1. National Strategy General Stakeholder Workshop in Sydney, NSW DateFriday 27 May 2011Hosted byMr John Watson (represented by Ms Bridget Barrett), NSW WorkCover Authority) LocationSebel Pier OneFacilitatorProfessor David Caple & Mr Rick Hodgson 1

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3. Contents Page and Content 4. History of National Strategy 5. Safe Work Australia and the National Strategy 6. National Work Health and Safety Strategy Consultation and Development 7. Welcome 8. Workshop Introduction 9. Workshop participants profile 10. Session Scopes 11. Session 1: Group participant discussion on OHS 14. Session 2: Social/Economic/Emerging Issues in the workforce, business and technology 20. Session 3: Work Health & Safety Systems in safe design, supply chain, safety leadership & organisational culture 26. Session 4: Enhancing the capacity of workplaces to respond to disease, injury and psychological injury causing hazards 32. Closing Remarks 33. Evaluation Comments Disclaimer: The views of participants expressed in this document are not necessarily the views of Safe Work Australia. 3

4. History of National Strategy 4 The 10 year National Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Improvement Framework (NIF) was in place in the 1990s providing Australia with a nationally coordinated “roadmap” for improving workplace health and safety. The NIF signalled the commitment to OHS improvement in Australia by the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council (WRMC), the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC) and NOHSC members. It set out to improve prevention, share knowledge, foster partnerships and collaborations, and compare performance among the key OHS stakeholders in Australia. The National OHS Strategy (National Strategy) was endorsed in May 2002 with the vision of Australian workplaces free from death, injury and disease. This was a tripartite initiative of NOHSC and unanimously endorsed by Federal, State and Territory Ministers. The 10 year timeframe was chosen to span political terms and provide the time to develop evidence based policies and programs. The Workplace Relations Ministers’ noted the successes of the National Road Strategy and its associated targets, and believed the inclusion of targets in a new document would help sharpen the national focus and efforts to improve Australia’s OHS performance. The National Strategy set out the basis for nationally strategic interventions that were intended to foster sustainably safe and healthy work environments, and to reduce significantly the numbers of people hurt or killed at work. Five national priorities and nine areas that required national action were agreed. These collectively aimed to bring about short and long-term improvements in OHS, as well as longer-term cultural change. Reports on progress to achieve the objectives of the National Strategy were provided annually to WRMC. NOHSC provided the original leadership and took carriage of the National Strategy until it was replaced by the Australian Safety and Compensation Council in 2005.

5. Safe Work Australia and the National Strategy 5 In 2009 Safe Work Australia – an independent Australian Government statutory body – was established. It has primary responsibility for improving work health and safety and workers’ compensation arrangements across Australia. Safe Work Australia represents a genuine partnership between governments, unions and industry working together towards the goal of reducing death, injury and disease in workplaces. The current and future National Strategy are key documents to guide the work of Safe Work Australia and others to achieve this goal. The current historic commitment to work health and safety is illustrated by the joint funding by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments of Safe Work Australia, facilitated through an intergovernmental agreement signed in July 2008. Safe Work Australia members: Back left to right: Mr Mark Goodsell Australian Industry Group; Mr Brian Bradley Western Australia; Ms Michele Patterson South Australia; Ms Michelle Baxter Commonwealth; Mr Rex Hoy Chief Executive Officer; Mr Peter Tighe Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Front left to right: Ms Anne Bellamy Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Mr John Watson New South Wales; Mr Tom Phillips AM Chair; Mr Michael Borowick (ACTU) Absent: Mr Greg Tweedly Victoria; Mr Barry Leahy Queensland; Ms Liesl Centenera ACT; Mr Roy Ormerod Tasmania; and Ms Laurene Hull Northern Territory.

6. National Work Health and Strategy Consultation and Development 6 Safe Work Australia is now developing a new National Work Health and Safety Strategy to supersede the previous Strategy that expires in June 2012. To inform the development process, workshops are being held in all capital cities and a number of regional centres. These will seek ideas and comments from invited participants including employers, employees, regulators, work health and safety professionals, academics and interested community members. Safe Work Australia will also continue to consult with key stakeholders through a range of other mechanisms including ongoing bilateral consultations and by commissioning topic papers from experts on selected issues. These consultations will allow Safe Work Australia Members to decide on priority areas, targets and the Strategy’s duration. Once a draft National Work Health and Safety Strategy has been agreed by Safe Work Australia Members this will be released for public comment early in 2012. The comments will be analysed and used to further inform the development of the new Strategy.

7. Welcome to participants 7 Ms Bridget Barrett, Program Director of the Work Health & Safety Legislation Implementation Program, NSW WorkCover welcomes participants to the Sydney workshop.

8. Workshop Introduction Mr Tom Phillips AM, the Chair of Safe Work Australia gave an introduction to workshop. He noted that the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012 provides a basis for developing sustainable, safe and healthy work environments and for reducing the number of people hurt or killed at work. He noted that the current Strategy set very clear and ambitious goals for work heath and safety, and was a key initiative to improve Australia's work health and safety performance from 2002–12. He thanked participants for attending and indicated that the workshops are an important part of the extensive stakeholder consultation process for the development of the New National Strategy. Mr Phillips invited participants to stay engaged and review the development progress reports on the new Strategy on the Safe Work Australia website as they are released. Mr Phillips provided data on the progress and limitations of the current Strategy and lessons learnt. He also noted the public comment period for the new Strategy early next year and welcomed participants’ comments at that time. 8 Mr Phillips’ presentation slides are available on the Safe Work Australia website. Participant comments on the workshops and new National Strategy themes can be sent to nationalstrategy@safeworkaustralia.gov.au nationalstrategy@safeworkaustralia.gov.au

9. Sydney Workshop Participants’ Profile 9 27 May 2011Number Academic/Specialist/policy9 Community based organisation4 Company/General13 Employer association8 Legislative/Legal3 OHS professional19 Regulator11 Union2 Total69

10. Scope of each session 10 To assist participants all tables were given an outline of the meaning of the key discussion topics: Social/Economic/Emerging Issues in the Workforce, Business and Technology –The Workforce: changing worker demographics such as ageing, young workers, casualisation, contract work, shift work, and individual needs such as literacy, disability, mental health –Business: how business is changing to meet emerging challenges and to remain viable and competitive, such as outsourcing, subcontracting, casualisation, etc –Technology: innovations in the workplace that have already or may have a future impact on WHS, such as nanotechnology, green technology, innovations in genetics, electronics and IT systems. Work Health and Safety Systems – Challenges and Solutions in Safe Design and Work Systems, the Supply Chain, and in Safety Leadership and Organisational Systems –Safe Design and Organisational Systems: the systems and principles that facilitate the elimination of hazards at the design or modification stage of products, buildings, structures and work processes –Supply Chain: the tools or processes that influence the best safety outcomes within the supply chain that moves a product or a service from the supplier to the customer –Safety Leadership and Organisation Culture: safety leadership generates organisational cultures that view safety and productivity of equal importance, validated by the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and values of the workforce. Hazards - Enhancing the capacity of workplaces to respond to: –Disease-Causing Hazards: includes noise, hazardous substances, chemicals and asbestos –Injury-Causing Hazards: includes work practices, manual tasks, slips trips and falls –Psychological Injury-Causing Hazards: includes the design, management and organisation of work and work systems to achieve resilient productive and safe psychological working environments.

11. Session One: What will success look like in 10 years? 11 Reduced number of fatalities, injury and disease, and increased return to work of injured workers. The national work health and safety vision is clear and well understood and supported by the community. The language used is clearly defined and understood. Australia is a world leader in work health and safety. We focus on good news rather than bad, and are proactive in taking up solutions, opportunities and challenges. Workplaces don’t just prevent work health and safety problems but see well designed work as beneficial to health. When workers are injured they are encouraged and supported to quickly return to work. Work health and safety systems are in place that focus on achieving outcomes, minimise red tape and reduce paperwork. Work health and safety is integrated with productivity, and systems are in place to monitor and record what is going on. Safety cultures are positive and resilient, and encourage continual improvement Improved skills, competency and training ensure that managers are aware of what work health and safety success in leadership looks like. Capability and capacity is increased among regulators. Workers enter the workforce with high "safety literacy". Safety is designed into workplaces: systems, structures, plant, equipment and machines. Safety does not rely on the “safe behaviour" of workers. Work health and safety becomes the new “green”, is de-politicised and is positively marketed in communities and the share market, not just workplaces. More work health and safety targeted goals are implemented by all, rather than general goals only implemented by some.

12. Session One: What will success look like in 10 years? 12 Consistent national strategies for particular risks and injuries. Regular regulator engagement with industry. An increased focus on duty holders with seamless integration of obligations across different pieces of legislation, including corporate legal requirements. Government includes processes to anticipate work health and safety risks when designing policy, consults with Safe Work Australia, recognises linkages between other policies and programs. Safety risk assessments are done early in the policy development phase - “safe design of policy”. Self-insurance bodies and others have standard frameworks. There are increased links with medical profession so doctors better understand workplace issues, collect exposure histories from patients. Strategies to reduce or eliminate hazards and occupational diseases, including screening of workers in high risk areas and improved data collection, are in place and detect issues before they become problems. Use consistent metrics. More research on emerging issues and publication of evidence-based advice and guidance. National data collection continues to improve, covers exposures, and covers road-related workplace deaths. There will be aspirational targets and clear lead as well as lag indicators. SMEs will have improved work health and safety. Work health and safety education will be included in schools, TAFEs and universities. Regulators are credible sources of work health and safety advice. Safe Work Australia anticipates changes to the work environment and provides flexible and effective national responses.

13. Session One: What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success ? 13 Show leadership and raise the profile of work health and safety. Provide consistent and reliable information. Facilitate work health and safety professional development. Provide consistent national tools, data and support. Establish sophisticated and active partnership with stakeholders and tripartite partners. Identify and share solutions – what’s been done before, what works. Disseminate solutions and provide safety impact advice to policy makers at an early stage. Engage with employers and employees to encourage. them to be more responsible for collective and individual safety. Ensure there is an Australia-wide approach rather than people doing their own thing. Develop a National Strategy and set priorities that address work health and safety risks at all levels of society. Use social media, and run "eye catching" national campaigns Start in schools to entrench work health and safety into the Australian psyche Model a standard of flexible work that integrates a healthy work life balance Positively market work health and safety showing links between safety, profitability and sustainability

14. Session Two: Emerging Issues in the Workforce What will success look like in 10 years time? 14 Healthy and safe work designed to reflect the varying abilities and capabilities of workers due to their age, physical or mental conditions is underpinned by a healthy work-life balance. Work health and safety work ability strategies harness the productivity of the ageing workforce and those with physical, mental and emotional disabilities. People take responsibility to maintain their work ability as they age. Healthy and safe work conditions for volunteers. Strategies are in place to meet the work health and safety needs of precarious and vulnerable workers. Work health and safety standards remain high despite the changing economic climate, industry profiles, new technology, and pressures on Australia from our trading partners. SMEs are supported to understand and proactively control their work health and safety hazards - advice and support is tailored to suit their needs, not just those of large companies. Integrated work health and safety and public health system – NB. others noted the need not to lose work health and safety within the public health agenda. “Great Ideas Banks” harness skills and experiences of older workers, how they made work easier and safer.

15. Session Two: Emerging Issues in the Workforce What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success? 15 Memorandums of Understanding on work health and safety with countries whose businesses want to operate in Australia. Evidence based campaigns to help promote life changes and work-life balance issues. Coordinated workplace health surveillance on the effects of changes on the workforce. Assess degree of risk perception and knowledge of hazards amongst workers and provide solutions that are tailored to different generational perspectives. Ensure that messages are aimed at the right groups and delivered in ways that suit them – use non-English media, market gardeners appreciate face to face help from officials. Work health and safety advice tailored to our cultural and linguistically diverse workforce. Promote healthier lifestyles to reduce work health and safety issues (reduced obesity, increased fitness). Develop models to educate managers on work health and safety issues, eg regarding mental health, economic and socially disadvantaged workers. Assess unique risks that may not have been seen before because the above groups may not have been in the workforce. Develop guidance so there is less reliance on capability assessment. Promote safe design to accommodates people’s changing abilities. Work with industry leaders to ensure the safe use of labour hire and non- permanent workers.

16. Session Two: Emerging Issues in Business What will success look like in 10 years time? 16 Work health and safety standards will remain high despite the following challenges identified by participants: –Changing economic climate –Two paced economy, patchy recovery –High exchange rates –Squeezed margins –More complex trading environments –Increased workforce mobility –Changing industry profiles –Changing workforce demographics, and –New technology pressures. Productivity improved and regulatory enforcement reduced due to good work health and safety organisational cultures that manage sub-contractors and non-standard employees. Work health and safety uses web-based tools to communicate effectively and mentor contractors Employers implement their collective responsibility for providing safe workplaces. Work health and safety communication meets the needs of workers with low literacy. Generational attitudes are recognised and relevant work health and safety strategies developed. Risk assessments are linked to training workers, who know before they start who will do what work and the systems they will use.

17. Session Two: Emerging Issues in Business What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve this? 17 Summarise what others are doing and provide information including sharing best practice solution tailored to suit size and capacity of businesses. Identify good performers. Implement a mentoring program for business in the supply chain similar to that of NSW WorkCover. Provide services and engage with business, who reciprocate in kind. Provide work health and safety advisory systems for sub-contractors to access eg "subbie packs". Define the tension between regulators being “there to help” but also having to prosecute at times; promote a balance between compliance support and enforcement and ensure that inspectors are skilled and competent to provide advice. Research and provide models that are relevant for SMEs as well as big companies. Engage with e-commence to manage work health and safety better: “virtual” businesses are a developing phenomenon. Improve the data and information on emerging work health and safety issues for business.

18. Session Two: Emerging Issues in Technology What will success look like in 10 years time? 18 Emergent IT (including the NBN) is met by work health and safety strategies that allow productive, safe and flexible alternatives to on-site work, including home based, remote & out-workers. New technology has corresponding new educational material that ensures that workers are up to date and informed. Where risks are not well understood the precautionary approach is applied, including a precautionary approval approach that allows new technology and chemicals that are of safety benefit to be imported into Australia without exorbitant costs. Australia becomes a developer of safe new technology, rather than simply an importer. A safe design whole of lifecycle approach is taken to new technical products, rather than a segmented approach. Incentives in the form of support and mentoring programs are made available for employers who introduce new and better technology. Work health and safety strategies protect workers from the potential overload, stress or depression associated with the introduction of new technologies and the changes they bring, such as the need to develop new capabilities, and the changing structure of workforces and work patterns. Emerging technology, specifically nanotechnology and genetics, is controlled and only applied in the workplace where it produces safe ethical outcomes. The provision of same is overseen and regulated (both for hazards and benefits). The cost impacts of new technology that brings significant work health and safety benefits are cushioned for those businesses that cannot afford to implement them.

19. Session Two: Emerging Issues in Technology What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success? 19 Commission or carry out research that identifies potential work health and safety issues before the introduction of new technology, then provides appropriate advice. Help workplaces to use social media and other communication e-tools to communicate effectively and assist their work health and safety decision making processes. Develop tools and frameworks to assist in the safe introduction of new technologies. Lead by targeted research into hazards and benefits, including supporting laboratory and other testing capability. Reward businesses where safety has been integrated as a core value into the introductions of new technologies and "communications capabilities". Reduce impediments to technology and identify what SMEs can do to make life easier and safer when these are adopted. Fund, lead or facilitate efficient transfer of information and knowledge about technologies. Engage industry and specialists at the national level to ensure up to date knowledge and then provide guidance for designers of new technology.

20. Session Three: Safe Design & Work Systems What will success look like in 10 years time? 20 Hazards and risks are eliminated at the design stage. A “cradle to grave” safe design process is used, from design until decommissioning. Root cause analysis identifies design failings and facilitates interventions to avoid incidents reoccurring. Designers design better plant and equipment by using a data triangulation technique that consults with workers and observes workers non-judgementally to help validates the efficacy of design through cross verification from more than two sources (as was originally intended by Robens). Systems are integrated into design that recognises that errors occur and that there is a need to design out opportunities for human error. There is a more holistic view of safety design, in that it can affect not only work health and safety but broader systems (structural, environmental, security). Tools and principles (eg “HazOps”) mitigate the design issues in hazardous operations. Safe design concepts are always incorporated in the design principles taught to designers. Safe design applies to every industry involved in buildings, structures and mining, with the risk management approach leading to significant improvements, and regulators involved from the beginning. Where hazards can’t be designed out improvements in design are complemented by effective communication and documentation.

21. Session Three: Safe Design & Work Systems What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success? 21 Work to ensure that economic policies and strategies don’t have unintended negative impacts. Educate to improve skills. Develop a suite of tools for designers to refresh their knowledge of the hierarchy of controls regarding design issues. Scrutinise decisions and track up and down the chain to the designer when plant fails – learn from mistakes. Communicate to designers what their obligations mean in practice and ensure they know that the law holds them accountable. Communicate root causes of design failure to the market place. Actively engage with the “lost cousins” of design (architects, designers and engineers). Facilitate appropriate safe design capability within or available to regulators who need the right skill set to engage with designers. Encourage regulators to engage at design stage, not reactively after incidents. Engage with designers of buildings to ensure they consider the safety of builders and maintenance workers. Help companies to understand their design responsibilities and their need to identify duty holders within the company who are responsible for work health and safety. Facilitate recognition of and understanding of cognitive hazards – information that is needed to process to work safely (eg shift work, tired workers making decisions).

22. Session Three: Supply Chain What will success look like in 10 years time? 22 Products are safe when they enter the supply chain and continue to be safe right through to disposal. The legitimate use and role of the supply chain in improving safety is recognised with all persons within the supply chain aware of and meeting their work health and safety responsibilities as well as influencing others to improve work health and safety up-stream, down-stream and sideways. There is an effective governance process at key points in the supply chain to ensure that commercial conditions do not require unsafe behaviour by suppliers during transport, maintenance and design, eg Quality Control, regulatory inspections. Shareholders and the market incorporate a Corporate Social Responsibility approach that recognises the need to engage with a supply chain that employs an ethical approach to procurement and purchasing that further influences safety in the supply chain.

23. Session Three: Supply Chain What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success? 23 Promote ongoing debate about the legitimate use of a systems approach to improve safety in the supply chain, “where the aggregate outcome is safety”. Help suppliers to manage business by providing leadership to ensure that work health and safety is integrated throughout the supply chain. Produce guidance material on safety for all levels and parties in the supply chain. Work with stakeholders to ensure that there is effective governance in the supply chain, and to “fine tune” where safety in the supply chain is inadequate. Ensure trade agreements recognise the need to maintain high levels of safe design and compliance with Australian Standards in imported plant and materials.

24. Session Three: Safety Leadership and Organisational Culture. What will success look like? 24 The scope describes success: “Safety leadership generates organisational cultures that view safety and productivity of equally importance, validated by the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions & values of the workforce”. Organisations exhibit a mature safety culture that integrates safety fully into all their operations, along with measureable commitment and standardised reporting. Australian businesses use a system based approach that recognises that “resources include humans, not just tools of production, and as humans they are fallible and make errors”. Possibility of errors are "designed out" or defences put in place to mitigate their effects. Safety leadership is evident as core business in Australian companies, where leaders at all levels of the organisation have a vision for work health and safety excellence in their workplaces and “do” not just “say”. Safety leadership is underpinned by the implementation of a credible safety management system, effective communication and management commitment. Share market and shareholders see companies that manage work health and safety well as productive and good investment opportunities. Corporate governance sanctions are applied for non-compliance – these are seen as fair and reasonable. Corporate responsibilities ensure that more business leaders (both SME and large) accept and embrace commitment to safety and are prepared to publicise their commitment. “Work health and safety is a social norm”, fully integrated into society and the education system so pressure for good work health and safety comes from peers and families.

25. Session Three: Safety Leadership & Organisational Culture - What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success? 25 Promote a balance of incentives and rewards versus negative outcomes for poor performers. Work with industry bodies and member organisations to implement requirements for all organisations to report their work health and safety performance, define and measure improvements, and incorporate them into the global reporting initiative (GRI). Standardise systems for monitoring and reporting safety performance. Educate about what is possible and what quality leadership looks like, eg why you should comply (safe business is good business). Engage in "social dialogue" on cultural change. Develop marketing tools and publicise how organisations are going, including identifying champions and exemplars through case studies and disseminating good models while naming and shaming bad models. Engage in groundswell social dialogue with communities to influence social norms. Better engage with SMEs by brokering relationships with work health and safety professionals who exhibit leadership and are accessible to organisations. Develop accessible guidance material (eg printers’ package) codes of practice and regulations. Ensure the professionalism and competence of work health and safety professionals is high, and engage with tertiary providers to ensure ongoing supply of qualified work health and safety advisors. Increase capacity and competence to advise industry. Ensure that measures of success include lead safety indicators.

26. Session Four: Responding to Disease-Causing Hazards What will success look like in 10 years time? 26 GPs recognise occupational disease or investigate for it if they suspect an occupational origin. Changes to the Corporations law impose liability and accountability for occupational disease. There is a better understanding of the nature of disease-causing hazards informed by research, an increased knowledge of cause and nature of agency, the multi-factorial nature and a knowledge of the risks and the potential extent of illness. The burden of occupational disease is significantly reduced, with decreased exposures as a result of exposures monitored, known hazards identified, no new exposures or problems in aged or new workers, and workers recognise hazardous situations. Australia stays ahead of new developments, eg the risks of bowel cancer and other effects of sedentary work, or the potential legacies and unintended consequences of the NBN. There is better identification of clusters with sentinel reporting in place that focuses on systems and processes, and analyses causal factors. Holistic reporting incorporates work health and safety and environmental factors, ie reduced hazards may increase environmental footprint.

27. Session Four: Responding to Disease-Causing Hazards What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve success? 27 Enhance the capacity of workplaces to respond by: Educating management and workplaces not to ignore potential problems unless attention is drawn to them (eg treatment of fluorocarbons). Collaborating with global partners, recognise international implications of occupational diseases, and look overseas for evidence. Providing new guidance for health surveillance. Facilitating the improvement of biological monitoring techniques, and supporting labs which can perform multiple checks and identify exposures before disease manifests. Building more sophisticated ways of collecting data and for compulsory reporting. Integrating a holistic approach that incorporates occupational and environmental hazards. Prioritising and addressing the worst offenders (noise, asbestos, silicates and dust, sunlight, engine emissions, and solvents). Educating medical professionals. Promoting systems for early intervention in areas of high risk where workers are vulnerable. Continuing the whole of Government approach to a reduction of exposures, eg the GHS.

28. Session Four: Responding to Injury-Causing Hazards What will success look like in 10 years time? 28 There are reduced injuries and increased safe systems in place. There is reduced risk tolerance and complacency. There is increased scientific rigour in risk management. Lead indicators drive proactive improvement. There is recognition of cumulative damage. Problems and hazards are designed out at the design stage. Prior to the introduction of any new technology, plant, substances, processes or work practices, proactive hazard management processes are planned and undertaken. There is an increased focus on high consequence tasks and hazards. There is better understanding of what causes injury and of the interface between machines and workers, including consideration of models such as the energy changing model. Older technology is replaced by newer safer machinery (eg eliminating old-model tractors!). Smarter guarding and assistive technology helps prevent slips, trips, falls, and prevents farmers losing digits. Improved skills, competency & training have increased the quality of hazard management carried out by both employers and employees, linked in with input at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. Formal change management processes facilitate changes in processes that may have become entrenched but remain inherently dangerous.

29. Session Four: Responding to Injury-Causing Hazards What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve this? 29 Enhance the capacity of workplaces to respond by: Coordinating national prevention programs. Assisting designers and manufactures to design better and safer equipment. Gathering information, celebrate and promote solutions and successes and give feedback where things are not working, eg safe systems that are easy to adopt, procedures that can be adopted, or the need for better information from designers on how to use machines. Facilitating smarter systems so machines work in the real world, eg Industry Standard on guarding on augers makes the guard too difficult to use, so it is usually removed. Providing guidance and assistance (and work with regulators where enforcement is needed) to introduce safe systems of work.

30. Session Four: Responding to Psychological Injury- Causing Hazards What will success look like in 10 years time? 30 Exposure to psychological hazards is controlled by evidence based good workplace management and job design that includes recognition of human factors issues, the potential for psychological injury, and the need for work life balance and a positive culture. Psychological disorders and occupational bullying are well defined, clear diagnoses are made that include work relatedness, legal aspects, workers’ compensation, and early RTW is achieved with over servicing reduced. Resilient productive and safe psychological working environments are achieved by recognising and putting adaptive strategies in place that provide help for at risk employees, remove the stigma associated with psych injuries, and deal with the challenges posed by new technology versus ageing workforce and the potential for cyber bullying. There is agreement that measures like zero harm could be achievable if the right systems are in place (such as genuine hazard identification and risk assessment measures that identify responsibilities for reporting, and recognise that issues can be complex) to prevent work causing psychological harm. Resources for appropriate support when potential flags arise (bullying, exposure to psychological trauma, inability to "confess" when suffering from stress, non-English speaking workers using e- learning processes, extended hours/shift work) to prevent potential harm. Courteous reasonable workplace behaviour supports employees with mental disorders, and identifies how people with psychological injuries (whether work-related or not) can be integrated into the workplace.

31. Session Four: Responding to Psychological Injury- Causing Hazards What should Safe Work Australia do to achieve this? 31 Enhance the capacity of workplaces to respond by: Providing integrated evidence based policy development and tools and developing links on work health and safety and psychological health with Australian Human Resources Institute and other learning and development bodies. Promoting education programs – simple risk management approaches and measures of success Providing proactive advice in expected times of additional psychological pressure – GFC and its effects on business, depressed economic circumstances, natural disasters, pandemics. Developing guidelines, resources, fact sheets, and tools to assist staff and managers to understand what compliance looks like for these hazards. Commissioning research and gathering credible statistics to define and measure our current performance, better identify what is happening in industry sectors, and develop evidence based psychological risk reduction policies. Supporting key at-risk industries, eg hospitality where the need for customer satisfaction can at times be detrimental to employee health, and ensure there are safety nets and early intervention programs to support at-risk employees. Developing a simple audit tool, model or instrument. Integrating Australia’s approach with international counterparts, eg 2011 British Standards Institution Guidance on the Management of psychosocial risks in the workplace.

32. Closing Reflections from the Chair 32 Mr Phillips thanked participants for their time and suggestions. He noted the appeal for the National Strategy to include a focus on preventing deaths related to road accidents, as well as the need to prioritise hazardous chemicals and then target a small number of the most hazardous. He agreed that there not only needs to be "safe design" in the traditional concept, where work health and safety risks for people with differing abilities such as ageing, or disability are addressed through safe design, engineering a good match between work demands and human capabilities, but also of social and economic policy, where these issues are considered early in the development phase. He observed that he was rather taken by the idea that we should strive to make work health and safety the new “black” (or “green” as was identified at the workshop, where green policies seem to achieve more resonance with the community than work health and safety issues). He noted he was completely in agreement that we increasingly need to consider work health and safety issues for volunteers as we ever more encourage and need them to contribute to unpaid work tasks. He agreed with the participants that we need to explore the use of the supply chain to introduce improved work health and safety into an area both up and down stream. He noted participants’ suggestions that we need to analyse design failings to inform safe design – not only in traditional areas of plant and machinery, but also to deal with the increasing cognitive demands of work as we evolve in this time of rapid development. He noted participants’ suggestions on the need for safety leadership that extends beyond compliance, and to integrate work health and safety seamlessly into business as part of corporate social responsibility. Mr Phillips indicated that the development of the new National Strategy would provide an opportunity to refresh our collective approach to a range of issues that have not received perhaps as much focus as they should have – for example, safe design, small and medium businesses, and hazardous exposures in workplaces. Mr Phillips went on to observe that the workshop themes chosen for exploration were just some of the many that are under active consideration by Safe Work Australia Members as they develop the new National Strategy. He closed the workshop by welcoming participants’ ongoing engagement with the development of the new Strategy and that if they would like to provide further comments and ideas these may be sent to nationalstrategy@safeworkaustralia.gov.au.nationalstrategy@safeworkaustralia.gov.au

33. Evaluation Outcomes 33 Overall, the feedback from the National Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012-2022 workshop which was held in Sydney on 27 May was very positive. Both quantitative and qualitative results were collected from 38 evaluation sheets, which reported 100% approval with the length of the workshop, with 97% and 95% satisfaction respectively with the opportunity to contribute and the format of the day. There was 100% satisfaction with the facilitators, while the room set up, location and food rated between 80-90% levels of satisfaction. Some found the venue great, one even fantastic, while others would have liked a larger venue with less pillars obscuring views. Two attendees found the lack of good public transport an inconvenience, and others would have liked copies of the question to prepare themselves better for the discussion. There was in particular a call for the audience to include more of the people we want to reach in our next 10 year Strategy, ie workers, small business, young people, new starters, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and people with mental illness who are or want to be in the workforce. On the other hand a great deal of participants (nearly 50%) found there was good networking and cross-section / cross-organisational representation. The opportunity to provide feedback and input at this critical stage of developing the new Work Health and Safety Strategy was appreciated, and the fact that all input was respectfully received and many times validated by the presenters successfully fostered a culture for free and open discussion. Many helpful suggestions were made on how to improve the quality of discussion, ranging from the need for rules of engagement for groups, to some members of the audience didn’t understand how to address the hypothetical of what "success will look like in 10 years time". All of this input has been noted, and is being integrated into future workshops to make improvements. Several attendees asked for a list of participants and their place of work. This has also been addressed with Safe Work Australia seeking consent to do this for future workshops in confirmation emails, and participant lists will be distributed from now on. Whilst most people were satisfied with the pace of the workshop, some requested more time for each topic to discuss and debate proposals. However, others found it hard to stay focussed for the whole length, and as there was 100% satisfaction with the length of the workshop, this was taken as a positive measure of participant enthusiasm overall. Text in italics indicates direct quotes from respondees