1

National Strategy General Stakeholder

Workshop in Darwin, NT

Date Tuesday 26 July 2011

Hosted by Laurene Hull Executive DirectorNorthern Territory WorkSafe

Location Darwin Facilitator Professor David Caple

NT

2

3

Contents

Page and Content

4. History of the National Strategy

5. Safe Work Australia and the National Strategy

6. National Work Health and Safety Strategy Consultation and Development

7. Welcome

8. Workshop Introduction

9. Workshop participants’ profile

10. Session Scopes

11. Session 1: Group discussion on work health and safety (including NT specific remote and regional issues) in the next ten years

14. Session 2: Social/Economic/Emerging issues in the workforce, business and technology

20. Session 3: Enhancing the capacity of workplaces to respond to disease, injury and psychological injury causing hazards

26. Session 4: Work Health & Safety Systems in safe design, skills and training, and safety leadership & organisational culture

32. Closing Remarks

33. Evaluation Comments

Disclaimer: The views of participants expressed in this document are not necessarily the views of Safe Work Australia.

4

History of National Strategy

The 10 year National Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Improvement Framework (NIF) was in place in the 1990s providing Australia with a nationally coordinated “roadmap” for improving workplace health and safety. The NIF signalled the commitment to OHS improvement in Australia by the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council (WRMC), the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC) and NOHSC members. It set out to improve prevention, share knowledge, foster partnerships and collaborations, and compare performance among the key OHS stakeholders in Australia.

The National OHS Strategy (National Strategy) was endorsed in May 2002 with the vision of Australian workplaces free from death, injury and disease. This was a tripartite initiative of NOHSC and unanimously endorsed by Federal, State and Territory Ministers. The 10 year timeframe was chosen to span political terms and provide the time to develop evidence based policies and programs. WRMC noted the successes of the National Road Strategy and its associated targets, and believed the inclusion of targets in a new document would help sharpen the national focus and efforts to improve Australia’s OHS performance.

The National Strategy set out the basis for nationally strategic interventions that were intended to foster sustainably safe and healthy work environments, and to reduce significantly the numbers of people hurt or killed at work. Five national priorities and nine areas that required national action were agreed. These collectively aimed to bring about short and long-term improvements in OHS, as well as longer-term cultural change. Reports on progress to achieve the objectives of the National Strategy were provided annually to WRMC.

NOHSC provided the original leadership and took carriage of the National Strategy until it was replaced by the Australian Safety and Compensation Council in 2005.

Safe Work Australia and the National Strategy

5

In 2009 Safe Work Australia – an independent Australian Government statutory body – was established. It has primary responsibility for improving work health and safety and workers’ compensation arrangements across Australia.

Safe Work Australia represents a genuine partnership between governments, unions and industry working together towards the goal of reducing death, injury and disease in workplaces.

The current and future National Strategy are key documents to guide the work of Safe Work Australia and others to achieve this goal. The current historic commitment to work health and safety is illustrated by the joint funding by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments of Safe Work Australia, facilitated through an intergovernmental agreement signed in July 2008.

Safe Work Australia members:

Back left to right:

Mr Mark Goodsell Australian Industry Group; Mr Brian Bradley Western Australia; Ms Michele Patterson South Australia; Ms Michelle Baxter Commonwealth; Mr Rex Hoy Chief Executive Officer; Mr Peter Tighe Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)

Front left to right:

Ms Anne Bellamy Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Mr John Watson New South Wales; Mr Tom Phillips AM Chair; Mr Michael Borowick (ACTU)

Absent: Mr Greg Tweedly Victoria; Mr Barry Leahy Queensland; Ms Liesl Centenera ACT; Mr Roy Ormerod Tasmania; and Ms Laurene Hull Northern Territory.

National Work Health and Safety Strategy Consultation and Development

6

Safe Work Australia is now developing a new National Work Health and Safety Strategy to supersede the previous Strategy that expires in June 2012.

To inform the development process, workshops are being held in all capital cities and a number of regional centres. These will seek ideas and comments from invited participants including employers, employees, regulators, work health and safety professionals, academics and interested community members.

Safe Work Australia will also continue to consult with key stakeholders through a range of other mechanisms including ongoing bilateral consultations and by commissioning topic papers from experts on selected issues. These consultations will allow Safe Work Australia Members to decide on priority areas, targets and the Strategy’s duration.

Once a draft National Work Health and Safety Strategy has been agreed by Safe Work Australia Members this will be released for public comment early in 2012. The comments will be analysed and used to further inform the development of the new Strategy.

Welcome to participants

7

Ms Laurene Hull, Executive Director, Northern Territory WorkSafe, welcomes participants to the Canberra workshop.

8

Workshop IntroductionMr Tom Phillips, Chair of Safe Work Australia gave an introduction to the workshop. He noted that the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012 provides a basis for developing sustainable, safe and healthy work environments and for reducing the number of people hurt or killed at work.

He noted that the current Strategy set very clear and ambitious goals for work heath and safety, and was a key initiative to improve Australia's work health and safety performance from 2002–12.

He thanked participants for attending and indicated that the workshops are an important part of the extensive stakeholder consultation process for the development of the New National Strategy. Mr Philips invited participants to stay engaged and review the development progress reports on the new Strategy on the Safe Work Australia website as they are released.

Mr Phillips provided data on the progress and limitations of the current Strategy and lessons learnt.

He also noted the public comment period for the new Strategy early next year and welcomed participants’ comments at that time.

Mr Phillips’ presentation slides are available on the Safe Work Australia website.

Participant comments on the workshops and new National Strategy themes can be sent to nationalstrategy@safeworkaustralia.gov.au

9

Darwin Workshop Participants’ Profile

26 July 2011 Number

Academic/Specialist 1

Community based organisation 1

Company/General 8

Employer Association 4

Legislative/Legal 1

Public Policy 3

Regulator 3

Union 3

Work Health and Safety professionals 5

Total 29

Session Scopes

10

To assist participants, all tables displayed scopes outlining what was meant by the key discussion topics. These are noted below:

• Social/Economic/Emerging Issues in the Workforce, Business and Technology – The Workforce: Changing worker demographics such as ageing, young workers, casualisation, contract work, shift work, and individual

needs such as literacy, disability, mental health – Business: How business is changing to meet emerging challenges and to remain viable and competitive, such as outsourcing,

subcontracting, casualisation, etc – Technology: Innovations in the workplace that have already or may have a future impact on Work Health and Safety , such as

nanotechnology, green technology, innovations in genetics, electronics and IT systems

• Hazards – Enhancing the capacity of workplaces to respond to:– Disease-Causing Hazards - includes noise, hazardous substances, chemicals and asbestos – Injury-Causing Hazards - includes work practices, manual tasks, slips trips and falls – Psychological Injury-Causing Hazards - includes the design, management and organisation of work and work systems to achieve

resilient productive and safe psychological working environments.

• Work Health and Safety Systems – Challenges and Solutions in Safe Design and Work Systems, Skills and Training, and in Safety Leadership and Organisational Culture

– Safe Design and Organisational Systems: the systems and principles that facilitate the elimination of hazards at the design or modification stage of products, buildings, structures and work processes

– Skills & Training: the skills and training that employers and workers need to deliver safe workplaces. – Safety Leadership and Organisation Culture: Safety leadership generates organisational cultures that view safety and productivity of

equal importance, validated by the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and values of the workforce

11

Session One: What will success look like in ten years?

• Workers can walk onto sites and recognise hazards.• Consistent, timely, current and reliable data.• Improved treatment services within organisations and

rehabilitation providers.• A safety culture exists across all workplaces, including the

office environment.• Safety is designed into all potential functions, including

engineering, on-going maintenance and access.• There is a widespread culture of consultation.• All workers are job-ready with qualifications in work health

and safety and first aid.• All injuries and diseases are reported regardless of industry

or status of injured.• Evidence is based on better reporting.• Access by all to treatment services, including rehabilitation.• It is recognised that not one size fits all, with remote or on-

line workers catered for and providers travelling to clients.• Workers’ compensation takes into account non-cash

benefits eg. accommodation and travel costs.• Work health and safety is part of the school curriculum at

primary school.• Everyone is empowered to stop activity if a person is at

risk, with effective work health and safety systems, risk assessments, skills, and a culture of intervention in place.

• NT is lead jurisdiction for work health and safety training for different cultures.

• There is consistency and continuity across all legislation.

• Free from injury, disease and fatality.• Won’t need a regulator in 2022 because everyone takes

ownership of work health and safety.• There is flexibility to address remote issues such as

language, culture, reporting, transitory workforce, staff turnover, lack of skilled workers and vulnerable workers.

• Successful integration of mental health and psychosocial factors through employers taking responsibility equally for physical and psychological health risks.

• The real costs of injury are known and understood.• Safety is valued by every worker in every workplace.• Everyone is aware of their rights and responsibilities.• There is a high level of reporting – workers with ABNs are

included in the reporting data, as well as hospital/surgery data, sick leave, coronial data, and journey claims.

• Work health and safety is “the way we do business” that integrates worker and employer involvement through shared consultation and shared responsibility.

• Work health and safety is not an impost.• Improved performance against national indicators.• Improved skills and awareness across NT industry through

high turnover.• Outcomes-based investigations where controls are

implemented.• Increased participation in work health and safety by

indigenous and non-traditional workers, who expect to be safe and to take responsibility.

12

Session One: How do we get there?

• Change work health and safety language to be culturally friendly, family-based to address what workers value in their cultures, and develop strategies to manage remote issues, particularly to overcome the cultural gulf.

• Use plain language to ensure buy-in, and provide incentives to improve SME performance. • Identify high-risk hazards, ban single worker travel, and raise profile of work health and safety to match road trauma.• Develop effective strategies to safely retain baby boomers and to address fatigue management across all industries.• Recognise that vulnerable workers are a sizeable proportion of the workforce, and skill them up to take individual

responsibility, implement fitness-for-work, and provide travel assistance to remote sites.• Provide certification for hazard identification and safety induction, increase work health and safety resources. • Increase accountability by not disguising injury costs through the public system, and provide evidence based data to

improve measurement, risk assessment, inform industry based controls and planning.• Implement systems of regulatory injury triage as well as effective enforcement that results in voluntary compliance.• Improve return-to-work planning, doctor, employer and worker relationships, harness the help of insurers to facilitate

this.• Include safety in project management and business case courses, develop career pathways for safety.• Improve risk assessment skills, and improve duty-holders’ understanding of their duties.• Train more investigators to drive evidence-based improvement, to move away from the culture of blame, and to focus on

preventing bullying and harassment.• Educate on fatigue, manage it in the context of work-life balance and psychological injury prevention, and develop

regulations and a code of practice. • Educate on the core values of safety in primary schools. • Take a collaborative approach across legislation at different levels of government eg Fair Work Act changes culture

through changing duties• Reduce red tape and duplication, and ensure all moving in the same direction, supporting each other, rather than

clashing.

Session One: How do we get there? NT specific remote/regional issues

13

• Address literacy and numeracy as a priority.

• Develop strategies to encourage older, remotely located indigenous people into the workforce.

• Address inadequacies in indigenous issues , including communities, work health and safety systems, claims, lack of support, language, employment, education, diet and lack of understanding of technology.

• Address problems with transient workers, including Fly in, Fly Out (FIFO), migrant workforce, project-based work, casual labour, language, labour shortages (both skilled and unskilled), and technology.

• Work to overcome problems associated with remoteness, particularly the remote indigenous workforce, and bush culture.

• Provide cultural training for workers, supervisors and managers.

• Improve data, particularly focussing on hidden statistics.• Promote a culture of safety at the corporate level but also

for workers and the wider community.• Provide economic drivers and incentives to improve

safety.• Focus on the issues facing visa workers.• Understand the specific psychosocial issues in the NT,

such as poor mental health, fatigue, and the use of alcohol and other drugs.

• Increase and improve training.• Provide psychometric support and assessment for

workers in remote and regional areas.• Facilitate a more visible regulator.• Ensure that FIFO injuries are not reported in the wrong

jurisdiction.• Ensure access to affordable work health and safety

services of high quality and suitable type.

• Break the relationship between distance and non-compliance.

• Develop management tools to manage cultural issues.

14

Session Two: Emerging Issues in the WorkforceWhat will success look like in ten years time?

• Good work health and safety practice is a nationally-accepted norm – (as it is in the oil and gas industry).

• Appropriate training and education accredited packages are in place, supported by adequate funding.

• Competency-based training is widely used to overcome language differences.

• Health and Safety Representative (HSR) training is accredited and attracts funding as a result.

• There is increased literacy and numeracy in the workforce.

• There is improved prevention of psychological injuries and support.

• The NT is part of a wider work health and safety region that includes East Timor and PNG, collaborating on shared challenges, and mentoring where appropriate.

Session Two: Emerging Issues in the Workforce How will we get there?

15

• Provide early education and training, and ensure a base set of skills by embedding work health and safety into the curricula, addressing literacy needs, customising training according to need or locality, and developing easily accessible and readable work health and safety information and posters in pictograms and different languages.

• Use effective media campaigns to raise awareness.• Conduct research into future risks.• Implement a system of lifetime learning for the ageing workforce, including

upgrading and modernising skills, providing inductions and targeted education, implementing a system of delayed retirement and a method to pass on skills to prevent the loss of knowledge, and customising the work to accommodate changing needs.

• Ensure that work health and safety is part of a head contractor's responsibility, eliminate the fear of job loss if reporting hazards, and ensure that sub contractors include the cost of work health and safety in their quotes so they don’t undercut valid quotes.

• Ensure that there is adequate handover of issues across shifts.• Increase awareness of work health and safety rights and responsibilities,

and include safety duty of care in all job descriptions.• Fund adequate training and accreditation, including for HSRs and workers

so they are aware of their legislative right to have input.• Provide additional training and education funding to address NT hurdles.• Improve workforce planning to take into account high turnover rates, and

the high rate of skilled and unskilled imported labour.• Overcome rigid Western cultural frameworks and English language-based

training requirements, increase flexibility and focus on outcomes.

Session Two: Emerging Issues in BusinessWhat will success look like in ten years time?

16

• Work health and safety is routinely on the radar for business.• Business complies with their work health and safety responsibilities. • Industry associations are drivers of good work health and safety. • Procurement policies of government and big business drive work health safety in smaller local businesses,

and make work health and safety economically worthwhile.

Session Two: Emerging Issues in Business How will we get there?

17

• Ensure there is strong leadership from government and corporate sectors, employer and employee organisations.

• Ensure the NT Government uses the requirement of a safety management plan as part of procurement strategies to influence business, while applying flexible standards that take the NT conditions into account (not one-size-fits-all).

• Ensure consistency in regulations that direct procurement or tenders.

• Provide economic incentives and disincentives to entrench good work health and safety standards.

• Reduce the regulatory burden on SMEs and provide them with incentives to move forward with work health and safety.

• Focus training effort on workforce outcomes (e.g. JSAs).• Ensure that school leavers are work-ready by using school

counsellors.• Review policies and practices as organisations change.• Apply standards practically, and create room for innovation.• Lobby Federal Government for more resources in the NT,

and balance the carrot and stick approaches.• Improve the cost/benefit of outsourcing management of

work health and safety and use incentives to emphasise connection between work health and safety performance and insurance costs.

• Develop a (collective) consortium approach to work health and safety through industry associations.

• Provide tools such as economic incentives, guidance or training for employees.

• Provide funding and training and support businesses to change to meet the requirements of the new legislation and to ensure systems are in place.

• Customise training to the needs of the client, industry, occupation or demographic.

• Leverage big company expertise and standards to mitigate small-economy disadvantage, and use defense and government employment as source of work health and safety skills that transfer to the private sector.

Session Two: Emerging Issues in TechnologyWhat will success look like in ten years time?

18

• There is widespread use of robotics and remote-operated plant, smart trucks etc, with associated new risks recognised and proactively managed.

• Plant is designed to adapt to different worker anthropometrics based on relevant data, including women and workers of different nationality.

• Routine use of drones, lasers and sonar sensors to identify hazards.

• Personal monitoring is implemented for dust

and noise and tracking badges are fed into

computer system that contribute to the

national exposure data set.

• Satellites are used for communications

to support IT systems and remote

technology, and to provide information.

• The precautionary approach to identifying

and understanding hazards is used when new

technology is introduced to reduce lag time.

• IT systems collect base information to

provide human factors analysis, enable

improved decisions, implement proactive

maintenance systems, and to provide

data to develop standard operating procedures.

19

Session Two: Emerging Issues in Technology How will we get there?

• Develop strategies to manage work health and safety risks associated with new technology such as green technology (wind, solar), working at heights, live powered appliances and painted-on solar panels.

• Use preventative strategies when introducing new technologies to manage the new hazards and risks of increased automation combined with reduced skills, and taking into account the likelihood of technical failures e.g. IT systems.

• Encourage high-end businesses to develop cheap portable technology that can work over long distances for SMEs and improve information-sharing and innovation.

• Improve understanding of the long-term implications of decisions.

• Increase sophistication of regulators, and encourage collaborative work and increased information-sharing with PCBUs.

• Encourage large employers to collect and analyse data to improve evidence base and report to the regulator.

• Access and utilise the national data set on radiation in mining.

• Get the technical basics working consistently e.g. reliable phone signals in remote communities, and bitumenised airstrips.

20

Session Three: Disease-causing hazardsWhat will success look like in ten years time?

• All aspects of asbestos and toxic substances risks are managed safely in the NT.• Workers know how to recognise and report disease causing hazards.• Audits of hazardous substances/dangerous goods reveal high knowledge about quantity and risks.

21

Session Three: Disease-causing hazards How will we get there?

Enhance the capacity of workplaces to respond by:• Encouraging collaboration between agencies and establishments to form a single body to manage asbestos • promoting collaboration between public, environment and work health and safety bodies to develop a common body of

knowledge• ensuring sites conduct inductions on hazardous substances• enforcing hazardous substances regulations• managing zoonotic and communicable diseases (e.g. TB) through induction, immunisation, and coordination between public

health and work health and safety bodies to monitor and control diseases• structuring prevention to suit NT climate, geography and culture• reducing noise-induced hearing loss by placing a

safe design focus on noise, improving education and monitoring, enforcing noise requirements through audits, and developing a total package on interventions, including treatment of ear and eye diseases

• improving the understanding of heat (both wet and dry) work health and safety problems through research e.g. its effects on noise-induced hearing loss, the non-use of PPE because of dermatitis

• developing a knowledge base on PPE and work health and safety risk management in the tropical environment, and

• developing codes of practice that allow flexibility to account for heat risks.

Session Three: Injury-causing hazards What will success look like in 10 years time?

22

• Effective communication at and across all levels of organisations• Organisations free of the culture of blame

Session Three: Responding to Injury-Causing Hazards What do we get there?

23

Enhance the capacity of workplaces to respond by: • instigating human factors training, especially that of

situational awareness• providing SME-specific training• maintaining a focus on safe office design• installing appropriate plant design, such as lifting

equipment, trucks and utes e.g. tool box access• ensuring that supervisors are aware of their

responsibilities• maintaining work health and safety visibility, with work

health and safety supervisors walking the floor• providing appropriate PPE• taking account of the different weather circumstances

in the NT – wet and humidity, build-up conditions• investigating circumstances where injury rates appear

to increase after training (is it increased reporting or inappropriate training?)

• taking age into account• supporting increased use of appropriate PPE

• changing the culture of “just get the job done!”, and

• looking at the impact of obesity on musculoskeletal injuries, and identifying how to prevent them.

24

Session Three: Psychological injury-causing hazardsWhat will success look like in ten years time?

• Workplaces are safe environments, free from psychological-injury-causing hazards.

• Psychological health and wellbeing is the new black.

• Effective prevention and early intervention strategies are implemented.

• Workplaces exhibit a people centered approach, rather than overly focusing on equipment and technology.

• Psychological hazards are treated like other hazards in the workplace, via hazard identification, risk assessment and control.

Session Three: Psychological injury-causing hazardsHow will we get there?

25

Enhance the capacity of workplaces to respond by:• placing a primary focus on prevention, and encouraging reporting and

early intervention• developing guidance for early recognition of hazards• improving understanding of causes and prevention strategies• improving the ability to manage psychologically-injured workers• using guidance to promote management of psychological risks in the

same way as for physical injuries• developing clear job profiles that address physical and psychological hazards/exposures• improving skills in managers re performance management• training supervisors in, then promoting them on the basis of people management skills, particularly good communication• promoting links to profit and productivity associated with psychological health, the viability through cost/benefit analysis• educating workers and managers/PCBUs about psychological hazards and how to prevent/treat them• conducting regular surveys and assessment of workers• providing career counselling and psychometric assessment to ensure good job fit with person• conducting more research into psychological hazards and effective preventions and interventions• improving the links between public health and work health, and highlight the propensity for pain to cause psychological injury• recognising and addressing fatigue and its causes, including non-work, and providing education to workers and PCBUs

about how their private life can impact on their work life and health• promoting the understanding that psychological injuries are real, even though they’re invisible• developing resources to assist employers to recognise and control hazards that can cause psychological injuries, and • promoting awareness of the link between physical and psychological injuries when an injured worker is badly dealt with by

doctors, workplace, workmates and ‘the system’, resulting in a psychological injury.

26

Session Four: Safe Design & Work SystemsWhat will success look like in ten years time?

• Design is fit-for-purpose, solutions are shared, and not only is there safe design of plant, equipment and buildings, but also safe design of work systems and organisations.

• End-user consultation and testing is integrated into safe design processes.

Session Four: Safe Design & Work SystemsHow do we get there?

27

• Ensure that imported manufactured plant and goods are safely designed.

• Facilitate the sharing of design solutions.

• Apply minimum Australian design standards to imported plant and equipment.

• Influence overseas manufacturers to adopt best practice.

• Sit on ISO and other standards-setting groups to influence.

• Promote awareness of the consequences of non-compliance with standards.

• Develop evidence-based flexibility to standards that are not appropriate to the NT environment.

28

Session Four: Safety Skills and TrainingWhat will success look like in ten years time?

• Work health and safety best practice is in place across all industries.

• Consistent levels of competency apply among safety practitioners.

• Workforces are skilled across all industries and workers are literate and numerate.

• Entire workforces have a basic level of work health and safety competencies that can be applied regardless of the workplace, occupation or industry.

• Innovative delivery of training overcomes remoteness.

• Training is delivered through a range of modes, including online.

• Skills and training delivery is culturally appropriate.

• Training is free, and flexible appropriate resources are rolled out to anyone, anywhere, including induction, on-going, and supervisor training.

29

Session Four: Safety Skills and Training How will we get there?

• Develop effective two-way communication.

• Ensure that work health and safety learning resources meet the needs of remote workplaces, SMEs and those with low literacy and numeracy.

• Build infrastructure to deliver skills and training i.e. technology, eLearning, practical training.

• Develop providers who are versed in remote, cultural and flexible delivery.

• Obtain employer buy-in through benefits and incentives – and enforcement.

• Provide training and resources for SMEs.• Develop skills and competency for work

health and safety professionals to a national standard.

• Implement a mentoring process for professionalism in work health and safety that ensures consistency across Australia.

Session Four: Safety Leadership and Organisational Culture - What will success look like in ten years time?

30

• Leadership thrives at all levels of the organisation from management through to workers, all of whom are committed and engaged.

• Work health and safety is not seen as an add-on in any sector, but is integrated into the business.

• Safety is second nature and is embedded into everyday activities.

• Supervisors’ instructions and expectations drive workplace behaviour through use of sticks and carrots.

• Leaders at all levels communicate effectively, and safety involves everyone.

• Work health and safety is seen as a benefit, not a cost, and everyone is empowered to employ safe work practices for themselves and those they interact with.

Session Four: Safety Leadership and Organisational Culture - How will we get there?

31

• NT WorkSafe to engender a positive work health and safety culture.

• Change the attitudes in office-based work that “safety is not an issue for us; it’s for construction etc”.

• Collect and disseminate data that shows the benefits of good work health and safety practice in terms of improved outputs and improved staff performance.

• Find a driver for change through information, emotions and values.

• Find someone to drive the change – use the media.• Develop and implement effective communication

strategies.• Initiate coalitions of different professions such as health,

work health and safety and government• Use media campaigns to stimulate emotions and values

to drive change, including children’s need to see their parents home healthy and well.

• Positive culture needs to be driven from the officer level.• Encourage and upskill managers to walk the floor, and

make observations and comments.

32

Closing Reflections from the Safe Work Australia Chair

Tom Phillips thanked Laurene Hull, Executive Director, NT WorkSafe, for opening the workshop; the facilitator David Caple, and all the workshop participants for their attendance and contribution. He commented that it had been a fantastic day with passionate debate entered into by all of the participants, and that a number of issues that were raised had clear resonance with other workshops, particularly on starting work health and safety education at school level, Gen Y, work/life balance, fatigue, designing for safety, and SMEs.

Tom observed that until today he hadn’t realised the impact that remoteness and low literacy rates was having on the level of work health and safety success in the NT, not least of which being the delivery of training. He noted the issues unique to the NT or tropics brought up by the group, such as the problems with asbestos disposal, the need to overcome data issues and to manage the unique demographics, including the combination of ageing, indigenous and imported workforces, and the need to be more aware of the way climate impacts on health and safety. He also noted with interest the impact of zoonotic diseases such as Hendra virus. He stated that his take home message was to ensure we develop a National Strategy that takes into account NT issues and is relevant to all working Australians.

Tom agreed that psychological issues are the “new black” and that we all need to give it more focus and ensure it features more strongly in the future. He noted that not only had participants been more than effective in raising matters, but they had also identified many useful options for overcoming them. Solutions included skills and training, flexible and appropriate learning resources that are made affordable, and improving general communication of safety in the community. He reminded attendees that good examples of best practice can be found through the Safe Work Australia Awards.

Leadership was raised multiple times, and Tom agreed that while the pace must be set at the top, everyone must play their part. He outlined his view that every CEO must be active for safety, be seen on the job and be on message.

Tom invited participants to go away from today to become implementation champions of the Strategy. Tom noted that while Safe Work Australia’s predecessors didn’t have a rigorous evaluation plan for the first Strategy, that would be remedied in the new one. This will engage all stakeholders, include measures, tools, targets and realistic milestones, and everyone will have a role.

Tom reminded participants of the public comment phase of the Strategy development process early next year; and suggested that some smaller focus groups may be convened to further develop the Strategy. He advised participants that they will receive a write-up of today’s workshop outcomes. He thanked participants for their attendance, their generosity with their time and their contributions.

Tom closed the workshop by welcoming participants’ ongoing engagement with the development of the new Strategy and said that if they would like to provide further comments and ideas these would be welcome at nationalstrategy@safeworkaustralia.gov.au

Evaluation Outcomes

33

Overall, feedback from the National Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012-2022 workshop in Darwin on 26 July 2011 was very positive. Both quantitative and qualitative results were collected from 26 evaluation sheets, with 100% of participants reporting satisfaction with the facilitator and with the opportunity to contribute. There was 95% satisfaction with the format and the food while the room set-up was endorsed by 88% of participants, and the length of the workshop and the venue were positive for 85%.

Feedback comments indicated general consensus on the value of the workshop as a means of bringing people together to discuss local NT work health and safety issues. Participants also appreciated the opportunity for networking and discussion on the regional issues affecting the NT, and the encouragement to contribute based on experience, rather than who you work for.

There was in particular a call for the audience to include more industry based OHS practitioners and to place more emphasis on specific outcome results using evidence-based information and open consultation. A number of participants found there was effective interplay covering relevant issues as well as a good level of interaction and networking. One participant was impressed by the calibre of attendance and contributions while another appreciated being able to select the subject they wished to focus on. Some present found the length of workshop too long, while another proposed brainstorming generating potential solutions for some of the more challenging issues. Many participants expressed that the workshop needed no improvement at all.

The opportunity to provide feedback and input at this critical stage of developing the new National Work Health and Safety Strategy was appreciated, as was the fact that all input was respectfully received and many times validated by the presenters. Further comments included a well run workshop, and Safe Work Australia people were very approachable and respectful of NT specific issues.

A number of participants expressed that they were looking forward to feedback on the day. Some used the opportunity to comment to express their views on some of the topics covered, and their desire to continue the discussion and expand on some topics.

All of this input has been noted, and is being integrated into future workshops to make improvements.

Text in italics indicates direct quotes from respondents