​A worker’s leg has been crushed after an excavator bucket unexpectedly disconnected from height during a house demolition. WorkSafe Victoria believes the bucket was attached to an excavator via a semiautomatic quick hitch when the incident occurred. To prevent similar incidents, workers and employers should ensure their quick hitch devices have safety systems — as required by standard AS 4772 – 2008 — and that those systems are always used, WorkSafe Victoria advised.

As temperatures soar and bushfires grip most parts of NSW, we’re reminding people to keep themselves healthy and safe.
 
With summer beginning next month, it’s a timely reminder that it’s is easy to become dehydrated or for your body to overheat. It is very important that your body temperature stays in the range of 36.1 – 37.8°C, or you risk developing a heat-related illness.

​If you are involved in the welding industry, the new 2020 Welding Fume Update released by AWS is a must read. The Welding Fume Update takes a closer look at a 2019 study on welding fume and lung cancer that pulled together data from over 60 years of research and over 16 million people worldwide. The Welding Fume Update summarises this information into an easy to read eight-page document so that welders and those who employ welders in Australia and New Zealand can make better decisions regarding welding fume and respiratory protection.

In response to devastating bushfires across NSW and QLD, steps have been taken to help contain the spread of fire and to protect affected workers, This has included a Volunteer Protection Order being put in place in NSW, and a commitment in QLD to provide assistance to primary producers in crisis.

New South Wales
The NSW Government announced a State of Emergency on 12 November, as the state faced catastrophic bushfire conditions that were expected to worsen over the coming week. It marked the first time that a catastrophic fire danger had been forecast for Sydney since the new fire danger ratings were first introduced in 2009. The forecast was for the Greater Sydney, Greater Hunter and Illawarra Shoalhaven areas. “There is potential for significant existing bush fire activity to become worse in Northern NSW, including the North and Mid North Coast,” the government advised in their announcement.

A building company has been charged with failing to apply mesh to holes or openings in floors after a labour hire backpacker in its employment fell 13 floors to her death through a pressurisation shaft.

Hanssen allegedly breached section 3.54(1)(b)(i) of Western Australia’s Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996 by failing to install the mesh during construction of the holes or openings in concrete floors, according to WorkSafe Western Australia (WorkSafe WA), which laid the charges

The Public Accountability Committee of the upper house of the NSW Parliament, the NSW Legislative Council, last week released the report, Regulation of building standards, building quality and building disputes – First Report.  This can be viewed here. While this report is 196 pages long, it is at least well worth reading the 19 recommendations.  It will be very interesting to see how many of these recommendations the NSW Government adopts.  ​

November 17-23, 2019 
Each year Cancer Council Australia and the Australasian College of Dermatologists come together for National Skin Cancer Action Week.
With two in three Australians diagnosed with skin cancer by age 70, the action week is an important reminder to use sun protection and of the importance of early skin cancer detection for all Australians.

Each year on this day Australians observe one minute’s silence at 11am, in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts.
On 11 November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. With their armies retreating and close to collapse, German leaders signed an Armistice, bringing to an end the First World War. ​
​In the four years of the war more than 330,000 Australians had served overseas, and more than 60,000 of them had died. The social effects of these losses cast a long shadow over the postwar decades.
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