NOHSC and Defence work together to increase workplace safety
The CEO of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC), Mr Robin Stewart-Crompton, and the Under Secretary—Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), Mr Mick Roche, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for NOHSC and the DMO to work together so that OHS risk can be reduced during the design stage of Defence plant, equipment, buildings and structures.
Industry will be encouraged to identify hazards and control OHS risks at the design stage so that potential problems are eliminated before workers are placed at risk.
The DMO and NOHSC will jointly develop tools to assess the OHS aspects of procurement and to assess the OHS capability of tendering organisations. Awarding a contract will then take into account the downstream OHS risk of introducing new items into the workplace.
As a large organisation, the DMO is able to use its purchasing power to influence its suppliers and manufacturers at the design stage to improve the safety of its purchases.
The DMO spends around $6b a year on goods and services and the procurement OHS project is expected to have a significant positive impact on OHS outcomes.
As part of cost reduction and accountability reforms, the DMO is emphasising greater risk reduction before committing to buying. This will help address OHS across the entire life cycle of newly bought items.
The specific outcomes of the MOU are to:
- refine the DMO procurement process to place greater emphasis on OHS issues;
- require tenderers to demonstrate that an effective approach has been used to identify and control OHS risk during the design or redesign process;
- ensure the DMO procurement process identifies OHS risks and that accepted OHS risks are managed before being brought into service;
- send a message to industry, both locally and internationally, that OHS issues are an important consideration in awarding contracts;
- share the OHS experiences and lessons learned from this strategy with other Australian government and private enterprises; and
- help achieve NOHSC’s objective of significantly reducing the incidence and cost of work related fatalities, non-fatal injuries and work related disease.
16 January 2002
Page last updated: 10/07/2008