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 release of the results comes in the lead up to the starting of National Safe Work Australia Week, which will run from 21st October to the 27th.

 

To mark the start of the week, SafetyCulture has released key findings of the nation’s work safety track record.

 

 

Safe Work Statistics in Australia

 

 (Image courtesy of SafetyCulture) 



The full report can be found here