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Brisbane, Australia – September 25th, 2014 /PressCable/ —
Recently the Australian Workplace Safety Minister Mick Gentleman told the Legislative Assembly that the rate of serious injuries in the building industry remained high, at more than 31 injuries per 1,000 employees.
Mr Gentleman was addressing the industry's progress against recommendations in a report into construction sector deaths from 2012 entitled “2012 Getting Home Safely Report”.
In response to this, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Work Safety Commissioner Mark McCabe commented that the number of serious injuries occurring was still a major concern.
Commentators have attributed the continuing high rates of accidents and injuries to a downturn in the ACT's building industry. Whilst this may seem paradoxical, Mr McCabe stated:
“It's becoming a very competitive industry. It always has been but we've just come off a construction boom,”
“So at a time when everyone's trying to be cost competitive it is a hard message to sell that they also need to focus on safety, which many of those companies see as a cost.” he said.
McCabe's take home message was: “construction industry businesses needed to stop thinking of safety as an extra cost.”
“I would argue that it is not a cost – that it is actually saving them costs,” he said.
Leading Australian Registered Training Organisation (RTO) Urban E-Learning has weighed into the discussion by commending the Commissioner for calling out cost-scrimping in this life threatening industry. Urban E-Learning director Peter Cutforth said today:
“We are heavily involved in providing high quality online training for the “White Card” VET qualification, more formally known as the CPCCOHS1001A Work Safely In The Construction Industry course.”
“It's a mandatory requirement for anyone attending a construction site to have a White Card, but sadly workers and company management seem to forget many of the basic concepts that are taught in our course, such as putting in place effective risk assessment and risk management methodologies, policies and procedures” he said.
“We commend Commissioner McCabe for calling construction companies to have a higher commitment to proper safety systems, processes, and training. With the sophisticated requirements in this country, we shouldn't be seeing so many deaths and tragic life-changing injuries in this vital industry.” Mr Cutforth commented.
Urban E-Learning's construction Induction White Card training can be found at White Card Online Express.
Image source: ABC
Contact Info:
Name: Peter Cutforth
Email: prc@urbanglobal.com
Organization: Urban Global
Website: http://www.whitecardonlineexpress.com.au/
Phone: +617 31186118
Address: Level 1, 56 Little Edward St, Spring HIll, Brisbane, QLD. 4000
Release ID: 64282