Police-prison ‘industry’ most dangerous workplace in NSW?

Statistics show that more deaths occur in the police-prisons workplace than in the supposed highly dangerous industries in NSW. But deaths in police-prisons facilities are ignored in workplace health and safety analysis. For the sake of police and prison workers, at the very least, the impacts of deaths in such facilities must be formally referred to the workplace regulator for proper investigation, analysis and downstream action.

Banerji case highlights urgent need for Bill of Rights: Triggs

Prof Gillian Triggs – once Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, now a Protection Commissioner at the UN – dissects the inadequacy of safeguards of citizens’ rights in Australia after the recent narrow ruling by Australia’s wimpish High Court on the Banerji case, She stresses how that and other cases highlight how urgent formal Rights protection is for the nation.

Army ‘Regs’ lead to institutional abuse by Defence

The reality of a Defence Inquiry is far from the rhetorical ‘fair go’ our soldiers deserve, Kay Danes writes. It has become an instrument of power, wielded by officers to deny subordinates and civilians access to fair and equal opportunity within their employment. Complainants suffer bullying and harassment by the very system supposedly set up to assist them.

System crashes: lack of thorough testing?

We seem to focus on machine failures and ignore management (human) systems that lead to machine failures by blaming the operator (or in the Boeing 737 Max analogy, the pilot). Repeated failures of police internal investigations reveal the design and structure is wrong: it is not at all clear that new Queensland legislation will tackle the core problem, Terry Flanders says.