December Updates

December Updates

Axento Safety provides you with health and safety expert witness and risk management solutions to enhance your business success.

In addition to expert witness services, Axento Safety’s focus is to help create safe, healthy, innovative AND PRODUCTIVE workplaces. Axento Safety partner with you to take the pain out of health and safety, provide safety management systems, reduce the paperwork, achieve certifications, enable increased compliance, enable productivity improvement and achieve this cost effectively.   Contact Jon Temby to grow your business and make your life easier.

 

Bureaucracy and poor staff engagement threaten worker safety

If businesses are to prevent accidents at work they need to completely overhaul health and safety management, according to a range of presenters who were speaking recently at the Fluoro Conference being held in Perth.   Read more…

Jons comments: As Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett said “although it was positive that the state’s resources industry was innovating with technology, especially automation, there were safety risks associated with lapses in attention……. a huge impact on shareholder reputation ……..Don’t underestimate the risks.”

And particularly focus on those risks associated with more serious consequences.

 

 

Some sobering pre-Christmas reminders

Worksafe Warning to Make Safety a Priority as Christmas Approaches

Jons Comments: We need to take steps to avoid outcomes like these

 

 

Hazardous Substances Information System (HSIS) updates

Safe Work Australia has updated the Hazardous Substance Information System (HSIS) and the GHS Hazardous Chemical Information List (HCIL) to incorporate assessments made by the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS). These changes represent human health assessments made as part of tranches one through seven of the Inventory Multi-tiered Assessment and Prioritisation (IMAP) framework.

This update includes approximately 300 new entries and approximately 130 amendments to existing entries for both datasets.

Information about IMAP can be found on the NICNAS website.

Complete information about the updates to HSIS and HCIL can be found on the HSIS website.

The model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Regulations require chemicals to be classified in accordance with the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). However transitional arrangements allow use of classification information in HSIS derived from the Approved Criteria until the 31 December 2016.

Jons Comments: Those organisations using ‘chemicals’ should refer to the links provided and ensure that their chemical management systems are compatible with the new requirements. Please call me if unsure.

 

Tips for closing down over the New Year

To avoid hassles and enjoy the break, I suggest you prepare your site for the holiday period; simply relying on the last person leaving to pull the gate closed is courting disaster. Remember that your empty site can be a magnet for bored kids.

In particular, I suggest checking your boundary fencing for gaps or weaknesses, check that your security system is fully functional, check the safety of your building and its surroundings : is all cladding and roofing secure?, minimise externally stored materials, fill in or cover holes etc. check all chemicals are stored safely, check that all plant and equipment is locked out – an uninvited visitors rampage on a forklift is a disaster worth avoiding!, if the main switch on your electrical system can be turned off, great, otherwise isolate wherever practicable. If you prepare well, you improve the chances that you will enjoy a relaxing summer break. Season’s greetings and best wishes for a great start to 2016. Jon

 

 

New guidance – diesel exhaust

Safe Work Australia has released a guide about diesel exhaust exposure to help workplaces manage the risks of exposure to diesel exhaust. Read more…

Jons Comments: The link above provides lots of guidance regarding the inhalation of Diesel fumes. About 1.2 million Australian workers are exposed each year, if you handle Diesel or use diesel fuelled plant and equipment, you need to be aware of these issues. Listen to the podcast from the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists for detailed information and practical guidance.

 

 

Engineering firm in trouble

An engineering company has been fined $150,000 after a boilermaker lost part of his foot when a steel beam weighing more than half a tonne fell on him. Read more…

Jons Comments: This example applies to every organisation that handles heavy materials. Prevention is not only cheaper but it helps to build a sustainable business.

 

 

Vic: Capsized barge, disaster on all counts + $600,000 fine

A company that overloaded a barge which capsized on Victoria’s Patterson River, throwing three workers into the water and seriously injuring one of them, was convicted and fined a total of $600,000 in the County Court. Read more…

Jons Comments: Do the right thing and you are less likely to have a problem, choose to ignore a known problem and not only are incidents and injuries more likely but the regulator may tell the world that “The fines imposed by the court reflect the poor safety attitude of the company … Rather than minimising the risks ….. the company simply chose to play Russian roulette with the lives of its employees and contractors.”

 

 

Professional OHS/WHS certification and competent advice

Axento Safety welcomes the Safety Institute of Australia initiative of a national professional certification program for people operating in the Occupational Health and Safety industry. This program provides credibility and alignment with international best practice and is compatible with international certification programs

The certification of people providing professional services is well recognised with accountants, lawyers, health professionals and engineers. Adding Occupational Health and Safety to that list makes sense.

Certification of OHS Professionals and Practitioners is already standard practice in many countries including the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe. In Australia, the new certification scheme ensures that those providing OHS advice have the appropriate skills, knowledge and qualifications to provide competent advice to organisations: Think about the OHS professional in the context of your medical GP, they can look after most issues and will refer you to specialists if required.

In 2007 the Health and Safety Professionals Alliance (HaSPA) confirmed in its minimum standards that Certification of those providing OHS advice is important in achieving the highest level of protection for employers, employees and other workplace health and safety stakeholders against risks to their health and safety. The Australian Safety and Health Professional Associations (ASHPA) evolved from HaSPA and is now recognised as the national umbrella organisation, Jon Temby is one of the two SIA representatives on ASHPA.

Jon Temby, Director of Axento Safety has recently achieved the highest professional certification available, that of a Chartered OHS Professional (ChOHSP).

 

 

Recent OHS/WHS Publications from Safe Work Australia

Recent publications that may be of interest to Update readers are listed below.

 

Seasons Greetings and best wishes to you and your families.

I hope you have a safe and successful 2016. Jon

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