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Australian Energy Producers Journal Australian Energy Producers Journal Society
Journal of Australian Energy Producers
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Non peer reviewed)

Warning. Danger. Caution: over-regulation leads to unsafe work environments

Duncan Fletcher
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K&L Gates.

The APPEA Journal 56(2) 567-567 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ15073
Published: 2016

Abstract

The oil and gas industry is no stranger to explosions, fatalities and other catastrophic incidents. If, however, these dangers are outside of the normal routine, what is the value of countless occupational health and safety rules, regulations, and a bureaucracy to manage them?

The over-regulation of workplace safety threatens to replace intelligent judgment with rigid policies and procedures. The industry needs to examine which strategies ultimately lead to the best safety outcomes. The personal responsibility of individual employees is critical to genuine engagement in the day-to-day management of workplace safety. Over-regulation can also drive up costs for contractors who are forced to comply with the same inflexible standards and rules. Historically, tensions between employers, employees, and contractors have hindered rather than helped workplace safety.

In the future, employers and management should strive to share the burden of workplace safety through meaningful conversation with the people on the ground floor. The industry should not rely on a new hazard sign, safety briefing, start-up check, emergency switch, hand guard, policy document, or a human resources buzzword. The best safety systems rely on common sense. Beware—the machine has no brain, use your own. The question is, does the regulatory framework allow this to occur?

Duncan Fletcher has been working with clients in the practice area of labour, employment, and workplace safety for more than 15 years. He has expertise in industrial relations and labour regulation, individual employment relationships and contracts, preparation and enforcement of workplace policies and procedures, equal opportunity, discrimination, harassment, workplace safety and training.

Based in Perth, Duncan has worked on matters throughout Australia. He has been involved in large-scale industrial relations and employment litigation, and in the development and implementation of workplace change strategies. He also advises clients regarding workplace safety compliance matters, and in the aftermath of safety and environmental incidents, including during regulator investigations and prosecutions. In 2015, Duncan represented the lead contractor in responding to threatened strike action by employees on the Gorgon project, and assisted with the successful approval and renewal of new enterprise agreements, which helped secure industrial relations stability for the remaining construction schedule.