Chris, apologies for not addressing your question, but I've had a quick scan of the paper you link to and it is fascinating. It suggest a way to strengthen the due diligence obligations of officers under the HSW Act.

This is the paper's conclusion:

"A possible solution would be the use of SRA-type structures where industry associations would help officers come up with compliance plans that would then be approved by WorkSafe. These associations would be able to extend regulatory capacity by devolving some responsibility for regulation on private parties. In order to maintain the accountability of those private parties and to avoid a neo-liberal spiral, a modified type of judicial review process can be used to hold the SRA-type structures accountable. There should also be duties for internal regulators to report repeated or breaches of the due diligence duties to WorkSafe. Tensions within the SRA-type structures are bound to exist, but an external committee that can review the functions of the SRA may help to smooth relationships."

(SRA = self-regulated associations)

Whew. Fascinating. What does the brains trust think?

Left your run too late? Not so! Most award entries arrive in the last few days before the deadline.

So be sure to spend half an hour reflecting on your most successful health, safety or wellbeing initiatives of the last year to 18 months. (If you are an external adviser, encourage your clients to do the same.)

Also recall the key people behind them who went the extra mile to make good things happen. You know who they are.

Then enter your best initiative into an organisational category, and your best person into an individual category.

As always, entry is free and simple. Do it now!

The Part 2 report (same link) answers your question about regulatory spending, at least in terms of regulator's resources. The ratio of inspectors across jurisdictions is roughly comparable.

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people with significant work experience in Australia: what have you noticed about their H&S practice or culture which stands out?

As someone who doesn't run a prequal scheme nor runs a small business which has to go through one, I don't have a dog in this fight.
But wearing my sceptic's hat, H&S prequal as a concept appears fatally flawed as well as contrary to the spirit of the HSW Act.
It almost seems as if prequal has become the defacto replacement for ACC's old WSMP audit.
If I was putting out a tender, I'd be much more comfortable if companies seeking the work could show me they were going through a SafePlus on-site assessment or equivalent - that is, that they understood their H&S strengths and weaknesses, had identified their critical risks, and were engaged in an improvement process.
I'm keen to know what people think about this: am I barking up the wrong tree?

Last year's Safeguard income survey is attached FYI

300 people have done it so far - are you one of them? Be sure to make your voice heard!

Just to be contrary for a moment - hey, I'm a journalist, it's my job - but shouldn't the primary focus after an incident be on working out how it happened and how to prevent it happening again?
In other words, spend no time at all arguing about whether or not the incident meets the criteria to report to WorkSafe - just report it.
Then spend time working out how to prevent similar incidents in future.
Or have I completely got the wrong end of the stick here?

I sent Lawrence Waterman a link to this thread. He replied that his "crude comment" about 5% technical and 95% people was designed to stimulate thinking, and that the responses in the Forum "are much more thoughtful than my throwaway remark deserved".

Nevertheless, he adds:

"More mature and experienced practitioners, in general, do focus on the people they are working with, working for and seeking to influence - but the noise meter, the air sampling pump, the measuring tape, the spreadsheet are still sometimes deployed as barriers to hide behind, and to generate “comfort tasks”. I was suggesting that, however perplexing and critical the technical issues are, we need to remember what we are in safety and health for, and to never let the technical become a smokescreen behind which we fail to develop the crucial human relationships based on mutual respect that can sponsor and maintain real improvements in the workplace."

Averil, welcome to the Forum! FYI there have been a couple of threads on this topic which could be useful (apologies if you've already looked at these!):

• https://forum.safeguard.co.nz/discussion/35/charging-for-pre-registration
• https://forum.safeguard.co.nz/discussion/17/contractor-pre-qualification-approval-systems/p1

To place Lawrence's view in context, attached is his piece in Safeguard.

WorkSafe has recently released these site traffic management guidelines.
I'm no expert, so perhaps a Forum member with some expertise can take a look at these guidelines and tell us if a good solution to this specific situation emerges?

And of course anything written by Andrew Hopkins, including Organising for Safety (2019) - the review published in Safeguard is attached.

I have used a degree of techno speak above, if you don't understand it, you are not competent to test electrical appliances — Steve H

OK I admit it. I don't fully understand it. I promise never to attempt to test an electrical appliance. But I always switch the toaster off at the wall before attempting to extricate jammed toast with wooden tongs.

Agreed, Paper Safe is worth a read. Greg Smith the author is writing a piece for the Jan/Feb issue of Safeguard.

@Craig Marriott is far too modest to recommend his own book, Challenging the Safety Quo.
So I will.

Maximum brownie points!

Thanks. Whew. Time for a cup of tea and a lie down.

Craig, as editor of Safeguard I'm always keen to bring new perspectives to readers. Which other disciplines do you think would most help to broaden the discussion?

Rebecca, your point about there being multiple subcontractors at Pike, many of them one man bands, leads to a question about the further atomisation of work, ie: the gig economy. So far as I am aware, no H&S regulator in the world has so far grasped how to offer such workers any protection.

WorkSafe has until 9 Dec to lay charges over White Island/Whakaari. Presuming they do so, it is likely to be even more politically fraught than Pike, given the eyes of the international media will be following the case on behalf of the tourism sector.