New WorkSafe public awareness campaign

WorkSafe is taking a tougher approach to its calls for Victorians to value workplace safety with an emotional public awareness advertising campaign beginning on Victorian television screens tonight.

The state-wide campaign shows the ‘knock at the door’ received by a woman and her daughter after a major safety incident at her husband’s workplace.

“It’s a tough story to tell - and for some it will be difficult to watch,” WorkSafe’s Executive Director for Health and Safety, Ian Forsyth, said. “We’ve taken a tougher line because while death and injury rates are dropping over the long term, the improvement is not happening fast enough - and families, the wider community and businesses are paying the price.

“In 2010, 23 Victorians didn’t come home from work at the end of the day. Dozens more received life-threatening injuries, and more than 29,000 suffered an injury that required extended time off work or extensive medical treatment.

“Over the past decade, 268 Victorians died at work. While we’ve come a long way in the last 10 years, there’s still much more that can be done to make workplaces safer.

“We want Victorians to stop and think about what is ultimately important to them, why safe workplaces are needed, and what they can do to prevent more families being put in this position.

“While this campaign depicts the aftermath of an incident on a construction site, the same results were suffered in shops, factories, farms and other workplaces.

“We’re challenging employers and workers to value safety, and stop and think before starting a job. It’s cold comfort to argue about the rights and wrongs after the event. The 'knock on the door' can be avoided.”

The 2010 fatality toll includes four electric shock deaths, including the double electrocution fatality of a father and son at Rainbow in western Victoria; three falls from height; and three fatalities where workers were unloading trucks. Over the past five years, 60 people have died at work in Melbourne, and 65 in regional Victoria.