Safety Rules, OK
Safety celebrates over 100 years of zero changeβ¦β¦β¦..
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 βLife Saving Rulesβ then being reinstated when the courts determined that their sacking was unfair (see the β¦ Read the rest
ABCβs βThe Middleβ Spoofs Oppressive Safety Rules
ABC’s ‘The Middle’ Spoofs Oppressive Safety Rules After Rob Longβs 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 thereβ¦ Read the rest
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). Iβ¦ 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, Youβve Got It All Wrong). Many companies (co-incidentally those who have created these convoluted behemoths of safetyβ¦ Read the rest
Iβm just not that into safety anymore
Read the sequel to this article: Iβm 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! Iβm just not that into safetyβ¦ Read the rest

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.
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.