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SAFETY INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA
OHS professional excellence creating business value and reducing social costs
Why is Workplace Safety Important?
As revealed in an Australian Safety and Compensation Council (ASCC) media release issued on 17 October 2008, in association with Safe Work Australia Week 2008:
“Over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured at work every year and more than 250 die as a result of work-related injuries. Many more die as a result of work-related disease such as mesothelioma.
“This means 17 in every 1,000 employees will be off work for at least a week due to work-related injury and disease with two of these needing over six months off work to recover from their injuries or illness.
"The tragedy is that work-related injury, illness and death can be prevented through the adoption of safer work practices.”
No wonder the World Bank considers injury the fastest growing cause of morbidity and mortality in the world and describes it as “... the least researched epidemic of the 20th Century”. In this country typically, injuries account for almost 10 per cent of both deaths and hospital admissions and impact disproportionately on the young. In terms of years of potential life lost (up to age 75) injury outweighs cancer and heart disease (combined) by a factor of more than two.
History and Function of the Safety Institute of Australia
The Safety Institute of Australia Inc (SIA) is a not-for-profit, apolitical, independent peak body that began in 1949,
when the first group of students in the Industrial Safety and Accident Prevention Course at Melbourne Technical College formed the Industrial Safety Research Group. Within 15 years, a Division of this Group had been formed in each State. In 1954 the name was changed to the Safety Engineering Society, and in 1977 the Society became the Safety Institute of Australia Inc. Over the last 60 years, the SIA has grown from a few local students with a shared passion for health and safety promotion to a well established and highly respected professional association nationwide. Today, it has a total of over 3,200 members within Australia and internationally.
SIA Aims and Objectives
The primary aim of the SIA is to promote the highest possible standards of health and safety at work, on the roads, at play and at home.
The objectives of the SIA are:
• To promote health and safety consciousness;
• To advance the science and practice of health and safety;
• To research and develop health and safety procedures and protocols;
• To encourage community recognition of the Institute’s involvement in all aspects of health and safety; and
• To foster professional acknowledgement and develop ethical awareness and integrity through the Institute’s involvement in industrial, domestic and commercial health and safety issues.
The Institute believes that the distinctive advice of qualified and experienced health and safety practitioners is a prerequisite to the specification of health and safety responsibilities at all levels of government (federal, state, territory or local), and of employers (across all industry sectors) and community organisations.
“In all these areas, the SIA has significant opportunities for involvement and growth,” according to the Chief Executive Officer Gary Lawson-Smith, whose own prestigious background (prior to joining the SIA in May 2007) spanned 37 highly successful years in civil aviation and aviation safety.
He believes occupational health, safety, and environmental imperatives are now all firmly entrenched in the mainstream of business governance. “And as a result, corporations and organisations are looking way beyond mere compliance to using these crucial factors to unlock emergent business and community values ... SIA wants to be part of this process and to become a major influence in business development and government policy,” says Gary.
As Nelson Mandela once said, “We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right”.
STRENGTHENING OUR NATIONAL SAFETY ALLI
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