The Tasmanian OHS Act

The Tasmanian Workplace Health and Safety Act of 1995 mandates that employers provide a safe working place for all employees. Specifically, section 9.1 states:

(1) An employer must, in respect of each employee employed by the employer, ensure so far as is reasonably practicable that the employee is, while at work, safe from injury and risks to health and, in particular, must -

(a) provide and maintain so far as is reasonably practicable:
(i) a safe working environment; and
(ii) safe systems of work; and
(iii) plant and substances in a safe condition; and

(b) provide facilities of a prescribed kind for the welfare of employees at any workplace that is under the control or management of the employer; and

(c) provide any information, instruction, training and supervision reasonably necessary to ensure that each employee is safe from injury and risks to health.

The Act itself makes no mention of how these things are to be achieved, or even defines the terms hazard, safe or risk. It is assumed the organisation would use something that conforms to “AS4360:2004 Risk Management”. Unfortunately, this standard only outlines the process and does not detail any procedures. In short, the best way to achieve the aims of the Act is to conduct a scientific and systematic hazard identification and risk assessment, which we are able to supply.

The definition of a hazard which has served us well is ”the presence of a potentially damaging energy source”, which mentions nothing about the probabilities of damage or their consequences. The definition removes any arguments over whether something is a hazard or not and is based on the Energy Damage Model of Professor Derek Viner, which is an excellent scientific approach to safety.

The second stage is to look at the controls in place over a hazard, how those controls may fail and what the likely consequences of those failures may be. This does not need to be a long, difficult or expensive exercise. Typically we use a risk matrix to estimate the risks and determine if further and more detailed analysis is necessary, such as fault trees or HazOps.

The definition of the word “safe” is ”an acceptable level of risk”, which raises the question “aceptable to whom?”. While the organisation initially determines the level of risk they are prepared to accept it is ultimately the worker facing the risk that has the final say. Consequently, it is essential that all stake-holders are involved in the process of risk management from the very beginning. This fosters a collaborative approach that values all opinions and encourages ownership of the process and the results.

At the end of this process the client usually receives:

• A list of hazards (which forms their hazard register),
• The probabilities and consequences of control failures (which is their risk register) and
• Some suggestions for improvements (usually with pay-back and ROI figures).