October Updates
Axento Safety provides you with health and safety expert witness and risk management solutions to enhance your business success.
In addition to incident investigations and 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 improve risk management, grow your business and make your life easier.
October is Health and Safety Month, get involved
During Safe Work month, each state and territory regulator as well as Safe Work Australia put on free events to give us is a snapshot of what is important to them. Obviously COVID-19 is there but there will be a lot more of interest. Make sure you look at what the regulator is doing in your state or territory, check out other jurisdictions if you wish.
Find out what’s on in your region and register for a webinar, online training course or virtual presentation on WHS topics relevant to your organisation or industry.
Safe work Australia recently released a range of new resources to assist organisations in preparing for national safe work month. Their series of events can be accessed form here: Safe Work Australia national-safe-work-month. It includes events, videos, case studies, information sheets and other resources. Go to the National Safe Work Month website and download the campaign kit for online and printable resources. Also: SWA have just released the Preventing psychological injury during COVID-19 information sheet.
Victoria: Helping employers and workers navigate through COVID-19 will be part of the focus of WorkSafe Victoria’s first fully virtual health and safety month. Short industry-specific videos available. Free registration here.
In NSW, Safe Work NSW are putting on a series of events, see SafeWork NSW, Safe Work Month events. They have numerous Manual handling and construction focused events that may be of interest, wherever you are based.
In Western Australia, their regulator(s) will put on a virtual program of activities with on-demand video presentations from Dangerous Goods, Mine Safety and WorkSafe.
Health and Safety Month is a great time to learn a bit more and to discuss health and safety improvements in your workplace. Book yourself in to hear the latest across many disciplines. Consider additional health and safety discussions at work, seek ideas for continuous improvement, update and re-deliver your inductions and refresher training. Make sure you keep good records of your health and safety activities and progress.
Review of DG Act 1985 and Regs (Vic)
In April 2020 the (then) Minister for Workplace Safety, the Hon. Jill Hennessy MP, announced a comprehensive review of Victoria’s dangerous goods laws and appointed Andrew Palmer QC as the Independent Reviewer.
The Review is part of the Victorian Government’s response to high profile incidents associated with illegal chemical stockpiling at several sites across Melbourne. See: The list of Questions,
The Consultation Paper: Review of_Dangerous_Goods_Act_1985_and_regs and The Terms_of_Reference.
Do you think Victoria’s Dangerous Goods laws effectively promote safety and ensure the effective management of dangerous goods? If not, I suggest that you share your views by making a submission.
Complacency – can you see it?
Many of us get so used to seeing our daily surroundings that we no longer pay any attention to them: labels peel off chemical containers, walkways become cluttered, bins overflow and that storage rack now looks more like a spikey junk pile. Sometimes we get sick of hassling if we dont get the results we believe are needed, so we stop trying.
Whatever the cause, failing to take adequate note of our surroundings and acting on them often results in injuries and damage. These can range from a trip and a stubbed toe through to catastrophic events with multiple deaths. Here is an outcome that demonstrates the worst of complacency and avoidance, it also mentions some chemical safety pointers. How about checking your working environment with a fresh pair of eyes? Do you need to at home as well?
The loose pile of logs (photo above) is accessible to children.
Do you have your own examples of high risk hazards? What are you going to do about them?
What might happen to you as well as to others, if you ignore them?
Dreamworld – the bad dream continues
Ardent Leisure, the owners of Dreamworld in Qld pleaded guilty in July 2020 to three charges under s 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) for failing to comply with its health and safety duties and exposing individuals to a risk of serious injury or death. They were fined $3.6m over deaths of Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and Roozi Araghi on the Thunder River Rapids ride.
The tragedy unfolded as their raft collided three times with another that was stranded on the conveyor belt in low water on 25 October 2016. Workplace Health and Safety prosecutor Aaron Guilfoyle told the court that while the pump failure was the direct cause of the accident, there were other factors to be considered.
He outlined a litany of failures to adequately ensure the ride was operated safely including poor maintenance and inadequate shutdown procedures. Previous safety audits revealed:
- a water level safety sensor which could have prevented the accident would have cost less than $3,000.
- The company also failed to provide information, training, instruction or supervision necessary to protect people from risk.
- The pump malfunction was the third that day and the fifth in a week, and no automated shutdown function was installed despite recommendations.
Jons comments: Only the corporate body was charged, the individual officers and workers of Dreamworld and Ardent Leisure could have charged under the same section of the Act (s 32) or with a more serious offence of reckless conduct under s 31 of the Act (which also carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment where individuals are charged, in addition to a fine). Questions for you:
- Are you providing sufficient information, instruction, training and supervision to ensure that your workers know how to work safely and are doing so?
- Are you providing the inspections and maintenance required to ensure that your workplace, plant and equipment is maintained in a safe condition?
- Do you have sufficient evidence of these activities to be able to demonstrate to the regulator or a court, that you are doing what is needed?
If unsure, it’s time for a review. Call me for independent advice and assistance if that will help.
“Who is in charge”
If asked, “Who is in charge of health and safety here?” The only good answer is “Everyone”. This is a limited but legally correct answer as well as a practical one. It is a separate issue from “Who is the Management representative for Health and Safety?” That person will probably be one of the people WorkSafe will particularly want to talk to if they drop in for a chat and will probably be the person named if any ‘Notices’ are issued.
Everyone being responsible for health and safety is emphasised in my work with clients where I push for mutual OHS/WHS etc accountability and respectful behaviour. If both concepts are working as an integral component of your workplace culture, good health and safety management can be expected to follow as everyone is looking out for themselves, each other and looking for safer and better ways to get the work done.
With a good workplace culture and good health and safety management, you can expect fewer incidents, less downtime, reduced costs, a more engaged workforce. In addition, and especially if Jon Temby is involved, you are are more likely to be able to confidently demonstrate adequate legal compliance should your friendly WorkSafe inspector drop in for an unexpected chat.
Mobile phones and driving
I included this video in an Update last year, it is worth showing it to everyone in your organisation again.
If you thought that just a quick little check on the mobile phone while you are driving is OK, take a look at what can happen: https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/devastated-family-wants-every-driver-16744770 .
I suggest that this 4.5 minute video clip be viewed by all who have driving licenses or will have them soon and everyone who needs to drive for work related purposes. Warning: some may find the video distressing however that is the point, it helps to get the message through. Distractions during driving can cause fatalities, injuries, downtime, damage, loss of productivity and lots of heartache and management time.
‘Distractions are dangerous’ could be a useful phrase, and not just for driving.