Focussing on manual handling incidents via the theme ‘Handle with Care’ our Rig Site Safety Working Group held their final event for 2025 in Brisbane in November, sponsored by COHO Resources and Santos.
Tom Radzevicius (Santos) opened the event, welcoming delegates and outlining the event, before handing over to Mike O’Connell (Santos) for a fantastic timely and impactful Safety Moment, ‘Staying Safe for the Holidays’. Australian workers are more likely to get injured or die in a workplace accident in the months leading up to Christmas than any other time of year, with one of the most common reasons suspected for this increase being the pressure to achieve year-end targets. Mike then shared what we, as safety leaders, can do to minimise these risks; including actions to manage and reduce stressors.
Our most popular presentation at every DCIIRP remain incident shares; four brilliant incident shares followed from:
- Mitch Finch (Ventia) and Les Irwin (Ventia)
- Warwick Hines (MPC Kinetic)
- Jason Ogilvie (Arrow Energy) and Greg Burgess (Silver City)
An incident followed from Alan Ruff (Arrow Energy) ‘The Impact from Good Data and Video’, a clear demonstration of the positive impact from good use of IVMS data in a near-miss incident.
Following this, and to close the loop on positive and impactful use of IVMS data, Jon Martin (COHO Resources) shared, via his presentation ‘Good Data Driving Success – IVMS Process’. Following a rollover incident, the COHO team considered how often had they been looking at IVMS data – with the answer, infrequently.
They brought all staff together to discuss driving behaviours and their approach to IVMS, telling each employee that their historical IVMS data was not going to affect their employment, but moving forward, they were going to use IVMS data to give feedback to their drivers on their driving performance and statistics.
They wanted their drivers to be safer vehicle operators and wanted their staff to know the IVMS data was there to help improve their driving and driving behaviours it is not there for COHO to “spy” on them.
COHO made the decision to use IVMS data to give daily feedback to their drivers.
COHO management thought the driver’s scorecard would take months to slowly improve, but it took 3-4 days. This near-real time feedback to the drivers has changed COHO driving IVMS stats. Taking 10mins each day to give drivers feedback has been constructive and drastically improved the drivers score card within 3-4 days. The step change was so dramatic, instantaneous and impactful, that COHO continues this morning reporting years after the original incident.
Next up was Jiel Case (Red Bolt Engineering) and Kyle Briskey (Red Bolt Engineering) sharing industry success with two Engineering Solutions Portal uploads.
A Rig Site Safety Working Group (RSSWG) update was next from Mark Tonin (Wild Desert) on the update on the Short Service Employee Management Tool project, with the updated materials projected to be available to members by end Q4 2025.
Another RSSWG project followed, presented by Alan Ruff (Arrow Energy) on the Hand and Finger Safety Resources project update, and reminding delegates of the resources currently available to members on our Hands and Finger Preservation Portal.
Our colourful keynote presenter, Billy Moore (Rugby League Legend) provided a very hard-earned and humbling perspective on Handle with Care - rugby league being a manual handling-heavy sport. His journey through injury, playing a punishing physical sport at a professional level provided delegates with a different lens with which to view recovery and risk. Thank you to Billy for sharing such a personal story.
After a few closing comments from Jon Martin, the event wrapped up with a networking session.
Thanks again to our event sponsors, COHO Resources and Santos.