It was fantastic to welcome so many familiar faces and new member company representatives to our Industry Safety Forum in Toowoomba in November. We hope delegates enjoyed the opportunity to mingle and network with colleagues, learned more about our high-priority initiatives and enjoyed the site visits generously hosted by Obadare Group and MPC Kinetic.
Danielle Leray (Executive General Manager, Safer Together) MC’d the event, opening with a fun Mental Health and Wellbeing “Which Do You Prefer?” activity (‘Cold Chisel or Kylie Minogue?’ - no surprises to the outcome) before handing over to our Health Working Group initiative presenters:
- Scott Wilkinson (Health Services Manager, ConocoPhillips) with an update on the Fitness to Work Medical Assessment Guideline, and how the Group is working to streamline and simplify the process, with an outcome where we’ll have one single Fit Slip for our industry across Australia.
- Susan Pacey (HSE Manager, Aspen Medical) presented the Group’s work in Fatigue Risk Management, including a walk-through of their newest tools, the Fatigue Risk Management Guidance and the Individual Fatigue Risk Assessment Tool.
An update on the Safety Culture Framework was presented next by Helen Reid. Implementation of this Framework was identified as a high priority in Safer Together’s 2024-2026 Strategic Plan and is where the “Get Involved” focus for our 2024 Industry Safety Forums originated.
To walk delegates through an adoption and implementation of the Safety Culture Framework, Aaron Carter (General Manager – Solid Waste Services Qld., Cleanaway) presented a ‘Cleanaway Case Study: Our HSE Culture’.
It was a very informative and succinct walk through of how Cleanaway initiated, planned, and commenced implementation and integration of the framework to improve their safety culture by:
- Creating a simple consistent language to be used by all their company - leaders to frontline workers,
- Reinforcing, rewarding and recognising positive safety culture behaviours for all levels of the organisation, and
- Providing a roadmap for continuous cultural improvement.
Helen returned to give an update on Frontline Leadership Training, with courses now available for members to book, before leading an exercise with delegates:
- What does a great frontline leader look like?
- What does a great frontline leader sound like?
Following a short break, Danielle introduced our keynote speaker Glenn Watt (Executive Vice President Onshore Assets, Beach Energy) who shared a compelling personal story on why he chooses to Get Involved in Safer Together; and why it is important for our industry, that he delivered with real conviction, resonating with everyone in the room.
Jonathan Gafen (Principal Project Officer, Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ)), who is leading the development of systems and resources for RSHQ’s work regulating the management of psychosocial hazards in the resources industry, took to the stage to present an update on his work, that included understanding psychosocial hazards, a snapshot of psychosocial hazard exposure across QLD’s resources industry, RSHQ’s guide on managing the risks of sexual harassment, and reporting and guidance information.
Melissa Day (Principal Advisor – Safety Improvement, Arrow Energy) then presented an update on the On-Site Accommodation Psychological Health and Safety Guideline.
A shout-out to the above 2024 Best and Fairest Award-winners!
For the final plenary session, Qld. Safety Leaders Group members providing updates on the following high-priority programs:
- Industry Safety Induction
- Common Industry Competencies Specification
- Assist and Assure
- Learning Event Bulletins
- Heavy Vehicle and Light Vehicle Specifications
- Line of Fire
- Engage and Embed
Tony Stapleton (Chief Executive Officer, BeneTerra and Co-Chair Contract Partners, Safer Together Safety Leaders Group) closed the session by reminding everyone how they can ‘Get Involved’ with Safer Together, before Danielle directed everyone to busses for the site visits.
Stephen, Matt and the team at Obadare Group, together with representatives from Savanna Energy, Auscoil, and Origin Energy, hosted an excellent site visit for Forum delegates that highlighted the importance of engineering innovation and safety in design in keeping frontline workers free from harm.
Presented by Peter Runge (Origin Energy) and Stephen Lucht (Weier) sharing years of an Origin Energy and Obadare Group partnership to engineer, manufacture, and trial equipment; then gathering feedback, and repeating this cycle of improvement and refinement until they got the equipment ‘just right’ – removing and reducing safety risks for their workers.
Thank you to Obadare Group for their generosity in hosting our Industry Safety Forum site visit, and for your willingness and transparency in sharing your lessons learned and your ‘why’.
It was great to see Savanna Energy Australia, Origin Energy, AUSCOIL and Houston Utility Service also working together at the site to present some great safety insights and shared learnings.
And thank you also for what we hear was a very impressive luncheon for visiting delegates.
Hosted by Adam Machon (Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director), Andy Gainsforth (Chief Operating Officer – Energy Services) and Hannah Milford (Group Human Resources Manager) and the rest of the MPC Kinetic team with support from Arrow Energy and Santos, MPC Kinetic shared with delegates their safety challenges and what they are learning on their safety improvement journey.
They generously shared the positive impacts of their Assist and Assure deployment journey (with an impressive 96% of the entire MPC Kinetic workforce trained!), an engineering solution to address lessons learnt following an incident, and a driver-fatigue mitigation technology solution.
Thanks also to MPC Kinetic for their generous afternoon tea spread and for the nifty merch provided to ISF delegates.
We are Stronger and Safer Together.