Introduction to Workplace Health and Safety Queensland

Film transcriptIntroduction to Workplace Health and Safety QueenslandSCREEN TEXT:Every year, more than 100 people die due to workplace-related incidents in Queensland.And about 5500 Queenslanders will suffer some kind of permanent injury …GARRY: I cried buckets of tears that’s for sure. Particularly when they, they said we’re going toamputate.MARLENE: Life without each other, I shudder to think what it would be.JED: Because of the fall, to the left, I’ve bent my back, and I’ve twisted it about 45 degrees.CAROLINE: After the accident, Jed was a very different person.CAROLINE: And as a mother, that destroyed me. Destroyed me.GAVAN: I had a workplace incident which left me like this.LUKE: When I was only six years old and I just thought well is he going to be able to play cricketwith is in the backyard? Ahh, is he going to be able to kick the football with us?PROFESSOR HIRST: Some of these people consider suicide.GAVAN: I had morbid thoughts. And I reckon I still have morbid thoughts.ANDREW: Accidents don’t just happen, they are actually caused by a series of often unrelatedevents stacking up together to push people from in control to out of control.SCREEN TEXT:Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) is ‘on the job’, helping create safer, healthierworkplaces.VICKI: We would like people to go to work and come home in the same condition.SUSAN: We’re more than just regulators.JODIE: They don’t all carry big sticks and they’re not necessarily as scary as we think they are.

STEVE: We often get employers calling up in a flap because an inspector’s going to visit. And wesay to them look, use this as an opportunity. The inspector’s actually there to help, so try and milkthem for knowledge.SUSAN: We need to enable workers at the ground level and at the cold face to actually empowerthem with identifying their own risks and finding solutions to make their workplaces safer.TRISH: We do a range of activities such as targeted industry assessments. We develop resourcessuch as fact sheets.GRANT: We can help industry by providing information and providing benchmarking andassistance with relevant standards.TIM: They provide us with systems, they provide us with guidance, they provide us with tools.GRANT: We can take the learnings out of incident investigations and feed them back to industry.SUSAN: Industry buy-in is really critical.JODIE: I just think I see them as a business asset like any other partner that we have, whether it’sthe referral laboratory that we use. Our accountant. Umm, Workplace Health and Safety. They’reall really valuable tools for our practice and they really help us to do the best that we can do.TRISH: Also by working together we get to share our experiences and our expertise and come upwith the best health and safety solutions and most practical solutions to make workers safe in theirworkplaces.FIONA: We need to include safety in everything that we do to change people’s behaviour.Grant: And we have to work together. There’s no agency on their own can do it all. No industry ontheir own can really do it all.FIONA: And everyone has the right to go to work, put in a good day’s work and come home a littledirty at the end of the day, but be home and be home with your family.SCREEN TEXT:The most important reason for being safe at work is not at work at all.Work safe. Home safe.RUN TIME: 3min 25 secs© The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2010Copyright protects this document. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised asauthor of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered.The material presented in this publication is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only. The State of Queensland makes nostatements, representations, or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this publication, and the reader should notrely on it. The Queensland Government disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses,losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason.Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, Department of Justice and Attorney-GeneralFilm transcript – Introduction to Workplace Health and Safety QueenslandPN10910. Version 1 Last updated 3 December 2010