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Australasian Safety Consulting Services Pty Ltd

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25.01.2022 After the Christmas shut down, workers returning to the construction site should be re-inducted so they can be re-familiarise with the worksite. This does not have to be a long process and there are a number of ways that this can be achieved, from a an address by the Project Director/Manager to all workers, through to individual contractors conducting their own for their workers. Some of the topics that should be covered are:... 1. Keep it simple. Explain that everyone must ensure work is done as safely as possible and that each worker should not put themselves or others at risk. Inspect the work area and only commence work after ensuring the job steps are know and the appropriate controls are in place. 2. Have workers review, amend and sign onto Safe Work Procedures, Safe Work Method Statements, Job Hazard Analysis...etc. before commencing work. 3. Reaffirm the provisions of first aid and emergency procedures and reintroduce key safety personnel. 4. Have the locations facilities and amenities been moved, if so, workers need to be advised. 5. Re-cover the potential site evacuation scenarios, what the alarm sounds like, how to activate it, exit routes and roll call locations. Workers should know how to use fire fighting equipment but only to tackle small fires. 6. Remind workers about the importance of good housekeeping practices and where location of bins. 7. Ensure that those workers whose tickets/licences may have expired over the break have renewed them - if expired then they do not commence work 8. Other topics include safety signage, turning up for work in a fit state and the site drug and alcohol policy, as well as proper use and care of personal protective equipment. Remember that some workers may require more specific training before commencing a particular task or role safely.

24.01.2022 There have been a number of incidents in Australia and internationally where workers have been crushed against fixed structures while manoeuvring raised boom and scissor type elevating work platforms (EWPs). Many of these incidents have resulted in fatalities. EWPs have become the default height access equipment for many trades and tasks. While they may control work at height risks, they have introduced new risks from the movement of powered mobile plant. Duty holders are u...sually aware of the risks to persons on the ground, but they often don't consider the movement risks to workers on the EWP platform or in the basket. The range of motions available on some modern EWPs (eg some have the ability to manoeuvre into and between structures) has increased crush risks. Currently, duty holders typically rely on low order (administrative) controls to manage crush risks, such as work instructions, operator skill and situation awareness. A number of EWP manufacturers and suppliers have started to develop and introduce various types of engineering controls (called secondary guarding) to reduce the likelihood of crush incidents occurring. However, secondary guarding is not widely fitted to the EWP rental fleet so guarded EWPs may not be readily available. Further, the first generation of the secondary guarding systems now available do not eliminate the crush risk but may reduce the crush risks for some tasks. See more

24.01.2022 No more rain delays with this app...

23.01.2022 Express your views about workplace chemical exposure standards Safe Work Australia is holding a public consultation process about exposure standards for hazardous chemicals used in workplaces.

23.01.2022 An online interactive risk assessment tool has been developed to help private security workers cope with violence, job insecurity, and strenuous mental and emotional workloads.

22.01.2022 ALARP "Practicable application" for safety professionals and duty holders. The application of health and safety does not have to be complicated, costly or time-consuming and although many safety professionals know about as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) they sometimes struggle to clearly advise duty holders about whether those control measures reduce risks ALARP without the cost being grossly disproportionate in the benefits of achieving risk reduction. For safety p...Continue reading

21.01.2022 SIA Submission to Victorian Inquiry into the Labour Hire Industry and Insecure Work. In October 2015 the Victorian Government opened its Inquiry into Labour Hire to public comments after releasing its discussion paper on the issue. After consultation with the SIA Victorian members and the SIA College of fellows, a submission was provided to the Victorian inquiry into labour hire and insecure work.... Kelly Johnstone, Chair of the College, said, This is an important submission, because the labour hire sector in Australia has always raised serious OHS concerns in terms of injuries, illnesses, exposures and confusion on who has OHS responsibility. The SIAs submission focussed on a detailed case study from one of our members, which demonstrated how a labour hire organisation can successfully manage OHS risks. Other areas of comment included labour hire workers not being seen as employees of the host organisation and therefore their safety being put at risk with decreased supervision and omissions in other basic OHS requirements such as personal protective equipment, consultation, training and risk management. Concerns were also raised about accommodation for labour hire workers and the submission drew attention to the importance of compliance with WorkSafe Victorias Compliance Code for Workplace Amenities and Work Environment. The submission suggested that current OHS licensing processes be expanded further within the labour hire sector to establish minimum safety benchmarks and standards." Ms Johnstone said that, "the College was ramping up its activities on a number of fronts, and would be far more active in the year ahead in providing advice to governments in regard to OHS/WHS matters. The OHS profession has an important and unique voice, and we intend to be a part of that voice she said. We intend to regularly call for comments from the broader membership on a raft of issues, and start to grow awareness of that unique voice, by having more of a say on the things that matter to our members" - See more at: https://sia.org.au/college-of-fellows/cof-submissions

20.01.2022 The Senate is holding an inquiry into building products used in Australia that do not conform to Australian standards, including products made overseas.

20.01.2022 In the US, heavy-duty trucks are required to have electronic stability-control systems installed within the next two years. These systems will help drivers maintain control in emergencies by keeping the wheels on the ground and preventing trailers from swinging.

18.01.2022 The need to cut costs can overshadow a business's safety commitment. In my day to day consulting work, it's painfully obvious that as 2016 gets underway an increasing number of businesses are experiencing economic pressures. As these companies and organisations look to structure themselves and shave off every cent that isn't considered absolutely necessary, many have inevitably fallen to the problematic notion that safety is an impost and is an area in which to implement cuts.... PCBUs (person conducting a business or undertaking) who are anxious to reduce costs, at times lose sight that safety can also heavily impact on efficiency, as a serious incident can have a highly detrimental effect as any savings made from cuts to hazard and risk resources can be dashed in one incident. When there are financial pressures on any organisation, duty holders should remember to remain strong on their safety messaging, this reminds employees that senior leaders care about the safety aspect of work and are continuing to focus on the wellbeing of their staff not just the dollars. One of the most common challenges I see is that safety practitioners are viewed as being a safety guard dog, however with cost cutting implementations, they are relegated to a compliance role and are effectively muzzled from actively developing practical and effective applications that improve safety and prevent harm. Safety professionals can better assist their cause through having an understanding of the businesss economic strategy and then by ensuring that they focus on also demonstrating the cost effectiveness when presenting safety solutions rather just on the practicable and realistic aspects of how they eliminate/reduce harm. There are a number positive indicators that your business' or organisations safety culture and safety outcomes are not being outweighed by financial considerations. These include; Safety practitioners/specialists are engaged in health and safety routinely not only after an incident has occurred. Management and supervisors respond positively to safety issues that are raised. Subcontractors tender process/procedures are not compromised. Tenders are awarded based safety and quality performance not who was the cheapest. Corrective Actions are closed out and are not overdue because of budget restraints. Senior executive team and board seek to understand the safety impacts of every decision being made across the business. Safety is not treated as something separate to be discussed during a weekly safety meeting or only at shift change. Safety is part every conversation and considered in every decision. The business has the maturity and willpower to implement changes when necessary

18.01.2022 A Simple but effective piece of equipment to rescue personnel from a hazardous environment .

17.01.2022 Three cases of dust-related lung disease in underground coal mine workers have been reported in Queensland this year.

17.01.2022 What a brilliant idea...They invented a mini trash collector to clean up the waterways.

16.01.2022 Apple product recall - Wall charger

14.01.2022 Michael Jr explaining 'Know your Why' Safety is about knowing your 'WHY'. A lot of people, companies and organisations know 'WHAT' Safety is however they don't know the 'WHY'. ... Know your 'WHY' and you will challenge yourself to go above achieving safety compliance to being safety committed. Watch the video and you will understand it better.

13.01.2022 A study of 1726 workers has found that lost productivity and absenteeism due to heat stress costs the Australian economy about $7.8 billion a year.

13.01.2022 Mobile plant is a major cause of workplace incidents in Australia. The essential characteristics of mobile plant its mobility in combination with the level of operator skill and experience, the particulars of the workplace environment, the presence of people in the workplace, design and manufacture limitations, poor selection of plant being fit for purpose and maintenance requirements result in inherently high risk. While you are not expected to be an expert on health and safety issues associated with mobile plant, you should be aware of the types of mobile plant that might be used in the workplace, and the advantages, disadvantages and risk factors associated with its use.

13.01.2022 Emergency workers had to rescue a man trapped in an excavator after it tipped onto it's side and was dangling on a quarry ledge at Keperra in Brisbanes north-west today.

12.01.2022 Seven steps to implement continual improvement of injury management in your workplace. Over the next 12 months 640,700 workers, or 5.3% of the Australian workforce will experience a work-related incident Of these, approximately 131,000 will result in lost time of more than 5 days... In Queensland over 14,000 workers will be injured Queenslands average return to work rate after a workplace injury is impressive at over 90 per cent, according to WorkCover Qld although businesses could achieved further improvements with their rates by a few simple steps; 1. Plan Develop a strategic injury management objective and plan then communicate it at all levels of the business. 2. Raise awareness at management level Ensure all levels of management understand the importance of early return to work/stay at work outcomes and the benefits of this for both the injured worker and the business. Provide frontline managers with rehabilitation training and send injury notifications to all managers so that they are up-to-date on injuries happening in their areas. 3. Ask for feedback Incorporate a survey form with your OHS, rehabilitation and return to work documents to obtain feedback from injured employees after their claim closes. 4. Foster an early intervention culture Foster and build a strong culture of early intervention, including injury reporting and management. It helps to clarify procedures for early incident reporting and ensure that injury managers are first responding to an injured worker either by phone or in person. 5. Communicate Communication is crucial in effective injury management. Keep all relevant parties involved and part of the process. Ineffective and inconsistent communication can lead to a break in trust with the worker that always results in a longer than expected recovery time frame. 6. Think outside the box Look outside the box for different ways to deliver and access injury management and OHS training. Training is sometimes difficult to organise, due to time, budget and geographical constraints with managers often working in different regions. If this applies to your business, look at alternatives for training delivery methods, e.g. online/teleconference meetings. This may assist with capturing a wider audience. 7. Find and support OHS and injury management champions within your business Having a cohesive OHS and injury management team that are all on the same page and striving to meet the same goals makes it easier to gain organisational trust in what you are trying to achieve. Find ways to spread the word about the value and benefits of OHS and effective injury management across the business, and share safety resources and procedures.

11.01.2022 Event (Incident) Investigation Trap Even the most experienced investigators are often trapped by the same cause & effect assumption that traps amateurs. How? First, even the many experienced investigators dont know all the cause & effect relationships that cause incidents. This is especially true of the causes of human error. Many experts have little or no training or understanding of the psychology behind human error and focus on correcting a worker's unsafe act/s as the ...singular causal factor for the incident rather than addressing the multiple conditions that contributed to most incidents. Although many organisations have Incident procedures that require a lead investigator and a team of investigators (the size of the team being dependant on the nature of the incident or other conditions) with the hope that someone on the team will see the right answer. Of course, this depends on team selection to counter the inherent weakness of the assumption behind incident causation. Also, it assumes that the rest of the team will recognise the right finding when another team member presents it. Good luck! Often, the more dominant member of the team will lead the team to arrive at the findings that he/she is experienced with. All members of the investigation team must able to understand that how they search for and interrupt the findings of causal and contributing factors with respect to incident causation to ensure that they are not accidentally influenced in their determination and recommendations. Organisation can better ensure the success of their investigation teams by: 1. Ensuring adequate training on hazard, risks and investigation techniques are provided to those persons identified to make up an investigation team. 2. Ensure teams are comprised with someone who has appropriate technically knowledge around the work activity and procedures. 3. Ensure that investigation team members are unbiased - (immediate supervises and workers may not thoroughly examine their contributing factors.) 4. Adequate resource the team.

11.01.2022 Today the Safety Institute of Australia announced that the Safety Institute of Australia and the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board, together with the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Safety Centre, will conduct a joint project to develop a chapter on process safety for the OHS Body of Knowledge for Generalist OHS Professionals. Trish Kerin, director of the IChemE Safety Centre said that the collaboration is an opportunity to improve the approach to Proc...ess Safety generally, as the content of the chapter will be built around the process safety competences for generalist OHS professions - developed as part of larger process safety competency framework. The scope and content of the chapter will be produced by a technical panel, comprising process safety engineers and generalist OHS professionals. Pam Pryor, Registrar of the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board, custodian of the OHS Body of Knowledge, said that this development is exciting as it recognises the role of the Generalist in supporting process safety and will provide a conceptual knowledge base for the generalist, including effective liaison with engineers. CEO of the Safety Institute of Australia Mr David Clarke welcomed the joint work on the new chapter. Some generalist OHS professionals have an engineering background. However, analysis of recent process engineering disasters has shown that all generalists operating in high-risk environments should have this foundation knowledge. The ability to identify issues, contribute a unique perspective, and engage with process safety specialists is essential to for managing safety in such environments he said. Work will commence in February, with a workshop for the technical panel. The publication is planned for late 2016. See more

10.01.2022 Safety is not just confined to the workplace. Be safe at home and on the roads.

09.01.2022 Seven industry sectors have been identified as requiring targeted efforts to improve safety in order to keep Queenslands work injury rates trending down. Recent statistics show that the serious injury claim rate for the targeted sub-sectors, including the metals manufacturing, meat processing, road freight, civil construction, construction trades, horticulture and livestock sectors were much higher than each overall industry claim rate. Workplace Health and Safety Queensland will work closely with businesses in these sectors to identify the most prevalent injuries and what is causing them and ensure that integrated action plans are implemented that intergrade health and safety, injury management and health and wellbeing systems .

08.01.2022 There are many common solutions for controlling hazards and risks in the workplace, which can be readily implemented. But it is not enough to simply eliminate the obvious risks by law employers are responsible for controlling all potential safety hazards in their workplace, however workers also need to take responsibility for identifying and controlling hazards. Everyone (employers and workers) need to take a proactive consultation approach to help identify issues in the workplace and build a strong commitment to health and safety together.

07.01.2022 Fallacy - Adopted a high standard of risk control and introduce more administration controls to prevent workplace harm. Some organisations implement standards of risk control that are more stringent than good practice, including relying predominantly on administration controls in the belief that by doing so they fulfilling their duty to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable. They may do this for a number of reasons, such as meeting... corporate social responsibility goals, the belief that more rules and paperwork will protect them from liability, must be seen seeking a continual improvement in standards, or because of a lack of knowledge by senior managers of health and safety principles, and critical safety behaviours. It does not follow that all risk control standards are reasonably practicable or can stop an unsafe act or behaviour. Risk reduction does not mean that every measure that could possibly be taken (however theoretical) to reduce risk must be taken, nor is deciding that the introduction of another control is a continual improvement in standards. When we make decisions about hazards, risks and most importantly, risk controls, we need to avoid dysfunctional decision-making. Direct pressure, over reactionary, high stress, persuasive leaders, and shared stereotypes without focusing on the human behavioural aspect can lead to a failure to ensure that the controls are reasonably practicable. In most instances, there is more than one needed to control a risk this generally include a combination from the hierarchy of controls. These controls are barriers that prevent the risk being realised however duty holders need to avoid the temptation to require more and more administration controls i.e. procedures, signage or checklistsetc. - as part of these protective barriers, in the belief that by introducing them, will reduce the risk as low as possible (ALARP) thus a harmful event will be prevented. For example: company A has had a number workers sustain serious back injuries when lifting storage boxes onto to shelves. Rather than just rely on putting up signage or a introduce manual handling procedure they remove all large storage boxes and replace them with smaller ones so that they cannot be over filled and redesign their storage shelving so workers do not need to lift above waist height. To continuously improve safety performance, we need to focus on the human behavioural aspects rather than controls that may tick the compliance box but do not influence or stop unsafe behaviours. Safety professionals and duty holders need to consider the internal and external factors that combine to influence our perception and decision-making when undertaking tasks and this should include consideration of workplace morale and motivation before they adopted a higher standard of risk control or introduce more administration controls.

06.01.2022 Last week I attended a focus group held by the Office of Industrial Relations (WorkCover Qld) for the new Qld work capacity certificate which is being developed. The new certificate will focus on what work can be done after injury, supporting early and safe rehabilitation and return to work, and encouraging return-to-work discussions as early as possible. Once all of the feedback from the stakeholder focus groups have been taken into compiled, the new certificate is expected to start being trialled in July, with full implementation by January 2017.

06.01.2022 The Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines has released a Safety Alert after 37 incidents of exploding lead acid batteries at coal mines, metalliferous mines, and quarries have been reported to the Mines Inspectorate over the last 11 years. https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au//mines-safety/exploding-lead-a

05.01.2022 The National Research Centre for OHS Regulation (NRCOHSR) SURVEY ON SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENTS AND WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT PLANS Please complete our survey. It is about:... Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) and Work Health and Safety Management Plans in construction Whether they make the work safer Whether they work for you How they can be improved To do the survey please click on the following website address; https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SWMS1 If you would like to discuss the survey, or if you would like to do the survey over the phone, please email [email protected] or ring 0439 672 650. Your response is confidential. We do not ask your name or your companys name. The survey is easy to complete and takes about 10 minutes. The results of the survey will be considered by Safe Work Australia, the national work health and safety body. The results will be used for future improvements in construction. A report or summary of the results will be made available See more

05.01.2022 An ABC report, based on coronial statistics, has found there is one suicide every six weeks among Australian emergency personnel, such as police officers, paramedics and fire-fighters. Experts suggest that PTSD sufferers are not getting the necessary treatment.

04.01.2022 The best present you can give your family for Christmas is you... Work Safe, Come Home Safe.

02.01.2022 Public consultation process open: workplace hazardous chemical exposure standards Interested parties have been urged by Safe Work Australias CEO, Michelle Baxter, to express their views about exposure standards for hazardous chemicals used in workplaces in a public consultation process. Exposure standards refer to the airborne concentration of individual chemicals in the workers breathing zone which, according to current knowledge, should not cause adverse health effects o...r undue discomfort to nearly all workers. Exposure standards are specified in the model Work Health and Safety Regulations as mandatory legal limits to protect the health of workers and minimise exposure to chemicals in the workplace. There are some 644 exposure standards, as listed in Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants. Safe Work Australia is holding the public consultation process to examine the role of workplace exposure standards and how they could be reviewed and maintained, said Baxter. All interested parties are encouraged to express their views about exposure standards by making a submission in response to The Role of Chemical Exposure Standards in Work Health and Safety Laws: Discussion Paper. This is an excellent opportunity for workers and businesses using, storing, handling and generating hazardous chemicals, and any other interested stakeholders, to comment, said Baxter. The input received through this public consultation process will help inform policy options for the regulation of workplace exposure standards. The public consultation period is open for six weeks from 9 November 2015 until 18 December 2015. Submissions close at 5.30 pm AEDT, Friday 18 December 2015. Interested parties can submit their views via the Safe Work Australia public submissions website.

02.01.2022 A guide on marijuana use in the workplace has been published and includes information on effective drug-testing, employee education programs and side effects of marijuana use. This emerging issue is likely to escalate as marijuana use becomes more widely legalised.

02.01.2022 http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au//media-release-helping

01.01.2022 Ruling means that workplaces that impose a code of conduct covering workers behaviour during non work hours in camp mean that injuries are work related and covered by workers compensation.