Australia safety claims

Occupational health and safety is another public policy area in which the broad current of social thought in favour of market solutions has been felt, especially in Australia. The claims mn parallel in some respects to those of the environmental debate government regulation is an inefficient way of ensuring worker health and safety it needs to be replaced with, or at least complemented by, a market approach this approach must restructure the market so that employers have an economic incentive to minimise occupational injury and disease. One suggestion made by some economists is to impose a no-fault injury tax on employers in proportion to the number and severity of injuries (Smith 1980). However, the best known method by which costs may be imposed back on the company is the workers compensation system. 

Various commentators are now arguing that management attention to health and safety pays off in terms of higher productivity and hence profit (e.g. Oxenburgh 1991 Mathews 1993). The coal rniriing industry is cited in support of these claims, in part because of the very good data available from the Joint Coal Board (Mathews 1993, p. 49 Ore 1992, p. 8 Worksafe Australia Newsletter, vol. 7, no. 4 p. 4 no. 5 p. 2). 

It all started with the 1988 Piper Alpha North Sea Oil Platform accident, killing 167 people and causing over 3.6B in insurance claims. The subsequent Cullen Inquiry led to the development and promulgation in 1992 of the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) 1992, later updated in 2005 (United Kingdom, 2005). Now many industries (especially in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe), in addition to petroleum, use the safety case process including aviation, nuclear, rail, and military hardware. See Chapter 2 for more on ALARP. 

These days, three countries— Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden—have made the Safe System approach a formal part of their road safety strategy. Many more countries claim to also embrace the Safe System strategy, albeit in the context of their own interpretation. It seems, therefore, that instead of expecting a... 

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