Volunteer OHS and RSA

Nic Doncaster (nldoncas@cobweb.com.au)
6 May 1997 09:18:27 GMT

I was talking to one of the knobs at a local rail "facility" recently, and was
concerned re a comment along the lines that "volunteers don't apply in the OH&S
Act and the Rail Safety stuff is different". I beleive that this is based on a
clause in the standard that goes along the line of "OH &S is governed by
specific legislation and is therefore not the........objective of this
standard".

(I have left out primary deliberately).

My concern is that some groups may be ignoring their responsibilities under
relevant legislations (eg the OHS&W Act 1986, and regs, egg schedule section 1
...... "at any workplace......").

Once, when I was involved with a group here, I was told that "it would shut us
down" and "its not neccessary" etc etc, despise all the other points "occupiers"
"owners of plant" and so on.(mind they are now shitting themselve a/c the new
Rail Safety Act).

I am planning some shit based on a famous safety groups "14 point plan", which
will tie up nicely a greater part of the issues raised in AS4292.1.

What has been other peoples/groups experiences?
Comments?