The Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation has put NSW’s employers and employees under notice that as October is National Safe Work Month they are expected to make the State’s workplaces safer following the number fatalities and serious injuries that led up to it.
The Minister, Kevin Anderson said SafeWork inspectors had been called to incidents in recent times involving workers from a range of sectors including manufacturing, construction, agriculture and transport.
“We want everyone to make it home to their family at the end of the day,” Mr Anderson said
“We are reminding everyone of their obligations and responsibilities, not just from employers to their employees, but employees’ obligations to each other,” he said.
“It is clear that more needs to be done to get the safety message through to people.”
Mr Anderson said a number of new initiatives would be rolled out this month aimed at protecting workers from serious injury or death.
He said SafeWork NSW were making the construction industry the focus of its next ‘falls from height’ blitz with businesses and workers across NSW being reminded of their obligations of staying safe whilst working at heights.
“While inspectors have seen some improvement in scaffold safety recently, the level of risk is still unacceptable with 44 per cent of scaffolds having missing parts,” Mr Anderson said.
“On 36 per cent of sites it appeared unlicensed workers had altered or removed scaffolding components,” he said.
“That is why we need to strengthen laws and change attitudes to target risky behaviour, before someone gets hurt, or dies.”
