The Director of the Centre for Work Health and Safety discusses the Centre's functions and recent projects. The Centre's core functions are conducting research into work health and safety issues to help prevent workplace harm and provide an evidence base to help regulators develop better policies. Recent projects include researching the future of work and its WHS implications, and developing a real-time detector for crystalline silica exposure to help prevent silicosis. The Centre aims to expand its research over the next decade to continue addressing emerging challenges to WHS.

1. WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY
You have quite an impressive resume.
You have held positions with Qantas,
AAPT and SafeWork NSW. How did you
come to take on the role of Director
at Centre for Work Health and Safety
(WHS)?
It is not a typical path to setting up a research
centre. My work history is diverse, spans
multiple industries and many dissimilar roles.
I think this is what helped create something
different in the Centre for WHS.
Immediately before taking on the role at the
Centre for WHS, I was the Manager of the
Engineering team at SafeWork NSW. This in-
depth involvement with industry and workers,
while at the forefront of regulation provided an
avenue for seeing a greater opportunity to use
evidence to inform smarter approaches in the
prevention of harm and better regulation.
My experience could see the critical need
for workers, business and all involved in the
practices we were trying to impact to be part of
that evidence base.
A mix of this and, right place, right time led me
to the Centre.
What are the main core functions of
the Centre for WHS?
Our core function is research into work health
and safety harm and how to prevent these. But
simply, the goal is to assist in the overall mission
to minimise harm in the workplace.
I see our role within SafeWork NSW as being
the catalyst for change by gaining new insights,
knowledge and a more acute understanding of
the issues out there.
What this does, at least what we are striving to
accomplish, is to make SafeWork NSW a better
prepared regulator, through that increase the
increased intelligence that comes with research
and its findings which will then assist our ability
to achieve that overarching goal of preventing
harm.
To go a step further and explain how we
accomplish that, the Centre works closely
with our network, partnerships with individual
academics and universities, business, other
government, non-government agencies like
yours, and community participation that
spearhead our research projects.
You can have good and bad research, but
it’s that key difference through partnerships,
that allows a more robust and practically
focused approach to research. This delivers the
invaluable insights, increased knowledge and
the better understanding of issues, trends both
now and into the future, changing environments
and even emerging risks in WHS.
An important caveat is research itself won’t
automatically lead to a decrease in incidents in
the workplace. It is our other core functions that
proceed with the lessons from research. One of
those is enabling the community too, in a sense
use what we have learned to make workplaces
safer.
We aim to achieve this by promoting innovative
harm prevention strategies, new perspectives
and smarter approaches to WHS issues
something only made possible by doing
research.
Not stopping there, we also give workers and
businesses new tools, up to date knowledge
and the information, again from our research
and findings, to meet their obligations be that
employers or employees.
Our hope is NSW won’t just do what’s required
under the legislation but go above and beyond.
MAJOR CHALLENGES
OF BEHAVIOUR
CHANGE IN THE
BUILDING AND
CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY
Omesh Jethwani, Government Projects & Programs
Manager in-conversation with Skye Buatava,
Director at Centre for Work Health and Safety on
the major challenges of behaviour change in the
Building and Construction Industry.
ms
INDUSTRY BEHAVIOUR CHANGES
Issue Two | April-June 2020 | MBA NSW 47

2. WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY
That’s a good segue to our next aim, better
regulation.
A key outcome for the Centre is also to provide
an evidence base that enables good regulatory
practices and policies. We think this is a key
component in preventing harm.
What are some of the recent projects
involving the Centre for WHS?
We have one exciting project that I am keen
to spruik which illustrates how contemporary
the Centre is, and that’s our Changing World
of Work program. It’s a fascinating set of
projects that aims to speculate, with a degree
of probability, what the future work environment
may look like and what effects that may have
on WHS.
The partners on these project are yet to be
confirmed; the approach we took was to
essentially to open up space for basically
anyone to tender their innovative out of the
box ideas to receive funding to conduct their
research.
We took a somewhat innovative approach in
that it hasn’t been done much in government
to open a crowdsourcing campaign, that
encouraged private enterprise, students, early
career researchers and academic institutions to
pitch their ideas to partner with the Centre on
this project.
The campaign ad itself attracted over a month
15,000 views, 8,000 hits on our webpage
and over 50 applications, in just one month,
which was a success as it vindicated the
crowdsourcing approach we took.
After a sharp evaluation process, we have
selected four successful projects and the work
is underway. I am personally excited about this
program and looking to the future of work in a
WHS context.
One of the Centre for WHS project
involves real-time crystalline silica
detection. What is involved in this
research?
We are excited about the potential outcome
of this project, especially considering how
devastating silicosis is to the human body, not
to mention the impacts an effected silicosis
victim has on their family.
It’s a novel project where we canvassed the
globe to find someone who could develop a
real-time respirable crystalline (RCS) detector.
This world-first technology will be such a game
changer. Consider the current practice whereby
workplaces bring in air monitoring equipment,
take samples and when the results come back
from the lab, tell you if you were, past tense,
exposed to harsh levels of silica dust.
You can see what value a real-time detector
could bring to preventing silicosis dust exposure
in the workplace, as workers would get the
immediate feedback required to take the
necessary actions to protect themselves, much
like a smoke detector provides instant feedback
to the household of the presence of smoke,
leading to preventative measures.
Our role in this project was initially to perform
the background research to identify the
objective of the project to prevent silicosis. That
entailed looking at past research, consulting
industry on how workers work with silica-rich
materials, blending that with what are the
current safety practices to identify what became
the best way to prevent silicosis ultimately
and that was developing a real-time respirable
crystalline silica detector.
In January this year, we partnered with Trolex
Nome (Australia), who with their based parent
company, specialises in hazardous dust
monitors it for the mining and tunnelling sector.
Trolex Nome’s R&D supported with funding
from the Centre is developing a world-first real-
time RCS detector.
Going one better, we are also aiming to develop
a miniaturised, wearable detector – but let’s not
get ahead of ourselves. We need to ensure the
feasibility on that one after the larger prototype
is ready.
Either way, a successful finish to this project will
be a mass-produced real-time RCS detector
that would be available in Australia.
I am especially proud of this project, as the
Centre can lay exclusive claim to be the spark
to the scientific advancement in the interests of
NSW and even Australian workers.
In your opinion, what do you think is
the best practice and implications of
using Building Information Modelling
(BIM) in WHS management?
Best practice of using BIM in WHS
management in Australia can’t be explored as
the WHS modules that complement BIM, are
not available to fit within our specific domestic
environment. Our international counterparts in
places such as the UK, Singapore and Hong
Kong do, and they are reaping the benefits.
The Centre is looking at WHS management
using BIM, that in summary, is investigating
the barriers to its use, comparisons to current
practice, identifying preferred models and
understanding implications in the Australian
context. This should provide us with the
The Centre Team
INDUSTRY BEHAVIOUR CHANGES
48 MBA NSW | Issue Two | April-June 2020

3. WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY
evidence and path forward for enhanced WHS
management through BIM, and best practise
for the future.
Several societal and economic trends
are causing new, current and emerging
challenges in the work health and
safety landscape. Care to elaborate for
our readers.
Sure, there are many of these like the
casualisation of the workforce, the
advancements in digitisation and automation,
changing work practices like an increase in
working from home, particularly in the current
COVID-19 environment, and the ageing
workforce.
These all present unique challenges to WHS,
some of which the potential effects are not
well understood or known. Therein lies the
opportunity for the Centre for WHS. One
example of an emerging challenge that most
people would foresee is the possibility of social
isolation and mental health consequences as a
result of working from home.
We have started advancing work in these areas
through various projects, most recently through
the changing work of work project mentioned
earlier.
What does the Centre for WHS core
stream of research focus on?
We have three parts to our core stream of
work. Firstly, there is an alignment with NSW’s
Work Health and Safety Roadmap. Here we
do research that focuses specifically on areas
set out in the Roadmap—for example, high-risk
harm and priority industries, like transport and
construction. Our second research stream
aims to identify, plus address current and
emerging WHS challenges like those affecting
small business. Third and last, looking at
research to inform effective WHS policy in NSW.
What is the relationship between the
Research Foundation and the Centre
for WHS?
I’m very proud of the Centre’s Research
Foundation. It is a group of leading academics
from the nation’s top universities, and industry
innovators from business, government and
non-government organisations convened by the
Centre to provide advice on our research and
its strategic direction.
They are such an eclectic mix of people
with divergent experience and ideas. The
Centre, and by extension, the community is
the beneficiary of this world-class expertise
in WHS. The Foundation meetings are great;
our members challenge each other and step
outside of their areas of expertise, leading to
some unique insights.
The Foundation members are true leaders in
WHS and should be commended for taking on
this role.
The MBA’s very own, David Solomon is one
of our inaugural Centre for WHS Research
Foundation members. He brings a practical
and candid perspective to this group, bridging
the gap between academia and the real world,
and keeping us all in check. This is invaluable.
What is the Centre for WHS aiming to
achieve in the next decade?
So much. The Centre for WHS is new, by
research standards anyway - we launched in
December 2017. What this means is that our
next few years will see us ramp up the delivery
of a great volume of outcomes from our early
research ventures.
On the flip side, being two years old, has
seen us learn so much. We have embedded
ourselves in the WHS landscape, and we’re
dialled into the problems that need to be taken
on, where we can have the greatest impact.
It’s exciting to be at the Centre for WHS in
this ever-changing work environment that will
always pose questions to be answered. The
Centre has established a great model that
sees us always adapting, with an appetite to
challenge the traditional ways of research,
seek novel solutions to longstanding problems
and invest in preparing for WHS in our future
workplaces.
Having found our place in the WHS research
setting, it’s also time to give back, encouraging
the WHS researchers of tomorrow to come
forward for the benefit of future workplaces.
Attracting bright new sparks and their original
ideas to this discipline is integral to the
sustainability of our WHS tertiary education
programs.
INDUSTRY BEHAVIOUR CHANGES
Issue Two | April-June 2020 | MBA NSW 49
Bayer CropScience Pty. Ltd.,
Environmental Science Australia,
Level 1, 8 Redfern Road, Hawthorn East, Vic. 3123
Technical Enquiries: 1800 804 479 es.bayer.com.au
Kordon®
is a Registered Trademark of the Bayer Group © 2020
// Still the Australian Standard in
Termite Protection
Kordon provides a physical and chemical
barrier to termites and can be used for
perimeter or full under-slab protection.
It is quickly and easily installed in
all building applications by the
Bayer Accredited Kordon Network
and is certified by the Australian
Building Code.
CMA-CM40182
Protection
against termites