I’m in favour as long as the employers (and I assume employees) have the same type of recourse available to query the fine as they do under the road rules etc.
It would be nice to have the regulators, particularly Victoria, enforcing their own rules and regulations.
MikeE

Thanks Mike. Are you in favour of on-the-spots or against?

It is hard to get an accurate picture on whether workplace safety is getting better, worse or stalled as the way these events are reported and the types of measures being used seem to be fairly innocuous and flexible to ensure we all feel warm and fuzzy about what is going on.

I read the media and watch and listen to the news to see how workplace injuries and deaths to workers are reported.

It seems that on the whole – killing, poisoning, maiming and all the other manifestations of bad management and inappropriate performance in a workplace are still seen as somehow far more acceptable than say the road toll or random acts of violence and terrorism. And hey we couldn’t demonise those salts of the earth, the small business sector, by actually making them responsible and accountable for what they allow to happen.

The role of the Regulators in highlighting both the problems and the solutions is crucial in raising the public awareness is clearly demonstrated in the number and level of impact the current round of WorkSafe advertisements are having.

Gone are the days of amputations, burns etc, with the short and long term effects there on show in technicolor for all to ponder.

I suspect that whatever we are doing is not delivering better outcomes at the rate of change that says “We’ve got this covered”. This surely makes the case for doing different things to get different outcomes.

We all know the saying “…same thing…different result…insanity”. Perhaps it’s time for different action.

MikeE
Michael Edwards Coaching & Consulting

Inherent in the process of infringement notices is the issue of a basic democratic right of “Innocent until proven guilty”, which could complicate this extensively if employers determined to object or appeal or not pay the infringement notice. Even with traffic infringements which are hugely popular with the whole motoring public (not) the basic right to deny, appeal, contest, object to the fine is a principle which is entrenched in law, so much so that there is a lot of evidence around Australia and in case precedents that opposes, contradicts the current thinking that certain actions can be taken by police almost unilaterallybefore any conviction is recorded.

We have seen the courts get logjammed in most states and we have also seen the prolific use of “cautions” being dished out. With small business employing 90% of australia workers this could have a huge paperwork impact in tracking all this if it came into play as well as the issue of funding a broaader legal and court set up to deal with the likely onflow of work. I am sure the legal profession would welcome it.

In OSH we have the usual scenario of inspectors “forming an opionion, before they issue a notice of either improvement or prohibition, which if not satisfied can lead to prosecution, or can be apepaled for a review as well.

With most of OSH serious ofences moving and being talked about at the criminal level, one must question who would have the jurisdiction to make some sort of decisionto say what in OSH would be criminal and what would not be criminal? Do we need to set up a whole new branch of criminal records maintained separately to Police records?

Just a few issues of what is faced in looking at such a scenario, but the real problem in my opinion is that it usually takes quite a bit more than one study of empirical evidence to jsutify something as serious as this and without emotive words like pereceptions which do not really prove anything in themselves.