Safety Legislation

Safety Consultation

BySafety Nerd
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Get on your consultation soap box!

Posted  by The Safety Nerd

So currently we have Committees, Reps, other agreed arrangements such as focus groups, working groups, steering committees, toolbox talks, team meetings – this all is basically because you need to discuss with the relevant people any health and safety matters.

Some people do it formally, others not so. It’s all scribbled down somewhere, just in case you need to prove it and everything is fine and dandy. Well weren’t we kidding ourselves in the calm before the storm!

Consultation has some of the more significant changes in the new WHS laws with people scratching their heads. We are just touching on the specific changes in consultation, not the role of the Health and Safety Reps (HSRs) which is a whole different ball game, but before we get into that detail, lets have a look at why we need to chin wag in the first place.

Back when you wore stone washed denim jackets and a boom box on your shoulder blowing out your ear drums some smarty pants discovered that consultation was a good idea and it was introduced into the OHS laws. They found out that drawing on workers knowledge and experience you make better decisions ‘ding, ding, ding….news flash’, and if workers were involved in these decisions they’d be more aware and committed which in turn would result in greater cooperation and trust between workers and management. We were so smart back then that some of these provisions are being kept in the new WHS laws, but there are some key differences to be aware of.

PCBUs not only have to consult with other duty holders and employees but workers that are likely to be affected by the business or undertaking. Doesn’t that open a can of worms! This must be done as far as reasonably practicable in particular ways and in particular times. Also if the workforce requests Health and Safety Reps then consultation must involve these Reps.

There’s another important point to factor in – consultation must be to workers who are, or likely to be directly affected by a WHS matter. This includes subbies who are workers and PCBUs in their own right, employees of subbies, labour hire, volunteers etc. So….think big.

Now to get to the point of how you consult, this is basically the same as previously except they have slipped in the requirement to notify workers consulted of the outcome of the deliberations in a timely manner, which doesn’t sound like a biggy but it does add to the degree of accountability for the PCBU.

So, you don’t need to consult all workers all the time, but you do need to consult with those that are or could be affected by WHS matters, or their elected HSRs if they have elected one.

From boom boxes to soap boxes, 30 years later consultation is thriving.  Shame the big hair didn’t.

The Safety Nerd x

Safety Nerd

Owner and Principal Consultant at Riskology
I’ve been in safety my whole career. Well nearly my whole career, I started off as a secretary for a recruitment company, then dabbled in HR whilst stumbling onto safety, which I fell head over heels ….literally in love (I know safety nerd alert) with safety after reading the book Lessons from Longford by Anthony Hopkins at the age of 19 and haven’t looked back since. I had a few friends that had been permanently injured in their early 20s and my Dad nearly lost his foot in a workplace accident when I was a twinkle in his eye and the Lessons from Longford book made so much sense to me. I started my life in safety knee high to a grasshopper working for Aristocrat in the 90’s, a gaming machine company in Sydney where I introduced national safety handbooks, alerts, industry focus groups and decided this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life; during this time I also headed off to Uni and completed an MBA specialising in industrial relations, the closest qualification at the time related to safety, since then there’s been an explosion of courses so I then got my teeth into a masters of safety. I then went onto a safety role at Coca Cola Amatil and tackled the logistics of ensuring multiple sites were compliant from call centres to sales to manufacturing workers. This was an interesting time when new manufacturing plants were opening and becoming fully automated, never a dull moment in the world of safety. I’m a bit of a car buff so then moved into a safety role at Inchcape, you know the guys that own Subaru. I was looking after the safety for 45 sites and came up with some great strategies to get them all confident and running with safety. After saving my employers in total over $1.5million in workers comp and setting up some great strategies I decided to jump ship and moved away from the big smoke for love. That was a couple of years ago now and that’s when Riskology was born. I love helping other businesses create safer workplaces helping them through the minefield of legislation with simple easy solutions with the end goal of making workplaces safer. The safety industry has changed significantly in recent years, with new legislation and tougher penalties. Small businesses are expected to comply just as much as large businesses, that’s where I come in, helping to bridge the gap and cut through the jargon. Safety doesn’t have to be the elephant in the room, good safety practices is good for business. Qualifications Master’s degree in Occupational Health and Safety Master’s degree in Business Industrial Relations Accredited Lead Auditor Graduate Certificate Health and Safety Management Systems Cert IV – Workplace Training, OHS, HR(and Dip), Secretarial

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