Advanced Safety Systems Australia

Propelling a stream of abrasive material at high speed against a surface using compressed air, liquid, steam, centrifugal wheels or paddles to clean, abrade, etch or otherwise change the original appearance or condition of the surface.

Australian Bureau of Statistics

The practice of absenting oneself from duties, studies, employment, etc., often for inadequate reasons.

Australian Chamber

Asbestos-contaminated dust or debris

Asbestos containing material

Australian Council of Trade Unions

A chemical's acute toxicity category is based on the amount of chemical needed to cause adverse effects from ingestion, skin absorption or inhalation of the chemical

Australian Dangerous Goods

Australian Code for the Transport of Dangerous Goods by Road and Rail; also referred to as the Australian Dangerous Goods Code

A method of work, a process or a procedure designed to minimise risk, but does not include an engineering control, or the use of personal protective equipment.

Individual Flexibility Agreements

Australian Forum of Explosives Regulators

The age of the employee at the time of death. Age is defined at the difference in years between the date of birth and the date of death.

Agricultural and veterinary

Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals

Australian Industry Group

A contaminant in the form of a fume, mist, gas, vapour or dust, and includes micro-organisms.

American Medical Association Guides

Australian Mesothelioma Registry

Australian Maritime Safety Authority

Australian National Audit Office

Australian Network on Disability

Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification

Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation

Asia-Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organization

Australian Public Service

Australian Public Service Commission

Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority

Australian Research Council

ASEAN Occupational Safety and Health Network

Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy

The sum of all observations divided by the number of observations.

Australian Work Exposures Study

Extended Australian Work Exposures Study

Building Code of Australia

business continuity management

A person injured or killed as a result of someone else's work activity, while not engaged in a work activity of their own.

A substance or mixture that causes or is suspected of causing cancer

Civil Aviation Safety Authority

Conference of Chief Inspectors of Mines

Chief Executive Officer

Council of Australian Governments

model Code of Practice - Codes of practice are practical guides to achieving the standards of health, safety and welfare required under the WHS Act and the WHS Regulations in a jurisdiction. To have legal effect in a jurisdiction a model Code of Practice must be approved as a code of practice in that jurisdiction. To determine if a model Code of Practice has been approved in a particular jurisdiction, check with the relevant WHS regulator. Under a WHS Act in a jurisdiction, approved codes of practice are admissible in court proceedings. Courts may regard an approved code of practice as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control and may rely on the code in determining what is reasonably practicable in the circumstances to which the code relates.

Compensation Policy and Return to Work Effectiveness Project

Consultation Regulation Impact Statement

Comparative Performance Monitoring

(under the GHS) is a signal words on a label or safety data sheet that is used to indicate the relative level of severity of a hazard; Danger is used for more severe or significant hazards.

Decibel - The unit for measuring sound levels.

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Dangerous goods

Direct costs include items such as workers' compensation premiums paid by employers or payments to injured or incapacitated workers from workers' compensation jurisdictions.

Decision Regulation Impact Statement

A duty holder refers to any person who owes a work health and safety duty under the WHS Act including a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), designer, manufacturer, importer, supplier, installer of products or plant used at work (upstream duty holders), an officer and workers. More than one person can concurrently have the same duty in which case the duty is shared. Duties cannot be transferred.

Enterprise Agreement

Employee Consultation Forum

ecologically sustainable development

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

Frequently asked question

frequently asked questions

A chemical's flammability category is based on how easily under normal conditions that the chemical will ignite.

Fatality Media Collection

Freedom of information

Freedom of Information act 1982

Falling objects protective structure

The number of claims expressed as a rate per hour worked. For serious claims, this is typically per million hours worked.

Group of Twenty

The Group of Twenty is the premier international forum for cooperation on global economic governance. The members of the G20 are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and the European Union.

Gross domestic product — The total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year

Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals

Gross state product — The sum of all value added by industries within the state during one year. Serves as a counterpart to the gross domestic product (GDP)

Goods and Services Tax

A situation or thing that has the potential to harm a person.

Hazardous Chemical Information System

The hierarchy of risk control shows ways of controlling risks, ranked from the highest level of protection and reliability to the lowest.

High risk work

Health and safety committee - A consultative body established under the model WHS Act. The committee's functions include facilitating co-operation between workers and the person conducting a business or undertaking to ensure worker's health and safety at work, and assisting to develop work health and safety standards, rules and procedures for the workplace.

Health and safety representative - A worker who has been elected by a work group under the model WHS Act to represent them on health and safety issues.

Health and safety representatives

Heads of Workers' Compensation Authorities

Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities

Indigenous Australian Government Development Program

International Association of Labour Inspection

International Advisory Panel

The worker died due to medical intervention

Irritant contact dermatitis

International Commission on Occupational Health

International Commission on Occupational Health

International Ergonomics Association

Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Occupational Health and Safety

International Labour Organization

Indirect costs include items such as lost productivity, loss of current and future earnings, lost potential output and the cost of providing social welfare programs for injured or incapacitated workers.

Integrated planning framework

Information Publication Scheme

International Social Security Association

Job Family Model survey

The territory over which authority is exercised

Key performance indicator

low density asbestos fibre board

Lost time injury - A lost-time injury is defined as an occurrence that resulted in a fatality, permanent disability or time lost from work of one day/shift or more.

Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate - Lost-time injury frequency rates refer to the number of lost-time injuries within a given accounting period, relative to the total number of hours worked in that period. LTIFR is a proxy measurement for safety performance.

Motivations, Attitudes, Perceptions and Skills project

The sum of all observations divided by the number of observations.

The middle value in a distribution when all values are ordered from lowest to highest. The median divides a distribution in half, which means 50% of observations will be higher than the median and 50% will be lower. If there is an odd number of observations, the median value is the middle value.

Metabolic equivalent of task

Major hazard facility

Marine Order

model Work Health and Safety Act - The model WHS Act forms the basis of the WHS Acts that have been implemented in most jurisdictions across Australia. The main object of the Act is to provide for a balanced and nationally consistent framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces.

model Work Health and Safety laws - The model WHS laws consist of the model WHS Act, model WHS Regulations and model Codes of Practice.

model Work Health and Safety Regulations - The model WHS Regulations set out detailed requirements to support the duties in the model WHS Act.

Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health

Memorandum of understanding

Musculoskeletal disorder

Musculoskeletal disorders

Medically treated injury frequency rates

Maritime Union of Australia

Relating to muscles and to the skeleton

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes

National assessment instruments

National Standards draw together best practice from Australian state and territory OHD authorities into a framework that will promote, for the first time, a nationally uniform approach to the management of OHS. [superseded by model WHS laws, regs and codes]

National Coronial Information System

National Code of Practice - National codes of practice declared by the National Commission under s.38(1) of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Act 1985 (Cwlth) are documents prepared for the purpose of advising employers and workers of acceptable preventive action for averting occupational deaths, injuries and diseases in relation to workplace hazards. It should be noted that National Commission documents are instruments of an advisory character, except where a law, other than the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Act, or an instrument made under such a law, makes them mandatory. The application of any National Commission document in any particular State or Territory is the prerogative of that State or Territory. {superseded by model WHS laws, regs and codes}

National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics

Notifiable Fatality Collection

National Hazard Exposure Worker Surveillance survey

National Health and Medical Research Council

National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme

National Mine Safety Framework

National occupational hazard and risk management surveillance

National Occupational Health and Safety Commission

National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority

An incident that is required, under the model WHS Act, to be notified to regulators. Only the most serious safety incidents are intended to be notifiable and they trigger requirements to preserve the incident site pending further direction from the regulator. These include the death of a person, a serious injury or illness or a dangerous incident.

National Road Safety Partnership Program

Occupational contact urticaria

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

An officer within the meaning of section 9 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) other than each partner within a partnership. Broadly, an officer is a person who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the organisation's activities. Each partner within a partnership is not an officer but a PCBU in their own right. Under the model WHS Act, an officer must exercise due diligence to ensure compliance by the PCBU with its health and safety obligations.

Occupational Health and Safety

Occupational skin diseases

Occupational Safety and Health

Personality and total health

Portfolio Budget Statements

Person conducting a business or undertaking — The model WHS Act places the primary duty of care on the PCBU. The term PCBU is an umbrella concept used to capture all types of working arrangements or structures. A PCBU can be a: company; unincorporated body or association; sole trader or self-employed person. Individuals who are in a partnership that is conducting a business will individually and collectively be a PCBU.

The person with management or control of a workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the workplace, the means of entering and exiting the workplace and anything arising from the workplace are without risks to the health and safety of any person.

Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013

Includes any machinery, equipment, appliance, container, implement or tool, and any component or anything fitted or connected to these things.

A definite course of action adopted as expedient or from other considerations

Personal protective equipment

The practice of continuing to go to work, especially when not working at a fully productive rate due to illness, stress, exhaustion caused by working beyond one's set hours, etc., often in an attempt to show commitment to one's employment.

Residual-current circuit breakers

Residual-current devices

A Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) is a tool used by governments, when introducing or abolishing regulation, to assess the likely impact of viable options against the default position of no change in a way that is transparent and accountable.

Research and Evaluation Reference Group

Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) is a tool used by governments, when introducing or abolishing regulation, to assess the likely impact of viable options against the default position of no change in a way that is transparent and accountable.

The possibility that harm (death, injury or illness) might occur when exposed to a hazard.

Taking action to eliminate health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and if that is not possible, minimising the risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Eliminating a hazard will also eliminate any risks associated with that hazard.

Rollover protective structure

Registered training organisation

Return to Work

Safety Data Sheet

Seafarers Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority

Being still or not moving often enough.

An accepted workers' compensation claim for an incapacity that results in a total absence from work for one working week or more. It includes claims that receive common-law payments. Claims that arise from a journey to or from work, or during a recess period, are not compensable in all jurisdictions and are excluded, as are compensated fatalities.

Strategic issues group - Explosives members

Strategic issues group - Work health and safety members

Strategic issues group - Workers' compensation members

Business Index - Small and Medium Enterprises'

Safety Management System

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission

Shared Services Centre

Anything that is constructed, whether fixed or moveable, temporary or permanent, and includes buildings, masts, towers, framework, pipelines, transport infrastructure and underground words (shafts or tunnels). Also includes any component or part of a structure.

Any natural or artificial substance whether in the form of a solid, liquid, gas or vapour.

Supply and re-supply of a thing provided by way of sale, exchange, lease, hire or hire-purchase arrangement, whether as principal or agent.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes

Safe Work Method Statement

Transport and Road Safety

For import

Therapeutic Goods Administration

Traumatic Injury Fatalities

Type of Occurrence Classification System - A suite of four classifications to code the way an injury occurred, comprising:

- the Nature of injury/disease classification

- the Bodily location of injury/disease classification- the Mechanism of incident classification, and

- the Agency of injury/disease classification.

Version 3.1 is used for coding the data presented in this report. Fatalities are only coded by Mechanism and Agency.

Total recordable injury frequency rates

United Nations

UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals

The UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods

University of New South Wales

Units of competency

Volts alternating current

Volts direct current

Vocational Education and Training

A person who acts on a voluntary basis regardless of whether they receive out of pocket expenses.

A group of volunteers working together for one or more community purposes where none of the volunteers, whether alone or jointly with any other volunteers, employs any person to carry out work for the volunteer association.

Virtual Seminar Series

(under the GHS) is a signal word on a label or safety data sheet that is used to indicate the relative level of severity of a hazard; Warning is used for less severe or significant hazards.

Workers' compensation

World Health Organization

Work health and safety

WHS laws require organisations that employ paid workers ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the physical and mental health and safety of workers, including volunteers.

Manages compliance and enforcement of WHS laws; has enforcement and arbitration powers.

Work Health and Safety Committee

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland

WorkHealth Improvement Networks

A group of workers represented by a HSR who in many cases share similar work conditions, for example all the electricians in a factory, all people on night shift, all people who work in the loading bay of a retail storage facility.

Any person who carries out work for a PCBU, including work as an employee, contractor, subcontractor, self-employed person, outworker, apprentice or trainee, work experience student, employee of a labour hire company placed with a 'host employer' and volunteers.

Fatalities that resulting from an injury sustained in the course of a work activity

Any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work. This may include offices, factories, shops, construction sites, vehicles, ships, aircraft or other mobile structures on land or water.

The repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.

Workplace Relations Ministers' Council