Thanks Chris
I am in my last month of the post grad diploma in occupational health and safety management at SIT.
I am interested in more study at the post grad level, perhaps a masters.
Online study is my preference.

In my mind it fundamentally important for someone studying OHS and thus potentially working with specific OHS responsibilities to have good knowledge of the legal framework of OHA. So after nearly finishing my current course and not having developed that knowledge I feel that is a big gap in my knowledge.

Perhaps there is another side to this that I'm missing, maybe its not fundamental..... What are your thoughts on law/legal frameworks/HSWA/regulations/case study/precedents in OHS study?

thanks again
Riki

I'd love to read that guidance if you find it!! Thank you

Awesome, thanks so much!
You have confirmed my suspicions, which unfortunately means from my experience in the adventure tourism industry there is a lot a companies not supplying PPE to employees, as they require their guides to provide their own gear such as helmets, harness, carabiners, lanyards etc.

While I have you here, is there any guidance material (other than Worksafe's PCBUs working together: advice for contracting document) that would be relevant for a rock climbing guide who is engaged as a contrator to a rock climbing company, regarding PPE provision, maintenance, record keeping).

Thanks again, I really appreciate it

Riki

safety is the presence of defenses. — KeithH

Perhaps that is a more fitting definition for workplace safety, as the risks are often still present but minimised to an 'acceptable level'. Therefore it is the presence of defences that provide us safety.
Cheers Keith

What exactly does a zero, or low incident report number tell us?
If safety is defined by the absence of the risk of harm, zero incidents isn't evidence there is no risk present, just as our last 50 rolls of the dice that didn't turn up snake-eyes doesn't tell us anything about the chances of rolling snake-eyes on the 51st roll.

Hi Steve
I settled on the position that cancer can fit it multiple categories, it makes sense to me that solar UV skin cancer would fit into physical, although I re-worded the paragraph in my assignment to not assign UV skin cancer to a particular category.
Cheers

Cheers Matt, valid question.
To gauge whether the risk is minimised to an acceptable level/ to measure the 'residual risk' there a few measures I use......I kind of do this 'naturally', but now that you ask me to write this down I think I should have this documented as an actual procedure/process I follow, that will be a useful tool to communicate my approach to others....thanks for helping me realise that Matt.

1. I use my experience and the experience within the organisation to assess whether I/we think its safe enough/the risk is low enough. Which is exactly what we do when we use a matrix, but instead of getting caught up on if its 1:1000 or 1:10,000, or yellow or orange.....its simply "does that, in my experience ,seem to provide an appropriate level of safety?
1.b we will have a discussion to answer the question "are we taking all reasonably practicable here to keep the staff and clients safe during this adventure activity?" if not, what more could we be doing.

2. I use guidance material from the industry or Worksafe or internationally to measure what we propose. I read up and see if what I propose is still accepted within the industry, or perhaps its outdated and the gear or systems have be upgraded/changed/moved on.

3. I look to other operators in the industry and see if what I/we are proposing is common practice, or am I bing a renegade/cowboy.

4. If I want more info I will run it past other technical experts that I know in the field, i'll ask them, "what do you think about this?" "should we be doing more?"

So yea, I have a good amount of experience in running adventure activities, but I'm new to the "safety-science" side of things........thats the process of risk management that comes natural to me.

Again, I'm here to learn, so anyone feel free to give feedback.

Cheers

Riki

MattD2 I agree with your answer, thank you.

I have never really understood/seen the utility of them (it is possible they were being used poorly/incorrectly in all my experiences).

I always thought it was just me being slow and not understanding them when everyone else was.

I was confused by the subjectivity of them, the need to put risks on a single point when in reality there could be a range of likelihoods and consequences of a hazard on any given day.

I was confused by assigning numbers to things and then everyone talked about numbers and not about the actual thing were trying to manage.

I was confused by a lack of definition of terms such as 'likely' and 'severe'.....and then when likelihood parameters were added, such as "likely = 1 in a 1000 chance of happening" I was no more informed as there is no data on how many times its happened before, or how many people are carried out the work, or how many people have been exposed to the hazard.

I was confused by the seeming ease of being able to adjust one value and move the risk from 'red' to 'orange' so we can go about our work.

I recently did a risk assessment for a client for a new adventure activity they are setting up. I didn't use a matrix, I simply listed all the hazards that I (as the contracted expert) believe have the ability to kill people (this included things like height, extreme weather, driving, gear failure, incorrect rigging). I didn't need to rate them, they could all kill. We then applied control measures, in line with industry good practice guidelines until we believe the risk is minimised to an acceptable level.

I really don't feel I needed a matrix.

Feel free to rip my approach apart and tell me where you think a matrix would strengthen things......thats a genuine statement, not an arrogant one, I want to learn from others with more experience, I'm here to grow.

Cheers

Riki

Great answer, that, makes sense to me. Thanks Keith.
I have seen the definitions of risk and hazard being interchanged a few times, its pretty frustrating.

Thanks Steve, I've had a good read of the guidance material, I now writing a report about it for my studies and I want to fit it neatly into one of Worksafe's 5 work-related health risk categories, but I cant figure out which one it fits in.
Cheers

brilliant, thank you Grant

I am half way through, happy to answer questions. rikibrowndotnzatgmaildotcom

ZeroHarmFarm and Safely (which is now called Audits, or Auditz I think). Both kiwi operations.