Safe Work Australia has released its baseline report on targets (the Report) to support the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023 – 2033 (the Strategy). The Report provides an overview of the current state of WHS in Australia and articulates the targets needed to support the Strategy.
The Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023 – 2033
The Strategy sets a vision of Safe and healthy work for all, supported by a goal of reduced worker fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. Three enablers and supporting actions underpin this vision:
Enablers
- Embed good WHS practice in all work, across all industries, cohorts, and hazards
- Innovate and deepen knowledge of WHS to broaden understanding
- Collaborate collectively and cooperatively to respond to WHS challenges.
Actions
- Information and awareness
- Develop joint campaigns with materials and checklists to improve small business WHS awareness and compliance
- Consult with small business about their communication preferences for WHS guidance, training, and gaps in knowledge
- Collaborate with worker representatives and industries with diverse workforces to reach groups of workers with higher health and safety vulnerability in high-risk industries.
- National coordination
- Share insights across jurisdictions and industries so that successful initiatives can be replicated and scaled in other jurisdictions and workplaces, leading to best practice being adopted across Australia
- Work with researchers to identify emerging WHS challenges
- Engage with national employers to better understand impediments to working across jurisdictional lines
- Coordinate on monitoring and improving the WHS framework at the national level, including Safe Work Australia preparing WHS regulations, codes of practice and other materials.
- Data and intelligence gathering
- Identify new data sources from industry, social surveys and other sources that supplement official workers’ compensation claim statistics
- Collaborate across government, social partners, and research communities to ensure that national surveys and other data collection efforts include WHS measures and occupational information where possible.
- Health and safety leadership
- Jurisdictions develop and refine their own detailed strategies and action plans to help address systemic WHS challenges or focus on particular groups of workers
- Liaise with the vocational education and training sector to influence future health and safety training requirements for workers and promote the importance of the WHS profession (e.g., occupational hygienists and physicians) as a career path
- Increase training of WHS Officers, worker representatives, managers and supervisors as key leaders of healthy and safe work in practice.
- Compliance and enforcement
- Jurisdictions collaborate to improve compliance across supply chains of goods and labour
- Target national compliance and enforcement campaigns to poor performing sectors, including the high-risk sectors identified in this Strategy and those that emerge. Develop insights from data on prosecutions, notifications and breaches, and increase knowledge sharing across the WHS system
- Strengthen compliance on consultation, representation, and supervision to improve worker health and safety.
Current state
Safe Work Australia’s report found that our current work-related injury rate of 3.5% is significantly lower than the global average of 12.1%. Despite this, almost 200 workers are killed by work-related injury or illness each year, over 120,000 workers are compensated, and the rate of illness and injury is increasing in some areas. Serious claims for mental health conditions have increased by 43.3% since 2014, which represents the largest growth in the number of claims for any type of injury or disease over the last 10 years.
The report also highlights the broader opportunity for the Australian economy with improved safety outcomes, finding that the absence of work-related injuries and illnesses would, on average, result in a $2.6 billion growth, an additional 185,500 full-time equivalent jobs, and a wage increase for workers across all occupations and skill levels of 1.3%. Additionally, the report states that 83% of work-related traumatic injury fatalities and 62% of serious workers’ compensation claims occur across 6 industries: agriculture, forestry and fishing, construction, transport, postal and warehousing, manufacturing, health care and social assistance, and public administration and safety.
WHS targets
The Report provides detail on the 8 targets that are included in the Strategy to measure progress against the overall goal of reducing worker fatalities, injuries, and illnesses, which include quantitative measures for the reduction in fatalities, injuries, and illnesses, and activity-based measures to increase preventative actions through to 2033. For each target, the report details why the target is important, focus areas for action, and identifies key data points and drivers for each of the targets (e.g., Australia’s performance against other countries, key high risk industries, or emerging hazards, risks, and work trends).
The targets, and key data points relating to each are outlined below.
Target 1: A reduction in the number of worker fatalities caused by traumatic injuries of at least 30%
- Agriculture, forestry, and fishing is the industry with the highest fatality rate as of 2022 data, at over 14. Transport, postal, and warehousing is the next highest at a rate over 9. All other industries included in the Report are under 4
- The leading cause of traumatic injury fatalities is “vehicle incidents”, which contribute 38% of all traumatic injury fatalities. This is followed by “being hit by moving objects” at 13%, “falls from height” at 12%, and “being hit by falling objects” at 10%. Additionally, 3 in 4 fatalities caused by “being hit by moving objects” involving vehicles (road vehicles, mobile plant, and self-propelled plant)
- 77% of worker fatalities that involved vehicles in 2022 were from single vehicle incidents.
Target 2: A reduction in the frequency rate of serious claims resulting in one or more weeks off work of at least 20%
- Automated systems and processes, as well as new technologies (e.g., AI), are predicted to contribute to a reduction of physical workplace injuries of 11% by 2030, however the report highlights that additional sustained effort is required to reduce the rate of serious claims
- Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, Manufacturing, and Health care and social assistance industries account for 33.2% of serious claims in recent years, though represent less than 25% of workers
- Health care and social assistance is the largest employing industry in Australia with 2.2 million workers, and so combined with a higher frequency rate of serious claims at 9.1 compared to an average of 6.3, presents a significant opportunity to reduce the rate of serious claims resulting from workplace injuries or illnesses
- Traumatic joint/ligament and muscle/tendon injury is by far the most common injury and illness type, accounting for 30% of all serious claims in the Report, followed by “Musculoskeletal and connective tissue diseases” and “Wounds, lacerations, amputations, and internal organ damage” both contributing 15%, “Fractures” at 11%, and “Mental health conditions” at 9%
- Diseases and conditions claims in the workplace have grown 6 percentage points to now account for 31% of all serious claims, with COVID-19 and mental health conditions being the two biggest driving factors for the increase.
Target 3: A reduction in the frequency rate of permanent impairment by 15%
- The prevalence of long-term health and chronic conditions is high in the Australian population, and close to one in five people stated that their chronic illness was entirely caused by or worsened by their work, and more than one in two stated work partially caused or worsened their health condition
- Workers who made permanent impairment claims had median compensation costs more than four times greater, and time lost periods twice as long as workers who made serious workers’ compensation claims which involve one week or more time off work, and almost half of workers that made a permanent impairment claim had greater than 16 weeks off work
- The frequency rate of permanent impairment claims has declined by 45.6% over the last 10 years, which is a positive sign that the target is achievable, however additional work is required to ensure the downward trend continues at rates seen in 2014-15
- Age and gender are seen to significantly impact the likelihood of incidents resulting in permanent impairment, with frequency rates for male workers being almost three times higher than female workers (1.1 claims/million hours worked, compared to 0.4 claims/million hours worked respectively). The report identifies that this also correlates to a significant gender bias in industries which experience higher injury and illness rates (e.g., agriculture, forestry, and fishing is the industry with the highest incident rate and has a low share of female workers at 33%. The second highest industry, Transport, postal, and warehousing comprises of only 23% female workers). Workers over 65 experience a rate of permanent impairment claims at 4.9 claims per million hours worked which is more than three times higher than the second highest cohort, workers aged 55-64.
Target 4: A reduction of the overall incidence of work-related injury or illness among workers to below 3.5%
- The incidence of work-related injury or illness has been decreasing steadily over time, from 6.4% in 2005-06 to 3.5% in 2021-22
- Changing workforce composition, including increasing female participation and an ageing demographic profile, as well as changing work patterns (e.g., rise of the gig economy and digital platform work), and new technologies changing how, where, and when people work is expected to have a significant impact on WHS processes and outcomes, with some improvements and also presenting new challenges
- The use of automated systems and processes, as well as the increased adoption of new technologies and AI is expected to significantly contribute to a reduction in physical workplace injuries and illnesses, however it is worth nothing that CSIRO’s 2018 report, Workplace Safety Futures, identified that this may have a negative impact on psychosocial risks in the workplace
- Interestingly, the most recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed the figure for 2021-22 to be at 3.5%, however the ABS cautioned that COVID-19 and the associated changed in workplaces and working conditions may have impacted the rate, and so the data will continue to be monitored to understand the ongoing rate and opportunities for further improvement.
Targets 5 and 6: No new cases of accelerated silicosis by 2033, and a reduction in the frequency rate of work-related respiratory disease by 20%
- Globally, respiratory diseases, primarily due to hazardous substances like dust, vapours, and fumes, account for 46% of work-related deaths, with 84% of these cases involving Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
- Accelerated silicosis is particularly concerning for engineered stone workers, resulting on a ban of the manufacture, supply, processing, and installation of engineered stone benchtops, panels, and slabs in Australia from 1 July 2024. Safe Work Australia is currently working to ensure all workers who may be exposed to crystalline silica are appropriately protected
- The National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Act 2023 (Cth) mandates that silicosis be a notifiable disease, requiring physicians to report all diagnosed cases to the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry (NORDR), administered by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, starting from May 2024. Previously, only NSW and Qld had mandatory reporting of accelerated silicosis.
Targets 7 and 8: All Safe Work Australia Members take action to increase to awareness of PCBUs about their duty to protect workers from exposure to harmful substances coinciding with the introduction of new workplace exposure standards, and all Safe Work Australia Members take action to build the capability of PCBUs, regulators, and workers to strengthen compliance with the duty to manage psychosocial risks at work.
- Targets 7 and 8 are distinct from the other quantitative targets included in the Strategy, and are instead aimed at activities to be undertaken by Safe Work Australia Members to support the actions included within the Strategy
- These targets highlight the need to focus on the overall achievement of the goal of the Strategy to reduce workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses, through proactive actions taken by Safe Work Australia Members to promote better information and awareness, coordinate a national approach to WHS improvement, focus on data and intelligence gathering, demonstrate health and safety leadership, and promote effective compliance and enforcement
- As part of the strategy, a revised list of workplace exposure standards, applying to over 600 chemicals, will be released. Raising awareness among PCBUs about their responsibility to protect workers from exposure to harmful substances also helps to ensure compliance with regulatory standards
- Due to an increasing number and severity of workplace-related psychological injuries, WHS laws across Australia are being updated to include specific regulations on psychosocial hazards. Enhancing the capability of PCBUs is essential for better understanding and managing psychosocial hazards in all Australian workplaces. Additionally, more effective reporting on psychosocial hazards and psychological injuries will be a priority for the next decade.