Australia’s largest workplace health and safety trade show, The Safety Show Sydney, and Sydney Materials Handling will be held at the Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park from 26 to 28 October 2010.

The Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council has approved model provisions that will be adopted throughout Australia from 1 January 2012 as the Work Health and Safety Act. There have been a number of significant changes to the model Act since the draft was first released for public comment.

Australian employers are required by law to provide a safe workplace for not only workers, but for all who visit their facilities. The following extract from a Worksafe Victoria publication outlines a succinct list of rights and responsibilities that employers have, to their workers, contractors, visitors and the workplace itself, with regard to health and safety.

Training is a critical factor in ensuring that workers are able to carry out their activities effectively and safely. So, it stands to reason that a question that every purchaser or consumer of training should ask themselves is: “How do I know that I am getting the best training possible?”

I was honoured to be appointed as the new Federal Safety Commissioner in July this year, and I look forward to working closely with stakeholders in the building and construction industry to improve its OHS performance.

There are many categories of safety garments available in the Australian marketplace, designed to protect workers in any number of ways. We can get safety garments that are ‘hi-vis’, weatherproof, thermally insulated, fire-retardant, breathable, fully sealed, heavy-weight cotton drill, and the list goes on. However, there are some common work environments where the level of protection afforded by these ‘general’ levels of protection is not enough.

A fatigue-monitoring company has questioned the effectiveness of GPSs as a tool for curbing fatigue-related accidents in Australia's transport industry.

Safety standards for gloves have proved to be a valuable guide for ensuring worker hand protection.

The Entire Group was established in 1985 to provide a fully coordinated design, supply, installation and maintenance service for a wide range of clients within the building and construction industries for numerous services that include all facets of fire protection, mechanical services, air-conditioning, process, piping fabrication and electrical services.

Continuing on from our discussion on the risks associated with working in hot conditions, Part 2 presents guidance from WorkSafe WA on reducing the risk of heat stress and preventing heat illness.

With summer coming on, safety supervisors and workers will soon need to give attention to safely working in hot conditions. Part 1 will consider information from WorkSafe WA on how to assess the risks associated with working in the heat.

A study recently conducted throughout the US has found that fatal workplace accidents can trigger public concern, but follow-through on key safety issues lags all too often.

Historically, safety footwear was characterised by heavy boots made from thick leather uppers with solid stitching, steel toe-caps and thick, dense soles. There was no such thing as ‘style’ and the only choices you had were black or brown colour and laces or elasticised sides. Fashion was simply covered by your choice of socks and comfort only came into the picture when you took your boots off. But we’ve come a long way since then.

Some time ago in a Clint Eastwood movie, I remember the character that he played saying: “I tried being reasonable - I didn’t like it.” How many managers, faced with the difficult worker who simply won’t do as they are directed or told, have felt the same as Clint Eastwood’s character? Despite perhaps feeling that way, our ‘Clint’ manager can’t be like the real Clint - he must learn to be reasonable. Why?

In the past, when a safety professional wanted to select or assign a hearing protection device (HPD) for an employee, the data they have historically had available was based on fitting scenarios in a controlled laboratory environment. This information bore little resemblance to the conditions under which workers had to wear HPDs on a daily basis.