In recent years, the safety management field has placed leadership and commitment at the center of effective workplace health and safety programs. At the same time, personal liability for workplace health and safety has increased, resulting in poor outcomes for individual managers. Discussing the minimum expectations that courts and tribunals have of managers, Management Obligations for Health and Safety examines the relationship between those expectations and effective safety performance.
The book looks at safety management from the perspective of management obligations. What expectations are placed on managers at all levels of an organization to ensure that the workplace and systems of work are safe, and how are these expectations considered and analyzed by courts and public inquiries? As importantly, the book explores how management actions in relation to these obligations and expectations influence, positively or negatively, the safety performance of an organization. With examples drawn from legal and quasi-legal processes, one of the more enlightening and thought-provoking features of this book is the extensive use of cross examination taken from various proceedings.
No one person reacts the same to finding him- or herself responsible for managing the aftermath of a death at work, or having to deal with the immediate pressure of being subject to interviews and investigation by safety regulators (much less the drawn-out experience of the legal process), but one of the most constant reactions is "Why didn't anybody tell me about this?" Stressing the importance of safety culture, this book details the true nature of the expectations that are placed on managers by virtue of their obligation to provide a safe workplace.
About the Author: Greg Smith has spent almost two decades specialising in occupational health and safety (OH&S) within Australian law. His focus is on assisting clients to develop and deliver management obligation programs, particularly to the mining and oil and gas industries.
As a leading OSH practitioner, Greg's technical expertise is deep, providing some of Australia's largest and most significant employer's with strategic OSH advice on health and safety compliance, to incident investigation, management and response, contractor safety management and representation in health and safety prosecutions. His industry experience is broad, applying his OSH expertise to the mining, oil and gas, construction, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing, defence, local and State government and transport sectors.
From 2007 to 2009, Greg was employed as the Principal Safety Advisor for Woodside Energy Limited. Reporting to the Vice President Safety and Health, and was responsible for the ongoing development and implementation of Woodside's global safety management strategy.
In 2010 Greg acted for a number of parties in the Montara Commission of Inquiry investigating the blowout and uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons from the West Atlas drilling rig in the Timor Sea of the Coast of Western Australia in August 2009.
Greg has also devised and delivers comprehensive safety and health training programs on behalf of Freehills, a leading Australian-based international commercial law firm where, Greg is currently a consultant. He also teaches accident prevention as part of the School of Public Health, Health, Safety and Environment at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia.
Greg graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1990 with a Bachelor of Jurisprudence and a Bachelor of Laws and is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Western Australia and the High Court of Australia.
He currently works in Perth, Western.
