Health and safety in the workplace is an important issue for the water industry. WSAA’s Health and Safety Network presents an unparalleled opportunity for our members to provide safety leadership for the industry and promote a safety culture that has zero fatalities.

Over 25 WSAA members are represented in a forum that shares knowledge and creates capability to enhance the health and safety of the water industry.

The key functions of the Health and Safety Network include:

  • Conducting health and safety benchmarking and identifying industry opportunities for improvement
  • Acting as a knowledge hub for health and safety practices, information, materials, products and alerts to; identify performance trends, develop mitigations for common and emerging threats and create policies, guidelines and procedures
  • Influencing regulators and other stakeholders to provide better safety outcomes
  • Sponsoring the annual Ozwater ‘Water Industry Safety Excellence Award’ to showcase leading practice
  • Providing advice to the Utility Excellence Committee and WSAA Board

Current projects

Water Industry Fatal Risk (WIFR) Guidelines
WSAA members have given unqualified support to a ‘zero fatalities’ commitment for safety leadership in the water industry.  The industry has developed a whole-of-industry framework to support the management and mitigation of 16 fatal risks in the workplace specific to the water industry.

Health and Safety Benchmarking
To promote identification of leading practice and assess relative performance, WSAA has commenced a Health and Safety Benchmarking program with 27 participants. A new indicator set and database have been established (with a lead indicator and culture focus).

How to get involved

The Health and Safety Network meet regularly and use the WSAA online community to discuss key issues, collaborate and share knowledge. Online discussions range from remote worker mobile phone APPs, hazardous manual task assessments, to safety targets for manager’s performance bonus.

Interested in joining the Health and Safety Network? It’s easy to join via the member community site, simply click on 'request to join' on the network page

22 Nov 2016

Peter Gee

Peter Gee

Manager Performance Improvement