Political debates do not stop at the workplace door. When questions of independence, self-government and national identity become highly charged, they can affect employee wellbeing, workplace relat…

A LinkedIn colleague said this to me recently in a thread I started: “I can’t see the logic in not integrating psychosocial hazards into the risk assessment process. The scope and complexity …

Based on mainstream media reports of the working-from-home (WFH) debate in Victoria over the last few weeks, Victorian politics has fractured over the proposal to give most employees a right to wor…

Day one of PHSCon felt less like the unveiling of a new paradigm and more like a reminder that the fundamentals of good work have been obvious for a long time. The opening session positioned the co…

Across her 2024 and 2026 appearances at the Psych Health and Safety Conference, WorkSafe Victoria’s Amy Salmon’s message about psychosocial regulation in Victoria has shifted from explaining …

Day 1 of FlourishDx’s Psych Health and Safety conference ended this year with a flourish, featuring a Family Feud-style contest between Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and Human Resource…

This episode examines Victoria’s new Royal Commission into the integrity of major construction projects, arguing that occupational health and safety must be treated as more than a compliance phrase or

This commentary offers a critical look at BHP’s latest Annual Report, exploring how the company presents safety, how it buries sexual harassment data in its Sustainability chapter, and why psychosocia

Australia is living through a demographic and economic shift that is far more consequential for workplace safety than most organisations or regulators have acknowledged. George Megalogenis’ new boo…

For the last 5 months I have been living and working on Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, three hours by plan off the east coast of Australia. I am on a 6-month contract which con…

This episode looks at the HR spin on burnout and exposes what’s really going on: unsafe work design and breached OHS duties. Using a recent media story about a government IT contract demanding 24/7 av

The risk of concussion in professional sports is getting an increasing amount of attention, and the prevention of harm is starting to be considered, but the consequences of the changes required are…

The reality of needing to provide psychologically healthy and safe work seems to have been widely accepted, if not still well understood, if the number of corporate work-related psychological asses…

I want to be optimistic about workplace mental health in the lead-up to my reporting on a sihgnificant psychological/psychososcial conference in September – PHSCon. But reading the newspapers…

So Ben Carroll is the new Premier of Victoria. He has made the obvious and unavoidable decision to call for a Royal Commission into that state’s construction sector and the government’s…

Australian business media, especially the Australian Financial Review (AFR), continues to oppose the Victorian (Labor) government’s intention to make working from home (WFH) a formal right an…

Kevin Jones reflects on the death of Brodie Panlock, the workplace bullying case that helped reshape Australian thinking about psychosocial hazards, prevention, and OHS responsibility. This episode co

I am old enough to remember the work-related suicide of Brodie Panlock in 2006, meaning this year is the 20th anniversary. Her death, the findings of the Victorian Coroner and the prosecution by Wo…

OHS remains invisible in political debate unless people die. Politicians will talk about productivity, investment, innovation and community renewal, but they rarely talk about preventing workers fr…

The United Kingdom and Europe are again struggling through dangerous summer heat. In Australia, it’s tempting to feel a little smug. We’ve spent decades adapting our houses, cities and work practic…

There seems to be an increase in democratic socialism in the United States. Socialism-based principles, the “common good,” the Green New Deal, limitarianism, post-neoliberalism, and others are bein…

Whenever Mariana Mazzucato publishes a new book, she appears in the press everywhere as part of book tours and promotions. Her latest book, The Common Good Economy, is likely to be as influential o…

Every time a sporting body is confronted with concussion data, someone inevitably asks whether the game can be played without the risk. In most industries, that question is the starting point for a…

The death of 23‑year‑old footballer Nick Lowden should force the Australian Football League (AFL) and every sporting body that claims to care about player welfare to confront the fact that the risk…

It’s the end of the financial year in Australia, and if you have some coins at the back of the couch cushions, you could do no better than expanding your OHS knowledge by purchasing a discoun…

Author Charles Dickens is often cited for his description of and opposition to the working conditions in his time – child labour, executive (im)morality, excessive workload, and poor working …

Another major company, KPMG, has been caught out in unethical behaviour, lies and mismanagement, only a few years after PwC’s scandal and not long after the damning Banking and Finance Royal Commis…

If the first lesson from IAWBH2026 was that psychological risks must be treated as system hazards, the second is that most organisations remain structurally ill-equipped to manage them. Despite yea…

This week saw the release of an inquiry into the workplace culture of the New South Wales police force. The findings were damning, but even though all Australian jurisdictions have police forces, t…

I was able to explore the concept of business leadership a little further at the recent conference of the International Association on Workplace Bullying and harassment. Lucienne Ruddenklau present…

I have been trying to challenge some of the speakers at this week’s conference of the International Association on Workplace Bullying and Harassment to think further. In a panel discussion on…

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In the movie “Working Girl”, Melanie Griffith’s character reveals how she connected merger opportunities when flipping through a magazine. Today’s Australian Financial Review (AFR) presented a simi…

The impact of announcements made by the Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers in his 2026 Budget is settling, even though some media outlets will not let the supposed injustice die. But a core argument…

Sarah O’Connor has written an interesting book on artificial intelligence (AI) and work. According to a newspaper review of the book, which is to be released in a couple of weeks, O’Connor says tha…

Recently, Dr Kat Page wrote about the systems of work faced by emergency service workers that create unacceptable psychosocial hazards and mental harm. Her systems-based approach, best explained in…

SafetyAtWorkBlog is an award-winning blog written in Australia that reports on, and discusses, a range of issues that relate to workplace safety. These articles touch on Human Resources, Industrial R

Recently, Australia’s Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, released his 2026 Budget. Other than better availability of Australian Standards, there was little in it that directly affects workplace health …

From July 2026, the official Australian Standards for occupational health and safety (OHS) management will become freely available. According to page 142 of Budget Papers Number 2, the Australian g…

Business management advisers keep calling everyone a “leader”, but the term has become so vague it obscures who actually holds the power — and therefore the accountability — to prevent work-related…

In the mid‑1970s, I arrived at Dandenong High School still clinging to the small importance I’d felt as a primary‑school Prefect. That confidence evaporated the day a student yelled “bums to the wa…

SafetyAtWorkBlog is an award-winning blog written in Australia that reports on, and discusses, a range of issues that relate to workplace safety. These articles touch on Human Resources, Industrial R

Workplace bullying, harassment and other psychosocial risks are no longer fringe issues – they are central to how we think about safety, fairness and dignity at work. One forum that has been shapin…