Compensated injury fatalities are continuing to decrease, but more must be done to ensure the nation’s workplaces are the safest they can possibly be, according to a new report released by Safe Work Australia.

 

The 14th edition of the Comparative Performance Monitoring (CPM) report on Australia’s work health and safety and worker’s compensations for the 2010-11 year shows that the rate of compensated injury fatalities have fallen since the development of the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012.

 

Safe Work Australia’s Chairman, Tom Phillips, said that while the reduction is heartening, more should be done to make the nation’s workplaces safer.

 

“Although Australia continues to have a reduction in workplace fatalities, there were still 169 compensated fatalities in Australia in 2010-11,” said Mr Phillips.

 

“Furthermore in 2010-11, 11 out of every 1000 workers were injured seriously enough to require one week or more off work.

 

The report finds that since 2002 there has been a 28 percent improvement in the rate of serious injuries. However this is still below the target set in the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012 of a 40 percent reduction in the rate of injuries by 2012. 

 

Other key findings in the report include:

 

  • the injury and disease rates in the transport and storage, manufacturing and agriculture, forestry and fishing industries are still nearly twice the national average
  • Australian workers’ compensation schemes expended more than $7 billion, of which around half (55 percent) was paid directly to injured workers in compensation for their injury or illness and 23 percent was spent on medical and other services
  • body stressing continued to be the injury/disease that resulted in the greatest proportion of claims (40 percent)
  •  work health and safety authorities undertook close to 211 000 workplace interventions and issued 58 000 notices during 2010–11, and
  • employers are now paying 1.49 percent of payroll in workers' compensation premiums compared to 1.79 percent in 2006–07.

 

The full report can be found here