model laws,” Mr Brack says. “New South Wales’ OHS Act is the most difficult piece of legislation in the developed world and we believe this is a lost opportunity to wind up with more balance.”

“If an employee does the wrong thing, the employer is found guilty. We’re not arguing that employees should be prosecuted but reject the notion that employers should be liable when employees fail to meet safety requirements.”

Clearly Brack has not compared the NSW OHS Act to the Federal Taxation legislation.

Brack reflects many of the perspectives of those who deal with OHS in the State of New South Wales.  The pent-up frustration is clear and the employers do not believe the reassurances from the Federal Government.

Brack also illustrates the desire for prescription in OHS law.  If people, in this case employers, know how to comply with a law, they are more likely to do so.

“Smaller employers don’t have the financial resources and in-house expertise to interpret what is ‘reasonably practicable’. They say ‘Tell us what we have to do’. They don’t wanted to return to the lunacy of years ago where every nut and bolt was defined but they do need a more prescriptive approach and help from regulators.”

He highlights a concern about the OHS laws shared by SafetyAtWorkBlog, small business has always struggled to provide an appropriately safe workplace.  “Reasonably practicable” does not help.  However, Brack’s desire for prescription is nostalgic at best, some would say fantasy.  This government has no intention of taking a seemingly regressive step to prescription and Brack has been aware of this for years.  At some point one has to accept reality and work with what is being offered.

Variations

Another exhibitor discussed the expectation that States will still add their own variations to the model OHS laws.  This option has never been hidden by the government or the various review panels.  In fact, this flexibility has been a major point in the government’s choice on harmonisation rather than uniformity.

“National legislation is highly desirable to avoid the massive duplication of work for national organisations,” Mr [Bill] Henman [of the College of Warehouse Training] says. “Unfortunately, the legislation will be enforced by various state jurisdictions and this will result in variation between states in interpretations, penalties and the finer points of the legislation. The devil is in the detail. [ED. please kick the next person who uses this cliche] Different penalties in different states currently affect the priorities of safety managers and standardised penalties would provide better outcomes.”

Henman needs to read the legislation and supportive documents to see that standardised penalties are proposed.  Though Henman is considering one of the most important issues that does not seem to be in consideration in much of the commentary on the legislation to date – improved safety.

“It’s very hard to say whether these new laws will make workplaces safer. The culture of those less safety conscious workplaces where the employer bends the rules has to change. One would hope the new laws will help engender better safety cultures.”

The Master Builders Association of NSW‘s OHS risk management officer, Tim Stootman, echoes the perspective of Garry Brack, looking at the  legislation through the experience of a New South Wales employer:

“Master Builders supports the review of OHS laws and believes that this is an opportunity for better, rather than greater, OHS regulation,” Mr Stootman says.  “Better, rather than greater, regulation will assist to improve OHS performance in the construction sector.

Master Builders supports the rejection of what could be called a ‘highest common denominator’ approach to OHS duties.  Essentially, this approach would have seen an absolute duty of care on employers to ensure the health and safety of their employees and provides unions with the right to bring a prosecution for a breach of the OHS law, the latter a provision adopted in recent changes to the law in the ACT.

The Draft National Model OHS Act is a positive step towards harmonisation of OHS laws in this country.”

Submissions to the government on the draft Safe Work Bill are being regularly posted at the Safe Work Australia website.  SafetyAtWorkBlog is watching the submissions and will draw attention to some of the more useful comments in the submissions.

Kevin Jones

Accusations of poor nuclear safety

Australia does not (yet) have nuclear power but its most prominent nuclear reactor is at Lucas Heights in Sydney.  On 21 October 2009, the Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam was told that several incidents had occurred at the reactor since 2008.

According to a media release from the Greens, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) revealed that

  • “A major recent event involving a vial being dropped and left unreported for up to three hours leading to exposure by workers.
  • An internal audit found gross deficiencies in safety procedures.
  • Management was unaware some workers present during the incident had not completed OHS induction training or a radiation safety course.
  • Procedures required upgrading since the incident.
  • Other incidents have occurred since and procedures are constantly being upgraded.”

A short AAP article on the comments is also available online.  The article is likely to gain considerable media attention through the inclusion of the following comment

“A spokesman for Senator Ludlam told AAP that if safety procedures could not be followed at Australia’s nuclear reactor, “God help” Australia if ANSTO was put in charge of a full scale nuclear power facility.”

It seems unfair to put out this story without some response from ANSTO.  Late this afternoon ANSTO released a detailed response to the Greens claims and AAP story which it claims were full of inaccuracies.  Below are some extracts of the statement which is available here in full.

“No incident of the type reported took place at the OPAL reactor.  An incident did take place on 28 August 2008 at ANSTO’s radiopharmaceutical production facility.   This was not a spill and no staff were exposed to significant radiation doses.   The incident took place in a shielded manufacturing enclosure.”

“ANSTO acknowledges that conservative decision making was not used at the start of this incident. Procedures have improved since as acknowledged in the Greens’ press release.”

“The quantity of medical isotope in the vial was 1/10 of a teaspoon and when the vial was dislodged the worker initially attempted to retrieve it and notified his supervisor within 30 minutes of the initial incident.   The vial was finally retrieved after three hours.   Molybdenum-99 production did not continue following the incident.”

“Incident reporting is a standard practice in the radiopharmaceutical manufacturing environment.   Senator Ludlam appears to have confused the reporting of incidents with an assumption of these incidents being severe or hazardous to workers.  This is not the case.”

Nuclear issues always need to be taken seriously and, as with any incident, must be investigated appropriately.  The Greens have made, understandable, political mileage out of the information revealed in the Senate hearings.  The comments match the interests of its constituents and members.

What it also indicates is that Australia has yet to enter a nuclear energy debate that has already been experienced in Europe and elsewhere over the last thirty years or so.  As nuclear energy becomes an increasingly important option for Australia in response to climate change, the debate is likely to be furious.

Kevin Jones

Independent Aussie politician forecasts “near riots” on OHS

Rob Oakenshott is an independent politician in the New South Wales parliament,  He was formerly a representative of the National Party.  Oakenshott is one of the first Australian politicians who are not directly involved in the program of OHS law  harmonisation to raise any concerns.

What spurred him to speak was a recent case in the High Court of Australia centring around NSW’s absolute OHS duty of care.  Comments from the Allens Arthur Robinson newsletter say:

“The matter will present an opportunity for the court to determine whether the interpretation of the duties under the OHS Act is so restrictive that it makes it impossible for an employer to comply with them and practically removes the benefit of the statutory defences.  The issue of the difficulty of complying with the legislation is something that the defendants have submitted runs counter to the rule of law and the Constitution.”

Oakenshott stated in a media release (not yet available on his website):

“I am also concerned that aspects of NSW state legislation such as the absolute liability elements are being considered by the Federal Government,” he said. “Having been involved in state politics for fifteen years, I can assure the government they will have near riots on the streets from the small business community of Australia if they mirror NSW legislation in the quest for harmonious national laws.”

This would be the first time that OHS would ever have raised the passion of Australian small businesses to this extent.   A survey produced for the ACTU (considered to be representative of the general population by the research company) quoted the following statistics:

67% believe that workplace safety is important, but only 40% see it as “very important”.

Kevin Jones

CFMEU, IPA, Gretley Mine – political lessons

Readers outside of  New South Wales may vaguely remember that in 1996 four miners died in a coalmine in the Hunter Valley 0f New South Wales.  They may also remember that the was some press about the prosecution of some directors of the mining company.  It was one of those incidents and court cases that should have gained broader attention that it did.

As OHS stakeholders in Australia ponder the ramifications of the Government’s proposed Safe Work Bill, it is important to also ponder the legal legacy of the Gretley mine disasater.  It may provide non-NSW and non-mining readers with a better understanding of the resistance to the new harmonised laws from the mining industry in both New South Wales and Western Australia.

Cover ARTAndrewVickersOpinionPiece091009On 15 October 2009, Andrew Vickers of the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union used the Gretley saga as a justification to call for the harmoinised legislation and support systems to allow for variations to meet the special needs of the mining sector.

cover PHILLIPS 5.04925E-210RETLEYOn the other side of political fence, Ken Phillips of the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative thinktank, produced a document about the politics of the Gretley saga.  The publication was supported by a video, available below. Phillips’ paper is a useful illustration of business’ opinions of the unions and New South Wales’ OHS legislation.  This legislation is a centrepiece to the ACTU and union movement’s concerns and opposition to many elements of the current draft Safe Work Bill.

Prominent sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has written about the OHS management issues raised by the disaster and its aftermath.

SafetyAtWorkBlog believes that these political and safety resources can provide a primer to many of the issues being discussed in the current debate on OHS laws.

Kevin Jones

Safe Work Bill, suitably qualified and professional plans

Dr Geoff Dell of Protocol Safety Management and a prominent member of the

Dr Geoff Dell
Dr Geoff Dell

Safety Institute of Australia (SIA), believes that the most crucial issue facing the safety profession in Australia is the lack of the requirement to use a “suitably qualified” safety adviser.

The Australian Government was recommended to include such a requirement in its draft OHS model laws but rejected the recommendation because

“an unintended consequence could be that persons conducting a business or undertaking would be encouraged to delegate their responsibilities”.

This is odd because the Safe Work Bill includes seemingly clear duties:

“The person who has management or control of a workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the workplace, the means of entering and exiting the workplace and anything arising from the workplace are safe and without risks to the health of any person.”

Unless the “suitably qualified” person (undefined in the Safe Work Bill) is also the “person who has management or control of a workplace”  who has to ensure safety, it is hard to see how the Government’s concerns about abrogated responsibility are relevant.

Dr Dell wrote to the Workplace Relations Minister, Julia Gillard, on behalf of the SIA.

“Our motivation for urging you for inclusion of a “suitably qualified” requirement in the model OHS legislation should not be misinterpreted as any desire on our part to diminish or eliminate the equally important requirement for companies to consult their workers, or the workers’ elected representatives, on issues and decisions relating to the workers’ health and safety. Collaboration of employers and workers in the delivery of appropriate workplace health and safety outcomes is an essential precept.

Rather, it is our strong view that when those workplace collaboration processes need the OHS advice of others, there is an important need to ensure the persons providing that advice have the appropriate credentials to deliver that advice to the maximum benefit of those involved at the workplace.”

Pages from Geoff_Dells_letter_to_Julia_GillardThe argument is repeatedly expressed as a comparison between a suitably qualified safety advisor and doctors or plumbers or other licensed or registered occupations.  But the Government has twice now indicated that it sees no the risks of abusing such a formalised position outweigh the benefits – the first in not accepting a review panel recommendation and second by omitting the issue in the Safe Work Bill.

Should the safety profession, as a whole, continue to push the issue with an unsupportive government or should it accept that the battle is lost and begin a Plan B? A plan where, perhaps, the market begins to demand certainty about the skill level of their safety advisors to such an extent that a scheme of accredited safety professionals is an indispensable business resource?

This may be the tactic of the SIA in its support of  an elite level of safety professional who must have a tertiary OHS qualification.  It is certainly devoting considerable resources to the program, supported by hundreds of thousands of dollars from WorkSafe Victoria.  The caveat of this approach is that the SIA gets control of the profession.

This is not the case with the professions with which the SIA likes to compare itself.  Those professions have independent assessment bodies, ethics bodies and sometimes industry/profession ombudsmen.

What the safety profession needs to counter is the argument that the Government has accepted from somewhere, that business is highly likely to push its OHS responsibility to others if it can.  The profession, and the SIA, needs to convince the Government that business will accept its OHS duties.

Dr Dell told SafetyAtWorkBlog that the Safe Work Bill has been written for lawyers by lawyers and seems aimed at what to do after an incident has occurred.  It is about harm minimisation and not safety.  He says that the preventative aim of OHS legislation has been severely diluted.  In this he echoes some of the  SafetyAtWorkBlog position that the new laws are not about safety management but about safety law, and have little bearing on the shop floor where hazards are most often faced and controlled.

It is also important to remember that OHS law was intended to be a law that could be understood by the layman and implemented by the layman.  The new Safe Work Bill will be incomprehensible to anyone other than lawyers and even then, as seen from recent blog articles about Mike Hammond, Michael Tooma and others, the lawyers are unlikely to agree on interpretation and application.

Kevin Jones

[Note: Kevin Jones is a Fellow of the Safety Institute of Australia]

© Workplace Safety Services P/L (ABN: 68091088621) and SafetyAtWorkBlog, 2008-2024. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kevin Jones and SafetyAtWorkBlog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Concatenate Web Development
© Designed and developed by Concatenate Aust Pty Ltd