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In June 2025, Optus agreed to pay a record‑breaking A$100 million, almost its entire profit in the last year, following a case brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for unconscionable sales and coercive debt collection targeting vulnerable customers. Optus accepted that its staff had been overly agressive and pushed unneeed products on vulnerable and disadvantaged customers.

In the same way a business prepares for physical emergencies with fire evacuation drills or first aid kits, it must also prepare for psychological emergencies. A Trauma Response Plan (TRP) is the psychosocial equivalent of an incident response plan – and increasingly, it’s becoming a legislative and moral necessity.

When we think about workplace health and safety, our minds often go straight to employees, contractors, or maybe even volunteers. But what about visitors? People who pop in briefly, attend a meeting, drop off a parcel, or tour your facility? Under Australian WHS laws, visitors have a right to be safe – and businesses have a legal duty to protect them.

The Victorian Department of Education has taken a meaningful step in acknowledging the rise in work-related violence from student behaviour—with a staggering 46.7% increase reported over the last decade. Following an audit, the Department has adopted four key recommendations aimed at better managing this risk in the workplace.The Victorian Department of Education has taken a meaningful step in acknowledging the rise in work-related violence from student behaviour,with a stagg

Work health and safety (WHS) has evolved. What once passed as best practice is no longer effective in today’s increasingly complex work environments. What does a modern safety leader actually look like? It’s not someone who hides behind procedure manuals or only shows up when there’s an incident. A modern-day safety leader is proactive, strategic, and credible. They lead with influence, not authority. They connect with people, not just paperwork.

When people hear the term Critical Control Verification, they often assume it’s reserved for high-risk industries like mining or oil and gas. But here’s the truth: every business has critical controls and verifying them doesn’t have to be technical or time-consuming.

In psychology, crisis triggers growth. It creates urgency, activates problem-solving, and mobilises resources. On the other hand, comfort breeds complacency. It convinces us that things are fine, even when critical risks are quietly stacking up behind the scenes. In a workplace setting, this psychological trap has serious implications for health, safety, and risk.

Facilitating a risk workshop sounds straightforward. Get everyone in a room and talk about risk, right? But if you’ve ever run one that dragged on with no clear outcomes, or worse, one where people felt unheard or confused, you’ll know it’s not that simple. An effective risk workshop has a structure, a purpose, and most importantly, a skilled facilitator who can extract the right information from the right people.

In safety, we often focus on physical hazards, equipment, procedures, permits, and compliance. But what about the invisible injuries that walk onto site each day? Trauma-informed counselling is a framework that recognises the widespread impact of trauma and understands how it can affect behaviour, decision-making, relationships, and risk perception. For safety professionals, understanding this approach isn't just relevant, it’s critical.

Supervision is often overlooked as a control, but make no mistake, if done properly it’s one of the most effective risk controls available to organisations across all industries. While it might not be a piece of equipment or a formal system, supervision is a dynamic, real-time control. One that can intervene, course-correct and support risk-based decision making at the exact moment it matters most.

When reviewing a risk register or investigating an incident, it’s common to find a long list of risk controls associated with a single hazard. But a long list of controls does not mean the hazard is being effectively managed. In fact, many of those listed controls may do very little to prevent harm.

A Bowtie Risk Analysis is a simple but powerful tool that helps us visually map out the causal pathways that lead to an unwanted event and the escalation paths that can make things worse. And unlike traditional methods, the bowtie focuses on what matters most – the causes.

You’ve updated your controls, you’ve done the toolbox talks, you’ve updated training packages and changed procedures, and yet – the same types of incidents keep happening. It’s easy to assume the problem is the worksite, the workers, or the hazard itself. But what if the real issue is your investigation process? What if your system isn’t learning – it’s just logging?

If you're a woman working in WHS, risk, or audit, you probably didn’t land here by accident. You care deeply about people, systems, and outcomes. But while the work you do is critical, the professional development pathways available to women in these fields can often feel vague, male-dominated, or stuck in outdated models.

We’re living in a time where every dollar matters. Rising interest rates, rent spikes, electricity increases, groceries that have doubled in price — it’s a cost-of-living crisis, and it’s hitting households hard.

This article cuts through the noise. It’s a plain-English guide to risk management terminology – the terms that matter in the context of enterprise, operational, health and safety, security, environmental, and fatal risks.

In this article, we’ll break down the most common types of risk assessments; Traditional Risk Assessment, WRAC, JSEA, SWMW, Bowtie, HAZOP, HAZID, and personal risk assessments like SLAM and Take 5—so you can understand when to use each, and why.

Consultation means talking with your workers—and giving them a real opportunity to contribute to decisions that affect their health, safety and welfare. It’s not about telling them what’s happening. It’s about involving them in the process.