*We want work environments to be as safe. But for many recreational activities, safety is not a primary concern*

Ah Ludwig, so if you kill yourself at work, being a hoon, it is
a major drama and we should tighten up laws, but if you kill yourself
as part of your recreation, it does not matter.

My point exactly, about double standards that you are trying to
apply.

I rest my case :)

Yabby, I’ll go back on what I said about dropping the recreational bit and ask you these questions, in light of the comments in my last post;

How would you level the playing field between recreational and work activities?

Would you greatly reduce regulation of work activities to match the low level of regulation and management of risky activities in sport and various other play activities?

Would you greatly increase regulation in recreational activities to match a reasonable level of responsibility as far as safety is concerned in the work environment?

Or would you do a bit of both?

These are the only options aren’t they?

Why would you want them to be on a level playing field? Isn’t it inherently sensible to want work environments to be reasonably safe, but to allow people to let off steam and exercise some risky activities if they feel so inclined their own time?

*How would you level the playing field between recreational and work activities?*

The point is this Ludwig. Something like an ATV or 4wd or chainsaw,
is either dangerous or not dangerous. If you smash your head in
or cut your foot off, it hurts just as much. So there is no good
reason to discrimate one from the other.

I think that the whole "accreditation" story has become a bit
of a rort. Some of those course organisers sure know how to screw
a dollar out of the system.

Its also very easy to just keep lumping employers with more costs
and regulations and responsibilities. Public servants do it all the
time, usually to clear their own butts.

Manuals are often not the best things, for they are usually full
of totally ridiculous statements, written to comply with American
legal jargon.

So what about a cost effective solution for all? Lets say that
people who make things deemed to involve some danger in their
use, include a dvd of instruction for safe use. They would cost
1 or 2$ a copy, hardly a huge expense. Now you can't force people
to watch them, but if they were practical, I bet you that many would.
Employers could then give them to staff to watch, to satisfy their
duty of care.

If Ludwig or Joe then act the hoon at work or at play, it is then
their own duty of care to themselves that comes into play.

Just lumbering employers with fines of hundreds of thousands of
Dollars is not going to encourage people to employ others.

“The point is this Ludwig. Something like an ATV or 4wd or chainsaw, is either dangerous or not dangerous.”

Yabby, I think it is clear from my last post that it is untenable to attempt to match the regulation of safety of the work and recreational arenas.

We have to treat the two quite separately. We can with the right sort of regulatory regime make workplaces quite safe. But the use of some of the same equipment in a recreational manner would fall outside of that regulation and therefore could well not be anywhere near as safe. That’s just inescapable isn’t it?

So, it is not a matter of an ATV or a 4WD either being dangerous or not dangerous. It is a matter of making sure as best we can that they are not dangerous in the work environment, while accepting that when they are used in quite a different manner in a recreational way, they may well be a whole lot more hazardous.

If you like, there IS a big double standard here. But I glean from your lack of answers to the questions I posed in my last post that this difference is inherently unsolvable and that it should just be accepted that there are big differences on the onus of safety in the two arenas…..and that we should confine ourselves to discussing the virtues of the management of safety within the work environment.

I agree; as part of an employer’s duty of care, they should require an employee to read the instruction manual or view the DVD that comes with some products, even if the employee indicates that they are familiar with that piece of equipment.

“Just lumbering employers with fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars…”

There have to be penalties, otherwise some employees will simply not exercise their basic responsibilities….and the same old very unlevel playing field, with some sticking to the law or strong advice to be vigilant with basic training and safety and others ignoring it, would just continue. We can’t have a level playing field without penalties….and a good policing regime.

*Yabby, I think it is clear from my last post that it is untenable to attempt to match the regulation of safety of the work and recreational arenas.*

Ludwig, I did answer your question by finding an acceptable win-win
solution that efficiently deals with the problem on both sides.

But I simply don't accept your premiss that its fine to kill yourself
through lack of knowledge in your own time, but a different standard
should apply at work. So we will have to agree to disagree.

I remind you however, people are pregnant or not pregnant :), so your
double standards are not very practical, fair, or realistic.

If you want an efficient and productive economy, with efficient
and productive industry, which can compete globally, then the
regulations lumbered onto that industry by the Public Service, have
to be practical and cost effective.

Given that you work for the Public Service, you are perhaps blissfully
unaware about how tight that margins can be these days, for companies
who want to compete globally.

Every extra $ that you add in unneeded costs, is another nail in
the coffin for potential exporters.

No wonder that so many throw in the towel and Australia is little
then a mine and a farm, for they are the only industries where
we have a comparative advantage. Too much red tape makes it hardly
worth the bother to try and establish much else. No wonder they
all head offshore, nobody can blame them

Yabby, your cost-effective solution seems to fit within mine. I’ve been espousing a basic level of training on operation and safety by employers on any equipment that could possibly need any tuition or safety awareness, and you’re suggesting that DVDs should be used where possible.

It seems like we have reached basic agreement.

I certainly don’t want employees to be lumbered with a requirement to put their workers through numerous courses or otherwise incur considerable expense or inconvenience in order to uphold a reasonable degree of safety, and of course I don’t want safety to be sloppily or unevenly dealt with.

We both want the work environment to be reasonably safe and we want it to happen on a level playing field.

So then, it seems like the only thing left to discuss is the level of regulation and penalties that need to be involved.

I maintain that a quite thorough regulatory effort, considerably better than at present in many areas, is needed to make sure that all the cowboy operators tow the line and that we really do have a level playing field. Significant penalties have surely got to be part of this.

You seem to think that the opposite should occur; a winding back of regulatory activity, with a much slimmer public service. Is this right?