The recently released reports on the 2009 Pacific Adventurer oil spill off the coast of Brisbane say a lack of experienced personnel, OHS control and understanding of oil toxicity hampered the response to the spill.

In March 2009, Pacific Adventurer lost 31 containers of ammonium nitrate overboard while it was seven nautical miles east of Cape Moreton.

The ship was also holed and 270 tonnes of heavy fuel oil was estimated to have spilled from the ship.

Most of the spill affected the east coast of Moreton and Bribie Islands and the Sunshine Coast from Caloundra to Marcoola.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) and Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) established an inquiry into the incident, and an Incident Analysis Team (IAT) analysed the management of the incident.

A Strategic Issues Report and Operational and Technical Issues Report have been recently released on the incident.

The Strategic Issues Report said posting the deputy State Marine Pollution Controller (SMPC) to the Sunshine Coast Incident Centre and leaving the SMPC in the State Incident Control Centre (S-ICC) without a deputy caused OHS risks.

‘The retention of the deputy SMPC in Brisbane could … have relieved the SMPC who managed the entire incident, often up to 18 hours a day in the first few weeks of the incident, without relief. This highlights the lack of experienced personnel available and raises serious occupational health and safety (OHS) issues at the highest level of the response.’

The Operational and Technical Issues Report found although ‘there were notable individual efforts to ensure a safe and healthy work environment’, ‘OHS was not centrally coordinated’.

There was also confusion on Moreton Island about the toxicity of the oil affecting the beaches and whether clean up crews needed to wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in a hot climate.

For more details, visit AMSA’s strategic and operational reports

The definition of reasonable management action in mental injury claims has been expanded with the recent passing of amendments to Victoria’s Accident and Compensation (AC) Act.

Under the revised laws, reasonable management action has been expanded to also include appraisal, counselling, suspension or stand down, training and investigation.

The Hanks Review into Victoria’s workers’ compensation scheme had initially recommended amending section 82(2A) of the AC Act to ‘clarify the exclusion from compensation of psychiatric injuries that arise from an employer’s reasonable management actions’.

However, the Victorian Government only decided to go as far as amending the definition of reasonable management action and ‘leaving the fundamentals of the provision unchanged’.

Hanks had also recommended introducing ‘mediation or workplace counselling at the request of any party before the determination of liability for stress-related and psychiatric claims’.

However, the Victorian Government rejected this outright.

For more details, visit WorkSafe Victoria

The Greens motion in the Senate last week calling for the Federal Government to ensure model OHS laws don’t reduce OHS standards has received qualified support from the Coalition.

On March 11, Greens Senator Rachel Siewert moved that the Senate recognise more than 150 people died in work-related incidents in 2008-09 – a 14 per cent increase on the previous year.

Siewert also moved that the Senate acknowledge workers rights to safe and healthy workplaces, noted the Federal Government’s OHS harmonisation plans, and called on the Federal Government to ensure OHS standards wouldn’t be reduced and employees and their representatives’ OHS rights wouldn’t be weakened.

Although the Coalition supported the principle of the motion, Coalition Senator Eric Abetz noted ‘there is a sting in the tail’.

He said the last words of the motion referred to maintaining full union powers regarding OHS and noted ‘from time to time’ these powers were not used appropriately.

‘In those circumstances the coalition will be opposing on the voices but are not seeking to divide,’ he said.

For more details, visit the Senate Hansard

All Queensland insulation installers are now subject to further revised safety requirements, under the recently released Electrical Safety Ministerial Notice.

The Electrical Safety (Installation of Ceiling Insulation) Notice 2010 incorporates existing requirements as well as new provisions relating to ceiling insulation other than metal foil batts.

Under the notice, before installing electrically conductive ceiling insulation (other than metal foil batts) electrical inspection and testing of the ceiling space must be performed by a licensed electrical contractor.

If the ceiling space is found to be unsafe, the insulation must not be installed until the ceiling space is made safe or repaired.

Once the ceiling space is declared safe, insulation may be installed under a number of conditions.

One of the installation conditions requires ‘…a minimum of 25mm separation is maintained between the ceiling insulation material and the consumer’s mains and/or any cables of the electrical installation not protected by a safety switch.’

Installers found in breach of the new requirements face fines of between $250,000 and $1 million and between six months and three years jail, depending on the circumstances.

For more details, visit WHSQ

Blue collar workers and their families are the target of the new ‘homecomings’ OHS campaign in New South Wales in an effort to reduce workplace injury and death.

‘Research shows that family members can play a vital role in influencing their husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, sister or brother to heed the safety message,’ NSW Minister for Finance Michael Daley said.

‘Family members make a valuable contribution – sometimes unconsciously – when seeing their loved ones off to work, asking how the day went or discussing concerns they may have about an aspect of their workplace.’

The campaign started March 7 and will run to June 27 across radio, TV and print and cost $2.58 million.
In 2007-08, 30,000 workers were seriously injured and 53 were killed.

Daley said the campaign would also target Indigenous workers and ethnic workers from a number of language groups: African, Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Indonesian, Italian, Pakistani, Spanish, Sri Lankan, and Vietnamese.

For more details, visit WorkCover NSW

Thousands of US workplaces have been put on notice following high numbers of injuries and illnesses resulting in days away from work, restricted work activities or job transfers (DART rate).

The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) analysed DART rate data gathered via employer surveys and identified 15,000 workplaces where the DART rate was more than twice the national average.

OSHA has notified these workplaces and urged employers to contact OHS consultants, their insurance carriers, or their local workers’ compensation agencies for advice.

OSHA also urged workplaces with 250 or fewer workers to come directly to OSHA’s consultancy program for assistance.

‘The consultation program is administered by state agencies and operated separately from OSHA’s inspection program,’ OSHA said. ‘The service is free, and there are no fines even if problems are found.’

For more details, visit OSHA

Unsuitable excavator training led to a trench collapse, leg injuries and a £5,000 fine.

In November 2008, an excavator was digging a trench on a sloping bank at Allanbrae, near Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, UK, when the trench wall collapsed.

John Taylor, 44 of Thornaby, was laying pipes in the trench when the wall collapsed on him.

‘Taylor was trapped from the waist down for more than two hours and also suffered bruising to his legs,’ said the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The HSE investigated the incident and found the excavator driver had not received the appropriate training.

Vickers Construction Limited, of Yarm Road, Eaglescliffe, was prosecuted in the Darlington Magistrates' Court for breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc act 1974.

The company pleaded guilty, was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,178.10.

‘Trench collapses are a well-known cause of serious injuries and deaths in the construction industry and this incident could have easily been avoided,’ said HSE Inspector Dr Dave Shallow.

‘The employee using the excavator should have been properly trained and industry guidance, which recommends providing shoring or trench boxes, should have been followed.’

For more details, visit HSE

The investigation into the rock fall that occurred in Mangorewa Gorge, New Zealand that injured three people in August 2009, has come up empty handed.

The rock fall occurred near road works to widen State Highway 36 between Rotorua and Tauranga and injured three members of the public.

‘Our investigation found that there is no indication a specific action or inaction of the Principal or their contractors led to the rock fall and as such, the Department does not intend taking any further action,’ said New Zealand Department of Labour Service Manager, Bay of Plenty, Murray Thompson.

Thompson added: ‘No single cause for the rock fall could be determined and we are satisfied that the Principal and contractor’s engaged and followed “expert” advice.’

For more details, visit the NZ Dept of Labour

New statistics predict one in four woman will be aged 65 and over and continue to outlive men in the European Union (EU) in 2030.

‘In 2008, a fifth (19 per cent) of women in the EU27 were aged 65 and over, while this share is expected to increase to a quarter (26 per cent) in 2030,’ said “A statistical perspective on women and men in the EU27”.

Life expectancy at birth is expected to rise on average to 85.3 years for women and 80.0 years for men in 2030, said the perspective.

In 2007, women’s life expectancy at birth in the EU was on average 82.2 years, while men’s was 76.1 years.

In 2007, France had the highest life expectancy for women of 84.9 years, the perspective added.

For more details, visit Eurostat

Queensland

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New South Wales / ACT

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Victoria

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Nominations now open to the 2010 NSCA / GIO National Safety Awards of Excellence

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Major
Sponsor

ProSafe 2010 – Advanced Process Safety Control & Systems

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24th - 25th May Melbourne

The complexity and rapid evolvement in our society puts a pressure and demand on process industries to update their safety concerns on an ongoing basis. Vigilant re-validation and assessment of your current safety system performance and compliance are crucial to help to achieve sustainable and controlled process safety regime, for long term operational and profitability enhancement.

Followed by the great success of ProSafe 2009, ProSafe 2010 aims to continue highlighting the current and future challenges faced across industries and with modern trends and methods of PSM. This conference will promote contemporary management and guidelines to proactively endorse areas such as safety control, monitoring, people management, safety and leadership and modern accident/incident investigation.

The delegates will learn “how to” approaches of integration, adaption and optimisation of business strategies where people, technology and workplace environment collide. Participants will learn from practical solutions and best practices from successful industry leaders, furthermore gain valuable knowledge through workshop interaction and networking.

Key topics

• Advanced Control and Metrics Competency Improvement and Effectiveness
• Safety Performance Monitoring and Sustainability
• People Management and Safety Leadership
• Modern Accident/ Incident Investigation and Management
• Control-based Hazard Profiling and Modelling

Key features

• Overcoming the complexity of emerging hazard trends and challenges faced by industries
• Strengthening process control of systems at your workplace
• Optimising PSM monitoring and sustainability
• Ensuring effective people management and leadership to keep up with the changing nature of accidents
• Controlling human factors and errors in complicated coupling systems from new hazard types

For more information, please click here.

All NSCA members are entitled to a discount of 10% when registering with Ms. Esther. Please contact Ms. Esther for details and quote EN - NSCA during registration.

For further details & brochures, contact:
Ms. Esther Wong
Tel No: +603 2723 6736
Fax No: +612 9223 2352
Email add: estherw@marcusevanskl.com

NSCA Career Information Night

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Date: 22 March 2010
Location: VECCI, Industry House, 486 Albert Street, East Melbourne
Time: 5:30pm – 6:30pm
Details: Learn more about the Certificate IV in OHS, Diploma of OHS and Diploma of Environmental Sustainability with the NSCA

Want your career to be on the safe side?

Come along to the National Safety Council of Australia’s information night to learn more about how Australia’s leading provider of OHS training services can equip you with the latest professional qualifications to boost your safety and environmental career.

To find out more call 1800 655 510 or email melbourne@nsca.org.au