Tag: safety

Major rethink on Australian Standards needed

A recent download of a “free” guide from the Victorian Building Commission on retrofitting a home for bushfire protection raised the ongoing nonsense of Australian Standards costs.  Sure enough, this free guide is only notionally so; if you don’t hand over $100  then the guide has limited use.

The guide I got, “A guide to retrofit your home for better protection from a bushfire”, is packed with useful info, up to the point you need the nitty-gritty.  Time and time again the reader is sent off to AS 3959 – Construction of buildings in bush-fire prone areas.  Being in OH&S-World we get used to that little double-blind.  Happens all the time with regs and codes and all sorts of guidance stuff.  And it is ridiculous. Its gotta change.

As best as I know a massive cost of development of Australian Standards is born by the participating development organizations.  They are the ones that foot the salary bill to have their staff go off to meetings to formulate the Standards.  Sure, there is going to be lots of other costs, but from what I can see this critical contribution to the development of Australian Standards is a cost to the businesses and government agencies taking part (ultimately a community cost) and the double whammy comes when you want to buy a Standard.

The fact that such an important bit of guidance on protecting homes from bushfire is essentially diminished by the need to spend $100 to get the Standard really slams home the point that change has to happen.

For mine, all PDF downloads of Australian Standards should be free.  A cost recovery cost for a hard copy seems fair enough. I don’t know about the experience of others, but it borders on embarrassing to be giving a punter help on this or that OH&S issue and then have to add “Oh and I think you have no choice but to fork out $XXX for this Standard.”  I hate that, and where I can I avoid it.  But clearly there’s times when it’s impossible.

Perhaps it’s time to get fair dinkum about improved standards of safety, and fair dinkum in way that truly cuts the bullshit?  And that means nationally developed Standards become the nation’s product; PDF copies free to anyone who needs to use ‘em.

Col Finnie
col@finiohs.com

The Safety Institute discovers the media

For many years the Safety Institute of Australia has been uncertain in its media relations. On most of the important OHS issues in the last 10 years the SIA has either been silent for the fear of being “overtly political” or been too slow to react.  Its past media releases have almost always been to promote upcoming conferences.  Finally, the SIA has made a media statement within 24 hours of an OHS issue AND it was a political issue.   Perhaps the SIA is finally showing some understanding of how to work with the media instead of being suspicious.

On 15 October 2010, The SIA issued a media release on the matter of NSW Premier Kristina Keneally’s refusal to play to the rules on harmonizing OHS laws. In a carefully worded statement, the SIA has come out on the side of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.   No surprise there as Keneally’s government is considered by almost everyone as a certainty to lose power in the March 2011 election.   But the SIA’s inherent conservatism is on show when it says the proposed federal law changes remove “any justification for a union’s right to prosecute.”.  The SIA has always been uncomfortable with the OHS role of unions and has had a fractious relationship with the union movement. Continue reading “The Safety Institute discovers the media”

Harmonious fragility or fragile harmony – OHS and politics in Australia

Less than 24 hours after mentioning the fragility of Australia’s OHS harmonisation process, confirmation comes from an unexpected source, Kristina Keneally, Premier of New South Wales (pictured right).  It would seem that Keneally’s decision to change her stance on OHS is more to do with a general package of industrial relations and, union-friendly, reforms, as reported in the Brisbane Times on 14 October 2010  (video available HERE). Yet she has stated that

“”We will not therefore introduce the model OHS legislation as it is currently drafted.”

The media has been quick of highlighting this new tension between State and Federal agendas.  Prime Minister Julia Gillard was asked about Keneally’s statements and responded:

“….I think the Keneally Government should honour the agreement it made. It had an extensive period of time to raise issues of concern – and indeed it did, through its Minister at the Workplace Relations Ministerial Council table. Issues were raised, issues were discussed. When you are reaching uniform laws, it is obvious that states and territories come with different perspectives. They’ve got their own laws. If no-one moves then you never get national uniformity.

So, yes, New South Wales raised issues along the way, but it accepted the outcomes and it signed the deal. We require the deal to be delivered.” Continue reading “Harmonious fragility or fragile harmony – OHS and politics in Australia”

Codes and Regulations prioritized in Australia’s harmonisation process

When the Australian Government began the process of reviewing OHS laws in order to achieve harmonisation, there was a fairly tight schedule for these reforms.  Draft OHS codes of practice and regulations were due in the second half of 2010.  The last public statement on these public comment documents was that drafts were due for release at the end of October.  The latest rumour is that some of the documents will be out around November 10.

It has been mentioned elsewhere that Safe Work Australia has missed a major public relations opportunity by not getting documents ready for release in its Safe Work Australia Week in late October, for it is guaranteed that all State OHS regulators will be badgered about the draft documents as Safe Work Australia Week events.

Codes

SafetyAtWorkBlog has learnt that many of the codes of practice and occupational health issues have been prioritized.  “Priority Codes” will include:

Mental health research broadens the workplace context

Professor Tony LaMontagne is an Australian researcher and academic whose work always deserves careful consideration.  LaMontagne has been mentioned several times in SafetyAtWorkBlog.  The significance of his work is that it is not centred on occupational health and safety but has a major relevance nevertheless.

On the eve of Victoria’s Mental Health Week, LaMontagne has released a report, co-authored with Dr Kristy Sanderson, entitled “Estimating the economic benefits of eliminating job strain as a risk factor for depression”.  A more detailed article on the report will be on this blog in the next few days but there are a couple of notable points in the research.  Firstly, the study places job strain in the broader social context and not limited to the workplace, workers’ compensation, wellness or OHS. In this way, he is promoting a social agenda that has great potential. Continue reading “Mental health research broadens the workplace context”

Small business OHS seems to be stalled

OHS research into why the small business sector does not “get” safety has been occurring in Australia for over ten years with some of the most useful being undertaken by Dr Claire Mayhew.  But the challenge, or problem, persists.

On 4 October 2010, WorkSafe Victoria released some information about an OHS blitz by inspectors on small businesses in Mildura, a rural town in the extreme northwest of Victoria.  In some ways, the tone of the media statement is a little defeatist or, at least, exasperated.

“Although we wrote to the businesses and told them we would be visiting, we still had to pull them up on a high number of health and safety issues,” Manufacturing and Logistics Director Ross Pilkington said.  “In many cases, the safety solutions were straightforward.” Continue reading “Small business OHS seems to be stalled”

Suicide research and cultural change

I often have my “western” assumptions punctured by evidence from the non-western or majority world.  Recently SafetyAtWorkBlog has reported on workplace suicide statistics but a report made available through the World Health Organisation says

“Low-income countries in Asia and the Pacific have the highest burden of suicide in the world.   These countries are among the poorest globally, and face many social and political challenges.”

This report reminds me that although the westerners may claim to be short of resources, most countries have much less yet  are still morally obliged to provide social support.  It also speaks about cultural change and the application of new strategies. Continue reading “Suicide research and cultural change”

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