Safety Leadership

Safety Rules, OK

Safety celebrates over 100 years of zero change………..

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MORE ON SAFETY RULES:

Golden Safety Rules

There are Safety Rules and there are Golden Safety Rules. Following the news about two BHP workers sacked for breaching β€œLife Saving Rules” then being reinstated when the courts determined that their sacking was unfair (see the … Read the rest

ABC’s β€˜The Middle’ Spoofs Oppressive Safety Rules

ABC’s ‘The Middle’ Spoofs Oppressive Safety Rules After Rob Long’s recent article,Β  A Bloody Hand Rail, we were swamped with comments on the blog and our social media pages about similar instances of silly safety at workplaces. Of course there… Read the rest

Golden Safety Rules

There are Safety Rules and there are Golden Safety Rules. Following the news about two BHP workers sacked for breaching “Life Saving Rules” then being reinstated when the courts determined that their sacking was unfair (see the story here). I… Read the rest

Safety Golden Rules, Leadership and Ethics

Safety Golden Rules, Leadership and Ethics We all know how massively complicated, confusing and unwieldy Safety Management Systems have become (see Measuring Safety, You’ve Got It All Wrong). Many companies (co-incidentally those who have created these convoluted behemoths of safety… Read the rest

I’m just not that into safety anymore

Read the sequel to this article: I’m Still Not That Into Safety Our most popular article out of 3007! Why do you think that is? Rob’s courage and honesty has certainly touched some nerves! I’m just not that into safety… Read the rest

Barry Spud

Barry Spud

Safety Crusader, BBS Fanatic, Zero Harm Zealot, Compliance Controller and Global Pandemic Expert at Everything Safety
Barry Spud

2 Comments

  1. More law less justice – Cicero

    Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught – Honore de Balzac

    If you make ten thouΒ­sand regΒ­uΒ­laΒ­tions you destroy all respect for the law – Winston Churchill

    Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made – Otto Von Bismarck

    The more regulators attempt to define precise, detailed rules, which confuse more than clarify, the more likely is a counterproductive outcome. (Radical Uncertainty – John Kay and Mervyn King 2020)

    https://www.johnkay.com/2020/02/12/radical-uncertainty/

    If only Safe Work Australia and our peak safety body would stand back and ask “What is going on here?” rather than resort to an an inordinate reliance on behaviourism and brutal ideologies such as zero harm that have acquired their own momentum.

  2. Of course this fixation on rules is so naive. So simplistic and dumb. Rules on their own mean nothing and knowing rules means nothing. All rules are interpreted and situated. Once locked in some rules can actually create risk and unsafety. Nothing will change until the industry learns a bit about an ethic of risk and dumps 80 year old behaviourist and rationalist ideology.

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