Hey Swiss,

My reading of this is a failure in understanding of the legislation or a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.  The key to the legislation is the inclusion of "reasonably practicable". Is conducting risk assessments on every piece of equipment you use "reasonably practicable"?  Managers are very quick to jump on the risk assessment bandwagon in the hope that it shows the regulator or a litigant that they were trying to control hazards, and trying is the key word.

This is stock standard across all industries unfortunately and goes somewhat against the whole design of the law and the reason for this, and something that the OH&S industry is discovering, is that after a 5 days course you become the company safety expert. The reality is it has taken me 4 years of post graduate study including studying law to become a qualified safety professional. 

The outdoor program I managed was part of a certified AS4801 and OHSAS18001 management system, with my background I was able to ensure that our program would stand up to legal scrutiny.  How many risk assessments did I have written?  Every trip that went out had its own risk assessment written individually for it and reviewed by the trip staff.  These were then reviewed by internal and external safety professionals.  The source of the risk template, VIC Department of Education, I didn't need to invent it. 

I had Safe Work Method Statements  (SWMS) for high risk equipment, e.g. power tools, BBQ's etc.  Risk assessments for camping chairs, why waste the time. There is better things to do, however if you want I will write them for a hefty fee.

We get caught up in risk assessments, I once argued with a senior manager in a school about the hierarchy of controls because she thought a SWMS was a suitable control.  Risk assessments do nothing to control hazards, they simply identify them.  If the camping chairs are a hazard then control it, eg eliminate or substitute in other words get rid of them if they are so dangerous. Maybe engineer it, strengthen the legs, put locking mechanisms in. The risk assessment ain't gonna tell you anything new or do much to stop the kid wrapping one around another kids head when they have a fight. I can come up with hundreds of ways a camping chair is dangerous but does its value outweigh the hazard, course it does it supports the back.

As for the future, I currently work for a large international mining company in WA that probably budgets more on safety than the turnover of the whole outdoor industry in Australia.  Lets just say we pull $20 million profit out of the ground each week and have up to 2000 staff on site.  We have the latest initiatives in safety culture as well as the quality systems.  If you haven't heard about Take 5's or SafeCheks then get ready.  Before every task anyone working on our sight completes an A6 sheet size proforma as a hazard check.  For example, moving a filing cabinet, we complete a form.  On top of that everyone is required to go up to another person during the week and give written feedback on how they are completing tasks and how they can do it safer.

This stuff is now being marketed to other industries.  If its not already at some outdoor companies it soon will be.  Again adopted because its seen to be proactive about safety and shows an inspector that the organisation was thinking about safety.

If I was running a program, not a chance would I be adopting these.  The key to outdoor risk management in my belief is having outdoor leaders operate well and truely within comfort boundaries and capable of making their own decisions to any challenges that arise with a structured support system.  The problem we have is that these boundaries are rarely assessed or established. Think about how many times you've seen someone have to sink or swim on the job.

Good luck out there, its a jungle.

Al

Thanks ART for taking the time to write such a well-considered reply.
Good to see some people still understand the principle of what is "reasonably practicable", ie: assessing the risk posed by every single piece of equipment, when some of them clearly have much greater benefits than risks, is NOT reasonable, especially in a workplace with 11 employees. If our chairs were causing injuries all the time I wouldn't argue, but we have never had an incident with them.
What's not so good to see (IMHO) is that we might soon have to fill out paperwork before moving things like a filing cabinet. Loading a raft, or packing things on a roof rack, could take a long time if that was the case!

On a different note, here's a link to an article where someone's life might have been saved, except the 'level 1' rescue crews were not allowed to wade into a 1m deep pond in which the person was having an epileptic fit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2105152/Simon-Burgess-Another-tragic-d...

Cheers