Safe Work Australia (SWA) recently published its first Baseline Report on Targets, for the 2023-2033 Australian Work Health and Safety (WHS) Strategy.

The report provides the data and insight for workplace injuries, illnesses, serious claims and fatalities within Australia (and globally) for the 2022 year, the starting point for the 10-year strategy, with data comparisons back to 2012. It also details the 10 WHS performance monitoring targets that the 2023-2033 Strategy is aiming to achieve.

The Report makes for an insightful read and identifies some surprising, and some probably not so surprising, WHS outcomes.

  • Tragically, just under 200 people lost their lives in Australian workplaces in 2022. When framed as a rate per 100,000 workers (national average of 1.4), there has been no reduction in the last 5 years and as such, SWA’s first WHS Performance Target is to reduce this number by 30% by 2033.
  • The Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Industries and the Transport, Postal and Warehousing Industries continue to have the largest number of workplace fatalities across Australia, with fatality rates 10-14 times the national average. Despite only employing 5% of the Australian workforce, these industries collectively account for over half the total workplace fatalities.
  • The most common mechanism of incident for worker fatalities over the past 10 years was “vehicle incidents” making up 38% of all traumatic injury fatalities. Disturbingly, 77% of these involved single-vehicle incidents which would tend to indicate Australia’s long distance road transportation network and the associated risks of speed and fatigue are still a major contributor to these numbers.
  • Serious claims for mental health conditions have increased 43.3% over the past ten years. Alarmingly, this represents the largest growth in the number of claims for any type of injury or disease experienced by workers over this period. According to SWA, work-related mental health conditions are one of the costliest forms of work-related injury, and claims for these conditions lead to significantly more time off work (more than 4 times the median time lost across all claims), and higher compensation paid (slightly under 4 times the median compensation paid).
  • The overall serious claim frequency rate is trending upwards again after years of falling to historic lows. This appears to be in alignment with the increase in serious claims for mental health conditions, and of course, the impact of COVID-19 during recent years. SWA have made their second WHS Performance Target to reduce this number by at least 20% by 2033.

There are many other stories that can be told from the Australian WHS performance statistics, and it is worth familiarising oneself with the SWA Baseline Report and the 10 WHS performance monitoring targets that the 2023-2033 Strategy is aiming to achieve. Targets 9 and 10 from the Strategy are something we can all contribute towards, and these relate to all Safe Work Australia members taking action to increase the awareness of a PCBU’s duty to protect workers from exposure to harmful substances; and to build the capability of PCBU’s, Regulators and workers to strengthen compliance with the duty to manage psychosocial risks at work.

Please contact QRMC for more information.