University of New South Wales - School of Risk and Safety Sciences

The current legislative approach of control of workplace risks through performance based legislation outlined by general duties and underpinned by regulation replaced the doctrines of common employment, voluntary assumption of risk and contributory negligence, which were used as a defence against employee claims of negligence from the 1830s (in the UK) until the 1930s (Australian common employment legislation was not repealed until the 1950s in some States). The 1972 UK Robens Royal Commission into workplace safety recommended development of generic performance-based occupational health and safety legislation to establish in law the employer’s duty of care, through a system of (at least) communication, training and self regulation. Mirroring these developments, the 1980 NSW Williams Inquiry also recommended enactment of performance based occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation that covered all workers and all workplaces in NSW. This led to enactment of the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) in 1983. Similar legislation has now been enacted in all states and territory jurisdictions in Australia. However, the new legislation did not replace the old legislation, and workplace legislation is a hybrid of performance and prescriptive styles. It would also be fair to say that like many areas of government activity in Australia, variations in federal, state and territory OHS activities remains a problem. Reforms and amendments to OHS legislation (such as the 2000 revision of the NSW OHS Act and consolidation of the NSW regulations in 2001) and including increasing penalties have increased awareness in improving OHS in workplaces.

This legislation, which outlines general duties and encourages consultation between employers and employees, does not prescribe the systems that employers should implement to comply with such legislation, although competency training, hazard or risk assessments, control of OHS risks, incident investigation, workers compensation and rehabilitation are considered common OHS activities in most organisations. Compliance activities to OHS legislation have therefore developed unsystematically, and systems that contribute to good OHS are not well known.

This project therefore seeks to investigate a number of questions:

With regard to the utility of delivering workplace systems in OHS:

Are governments and organisations working from different agendas with respect to OHS?
How is good OHS defined by organisations today and which approach to OHS delivers the highest payback for the least inconvenience?
Can the reasons that organisations who continue to ignore safety be identified – and what can be done to eliminate them?

With regard OHS MS themselves:

Do OHS MS allow organisations to better comply with their OHS legislative requirements?
Are individual management systems (for example, OHS MS) a useful approach to the modern organisation, with its focus on corporate governance, business continuance, business improvement and integrated management systems?
How can the machinery of an OHS MS become more fluid and dynamic so that it has the capacity to respond to corporate needs without becoming the next (or last) “big thing”?
What do organisations get out of OHS MS that allows them to see that they are worth developing and implementing?
Is there a body of professionals that can develop, implement, maintain and review/audit or otherwise measure the effectiveness of OHS MS?

There is a need to investigate these questions, to monitor, evaluate and review the implementation of OHS MS on a broad scale so that their merit as a planned, preventive approach to safety can be preserved, improvements incorporated, and the ever changing needs of businesses can be evaluated and made more effective.

PEER-REVIEWED PAPERS

Makin, A.-M., Winder, C. (2007) A new conceptual framework to improve the application of occupational health and safety management systems. Safety Science 46: 935-948
Makin, A.-M., Winder, C. (2007) OHSE Risk Assessment and Control. In: Australian Master OHS & Environment Guide 2nd Edition. CCH Australia Ltd: Sydney, pp 123-132.
Makin, A-M., Winder, C. (2007) Systematic OHS management: What makes it work? The Journal of Occupational Health and Safety Australia and New Zealand; Vol 23(4) pp: 291-294
Makin, A.-M., Winder, C. Do self-assessment tools assist the effectiveness of performance-based OHS legislation? Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand, 22(3): 261-267, 2006.
Winder, C., Makin, A.-M. The hierarchy of controls: inflexible dogma or flexible decision making? Journal of Occupational Health and Safety – Australia and New Zealand 22: 3-6, 2006.
Winder, C., Abdullah, D.N.M.A. A survey of OHS Programs and courses offered at Australian Universities. Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand 20: 445-457, 2004.
Underwood, R., Winder, C., Wyatt, A. Risk management – How far have we come? Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand 20: 491-494, 2004.
Taouk, M., Lasswell, P., Winder, C. Workplace risk assessment: A practical approach to safety management. Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand 17: 555-566, 2001.
Winder, C., Gardner, D., Trethewy, R. OHS management systems: Recent Australasian developments. Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand 17: 67-77, 2001.

PRESENTATIONS

Makin, A.-M., Winder, C. A new conceptual framework to improve the application of occupational health and safety management systems. Safety and Reliability for Managing Risk, Guedes Soares & Zio (editors) Taylor and Francis Group, London, pp 787-794, 2006
Makin, A.-M., Winder, C. Enhancing safety and reliability with occupational health and safety management systems. Proceedings of Fifth National OHS Regulatory Reserach Colloquium. National Research Centre for OHS Regulation, ANU, Canberra, 15-16 February 2006.