THE Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, released on Friday the Comparative Performance Monitoring Report (CPM report) on Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) and workers’ compensation outcomes in 2006-07.
The CPM report was endorsed by State and Territory Workplace Relations Ministers at the recent Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council meeting in Sydney. This is the tenth report in the series.
Findings in the report show the achievement of the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012 interim target of a 10 per cent reduction in the incidence of compensated fatalities from injury and musculoskeletal disorders between the base period (2000-01 to 2002-03) and 2006-07.
This interim target was not only successfully met, but was surpassed through a reduction of incidence by 16 per cent. This is a fine accomplishment and positive example of states and territory’s working together to improve workplace safety for all Australians.
While success has been achieved in some areas, these results show that more can still be done to improve workplace safety.
Key findings in the report include:
There were 236 compensated fatalities recorded in Australia for 2006-07, of which 177 were from injury and musculoskeletal disorders and 59 were from other diseases.
• Body stressing continues to be the mechanism of injury / disease that accounts for the greatest proportion of claims (42 per cent).
• The manufacturing industry recorded the highest incidence/claim rates per 1000 employees (27.5), followed by transport and storage (25.9), agriculture, forestry and fishing (25.3), and construction (22.1), however all these rates are down from 2005-06.
• Over three quarters (77 per cent) of injured workers successfully returned to work within eight to ten months of sustaining their injury
The CPM report is complemented by the Compendium of Workers’ Compensation Statistics, which provides more detailed analysis of national workers’ compensation data.
The CPM report series can be found at www.workplace.gov.au/cpm
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