Latest News

President's Q4 2023 Message

I hope this message finds you in good health. Greetings from Jakarta, Indonesia, where I've had the privilege of connecting with colleagues from Malaysia and Indonesia, exploring Health, Safety, Wellbeing, and Environmental initiatives in our Australasian region. It's been a trip filled with enriching experiences, valuable connections, and, of course, delicious food! Our network within universities and research institutes truly makes us a remarkable community. There are not many places in the world you can go and not have a door to knock on, or a sector colleague to connect with.

AUSA Membership Updates: We're excited to welcome new members to AUSA, including the upcoming AUSA Malaysia Branch—stay tuned for more details!

AUSA Safety Professional of the Year 2023 Award:

A heartfelt congratulations to Andrea Windsor from Curtin Uni, our 2023 AUSA Safety Professional of the Year. Andrea's outstanding contributions to health, safety, and wellbeing at a tertiary education or research organization deserve recognition. We look forward to hosting her in a webinar soon, where she can share more about her award-winning work with the AUSA membership.

Thank you to everyone who submitted applications and to our Awards review committee. Special acknowledgment to Dale Baum, the runner-up, and our sponsors Lisa J Stevens & Associates for their continued support.

AUSA Day

What a great AUSA Day we had yesterday. AUSA Day Mini Conference 2023 was very kindly hosted by UNSW Health & Safety Team in their beautiful Council Chambers! A fabulous day of speakers, thought, networking and discussion.

Our theme was Practical Approaches to Industry Best Practice and presentation topics included:
- The importance of Critical Risk Programs
- Life Safety Rules in development and implementation in a University setting
- Panel discussion on Psychosocial risk management
- Laboratory Infrastructure: Design Layout and Safety Systems

We had a great representation of our member institutions both in person and online. Thanks to all our attendees, presenters and a special shout out to our oraginsing committee chaired by Clare Westhorpe and our AUSA Day sponsors Pan Software and UNSW.

AUSA Team Update

Since my last letter, there has been a few changes in our volunteer roles and on behalf of AUSA Exec and all of our members, I would like to formally thank and farewell:

Theresa McDonnell (Secretary) & Mark Noble (Vice President) who have both moved out of the tertiary sector to commence new and exciting OHS roles in industry, we look forward to hearing back from you in the future and staying connected to our expanding network of ‘retired’ AUSA members!
Cindy Tan (Treasurer) & Emillio Saliba (NSW Branch Chair) have resigned their roles in AUSA but are remaining as active members, to focus on new extracurricular adventures whilst remaining in OHS within the University sector.

A HUGE thank you for your dedication to AUSA. Each of you have made a hugely positive impact on our Association and on a personal note, I have immensely enjoyed working with you.

But as the saying goes… as one door closes another opens! We are pleased to welcome Mikhail Farid to the role of Secretary, we know your steady hand and wealth of AUSA knowledge will see us into a new phase. We also welcomed Karina Ibbetson to the Executive Committee, we look forward to working with you and leveraging your expertise and energy!

President's Q3 2023 Message

Welcome to the second half of the year! I hope you have all had a successful and enjoyable quarter and are looking forward to longer days and warmer weather on the horizon, particularly for our colleagues in the southern regions!

Personally, it has been a very hectic quarter for me with two major life changes—a new job and a new home! Amidst the busyness, finding time for activities that recharge me, such as working on AUSA, has been a challenge. Nevertheless, it's refreshing to carve out some time to reflect on the year to date and write this note to highlight some of the exciting events we have coming up for AUSA members.

As we reach the halfway point of the year, it's a natural time to reflect on our professional goals and refresh our plans for the second half. I am particularly thrilled to inform you about several upcoming professional development and networking opportunities that might aid your planning.

Annual General Meeting (AGM) - Monday 31 July, 12-1:30pm (AEST) Online
You will soon receive an email with registration details for our AGM. Join us to hear from our Executive Committee about the status of our Association, a recap of activities from the past year, and planned initiatives for the coming months. Your presence will be greatly appreciated!

AUSA Day (mini-Conference) - Thursday 14th September at UNSW Sydney
Building on the success of our participation and sponsorship of the WHO Conference last year, we are excited to announce the AUSA Day (mini-Conference) for 2023. This year, it will be hosted by UNSW in Sydney, on Thursday 14th September, following the TEFMA23 Conference. By scheduling it this way, we hope to facilitate more face-to-face attendance. AUSA Day will once again be provided to our members at no cost, featuring a carefully curated lineup of speakers who will address the challenges we face in our industry, including health, safety, and well-being. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks. It will be a hybrid event, offering great opportunities for online and in-person networking. And yes, if you join us in person, lunch is on us!
Register now: AUSA Day (mini-Conference)

Nominations are now open for AUSA Safety Professional of the Year 2023!
We are seeking nominations for the Safety Professional of the Year Award, which recognizes outstanding performance and achievements that align with AUSA's values and vision. If you or someone you know has made a significant contribution to health, safety, and wellbeing outcomes, we want to hear about it. Take this opportunity to reflect on your recent works and submit your nomination!

Keep up to date with AUSA
Apart from the flagship events mentioned above, we have an exciting calendar of upcoming events. Stay informed by visiting our AUSA Events website and connecting with us on Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Over the next month, we have some notable highlights, including a session on Safe & Reliable Gas Reticulation Systems on Tuesday, July 11, and an online webinar on Lithium-Ion batteries on Wednesday, July 26. If you have suggestions for webinars or are interested in discussing sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to us at ausa.admin@gmail.com.

Thank you all for your continued support of our industry association. I look forward to seeing many of you at our AGM and AUSA Day. Remember to take care of yourselves and stay healthy, safe, and well.

President's Q1 2023 Message

Welcome to 2023. I hope your year has kicked off well. I am finding it hard to believe that we are a quarter through the year already!

Here are a few updates on recent AUSA activities and upcoming events to look forward to.

Exec Updates

It’s been a busy start to the year for the AUSA Executive Team. The Executive and Leadership teams met virtually in February for a facilitated workshop, with a marketing and communications strategy coach.

You will be hearing much more from us in this space and (we hope!) you will be feeling much more engaged with the purpose and values of AUSA. In support of a packed agenda for 2023, AUSA Executive have recently reviewed and approved a trial plan to realign our Leadership structure, with key objectives being to:

provide more engagement and volunteer opportunities to our members;
provide more targeted capacity around key focus areas; and
ensure our Association is sustainable for many years to come, by allowing for better succession planning.

Thank you and Farewell – Glenn Blackley

Some sad news to bring you is that Glenn Blackley, a long standing and incredibly valuable member of our Executive Team, will be leaving AUSA as he is taking up a new and exciting OHS role outside of our sector.

We thank Glenn for his years of dedication to AUSA and an extra special thanks to him for kindly stepping into the role of Secretary earlier this year.

We look forward to hearing from you on your progress in your new HSW role outside of the Education/Research sector.

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Photo: Glenn is featured in the centre, surrounded by AUSA colleagues at Safety2022 Conference

AUSA needs YOU!

Following on from the above, we are therefore calling for nominations for the role of AUSA Secretary.

Please refer to the Position Description for more details, and if you would like to discuss, please feel free to reach out to any of our Executive Committee, or contact me directly on Theresa.walsh@unimelb.edu.au

Additionally, we are very pleased to be calling for volunteers to assist our association with some key focus areas.

We are looking for enthusiastic members, who can offer approx. 3-4hours/month, to assist AUSA. What you will get in return is an awesome opportunity to build your network of Health Safety & Wellbeing connections across Australasia and building your resume with transferable skills. We are ideally looking for skill sets in the following areas, but support will be provided, so your enthusiasm and desire to learn and develop is most important.

Here is your opportunity to assist our Association!

Communications support e.g. building template documents, building a repository of AUSA googlegroup discussions, drafting safety bulletins with key HSW messages from members
Website management
Events coordinator
Google group administrator
Member administrator (working with CRM software)
Conference committee
AUSA Award committee

we-need-you

*Interested members should please complete the nomination form and submit to ausa.admin@gmail.com by COB Monday 3^rd April.

Upcoming Events

We encourage you to take a look at our Events page on the website https://www.ausa.org.au/events
Our AUSA diary is already looking busy with regular SIG meetings and upcoming events, including:

INTEGRATING WORK AS DONE WITHIN A HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM UPLIFT HOSTED BY AUSA VICTORIAN BRANCH, 19TH APRIL 11AM – 12:30PM (AEST)
UNDERSTANDING WORK AS DONE ALONGSIDE THE SAFETY OF WORK IS PART OF THE NEW ERA IN HEALTH AND SAFETY. KURT WILL PROVIDE INSIGHT AROUND THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THEIR HSEQ ROADMAP INCLUDING THE FOUR WORK DIFFERENTLY PRINCIPLES WHICH UNDERPIN THE HY WORKZONE FRAMEWORK WHICH INCLUDES CONNECTING WITH ALL LAYERS OF THE BUSINESS WITH A MANTRA THAT 'MANY MINDS MAKE LIGHT WORK DIFFERENTLY'.

Add this to your diary if you are:

Consolidating your written Health and Safety procurement space
Wanting to make a shift with your executive
Work more closely with the front-line to ensure what you have is relevant
Or just curious about how other organisations are shaping up their Health and Safety management system

Register now to secure your spot!

AUSA AGM & Conference 2023

Watch this space for updates on AUSA AGM & Conference 2023. We are currently in discussions with affiliated associations regarding synergies of our memberships and we will be providing updates in the coming weeks.

Our AGM will be held in July, with our Conference will be sometime in Q4 of 2023. We hope both will provide great opportunities for networking.

Safety Share - A message from University of Adelaide, Enforceable Undertaking

For those of you that joined us at the WHO Conference in November, you would have heard from The University of Adelaide, regarding an incident in November 2019 at a Piggery on a rural campus.

The incident involved an effluent sump pump where the guard for the drive belt had been removed at some point. When a workers hand came into contact with the belt drive it resulted in the loss of the tops of two fingers. The Piggery itself was a secure facility with no access to all but a small number of Piggery staff and some authorised contractors.

After the incident the regulator (SafeWork SA) investigated and found a number of issues with the implementation of safety within the Piggery.

The University of Adelaide asked the regulator for an enforceable undertaking as an alternative to the continuation of the ongoing investigation. The regulator agreed. The contents of the undertaking can be found here.

Part of the undertaking involved creating a short video that speaks to the incident and what we learned from it; you can find the video here.

We hope that the video might be of some use to other universities.

Here’s to a great year ahead. I hope you are all excited to get involved in our upcoming events and to assist our association in going from strength to strength.

For those of you that use social media – please come join us on LinkedIn where you will hear key messages from us more regularly

President's Q4 2022 Message

What a year it has been! Another 12 months of action, change, challenge and collaboration. As AUSA, we have welcomed new members, farewelled old colleagues and finally been able to meet again in person. We have hosted SIG and Branch meetings across Australia and online, we had our AGM back in July, we have produced our first AUSA endorsed publication of Re-wire, we co-sponsored our first global conference and we congratulated our Safety Professional of the Year 2022 Rosie O’Halloran. Phew!!! No wonder I am ready for a break ;c)

Safety 2022 Conference & AUSA Mini-Conference

It was great to see AUSA being represented at Safety 2022 Conference in Adelaide, with so many of our members and sponsors in attendance. What an exciting and thought-provoking few days it was. We also held our AUSA Mini-Conference following Safety 2022; it was brilliant to have people in the room, and to be joined online by so many members from across Australia and beyond. Charles was kind enough to record this session for us, so it will be available on the website for all members to view soon.

We shared updates on LinkedIn I encourage you to take a look at our posts and also take a look at our website for a whole heap of photos and smiling faces.

Safety 2022 Conference & AUSA Mini-Conference

We shared updates on LinkedIn I encourage you to take a look at our posts and also take a look at our website for a whole heap of photos and smiling faces.

Team changes

The sad news is, that after 8.5 years serving on the Executive Committee of AUSA and seeing Safety 2022 come to a very successful conclusion, Xin Li has decided to step down as Secretary of AUSA, effective 1 January 2023.

I would like to acknowledge and thank Xin for his efforts, representing AUSA on the National Organising Committee of the 14th WHO World Conference: Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion; chairing the AUSA Organising Committee; serving as AUSA Secretary; and an active member of the Executive team. That is a LONG list and it was an epic effort, that was very successfully executed! Thank you. I hope you enjoy your well-earned rest and time with family and fishing!

Whilst change is always tough, and Xin leaves big shoes to fill, I am very happy to report that Glenn Blackley has stepped in and will be our new Secretary. Glenn has been a long-standing member of AUSA Exec and has a wealth of corporate knowledge. Thank you Glenn for your dedication to AUSA. I know we are in safe hands and you will help guide me and other newer members of Exec on the right path.

In closing, I wish to thank each and every one of you for your support of our Association. To our members, sponsors, volunteers, SIG & Branch Leaders and everyone who has worked with, or for our Association and the improvement of work health safety and wellbeing - Thank you! We are a volunteer run association and we have truly been punching above our weight this year!

I hope that each of you enjoy the end of year and can take some time to reflect on the positives of 2022 and your own personal achievements. I am very much looking forward to recharging after a busy year and spending time with family and friends. I am also incredibly excited for the year ahead! The AUSA Executive and Leadership teams have been busily working behind the scenes over the last six months and we look forward to bringing you some impactful initiatives in 2023.

Wishing you and yours a safe, fun and restful break. See you in 2023 Many thanks, Theresa

President's Q3 2022 Message

Given it has now been a little while since our AGM, I wanted to provide an update on activities. Our new AUSA Executive & Leadership teams have been very busy over the last three months, with many exciting activities in progress, some of which I will outline below.

I had the opportunity to catch up face to face with our Vice-President Mark Noble this week, as I had a work trip to Perth. It was really great to meet for the first time in person and discuss AUSA. I always enjoy chatting to colleagues regarding the similarities and differences in our roles, as well as seeing other campuses.

AUSA Updates:

We welcomed new members to our committees and everyone has been settling in well to our new roles. We have been meeting regularly as a team to discuss and align our plans for AUSA and hope you are as excited as we are about the future of our Association.
- If you have any questions for the AUSA executive team or Special Interest Groups (SIGs) or Branches, please feel free to reach out to us directly. You can find our contact details on the AUSA website.
The Exec Committee has been reviewing the existing AUSA 10-year strategy, to ensure it is in line with the current environment, including the many impacts of COVID and other external factors.
We have been continuing to prepare for Safety 2022 Conference
- There is a very exciting and extensive program of talks and workshops. It is also a great opportunity to put AUSA on a global stage. We hope to see you there!
  Read the latest update here.
Launch and preparation for our AUSA Mini-Conference on 1 December, the day after Safety 2022 Conference concludes.
- This is a fabulous opportunity to reconnect with AUSA colleagues face to face and make new connections. It is free attendance for all AUSA members. The event will be hosted in Adelaide, but we will also have virtual access for those that can’t join us in person.
  Check out the Events listing on our website for more info and to register.
Publication of our first AUSA endorsed Guidance document: Re-Wire
- The AUSA Occupational Health and Safety Data Classification Standard has now been endorsed. This standard has been developed for tertiary education and research institutions to standardise health and safety related data classifications such as activities, risks, and location types. This has been a major body of work that involved consultation with many Universities and Research organisations to develop relevant categories for use in these sectors.
- Continual improvement will be used to incorporate constructive feedback, with a review planned in mid-2023 to identify and address any deficiencies. This will enable the standard to continue to reflect the diverse and evolving nature of activities undertaken within the sector. Your feedback can be sent to: john.tsiros@monash.edu or a relevant AUSA email if one exists.
- We are excited to have the official launch of this publication as part of our AUSA Mini-Conference on 1 December.
Our Branch and SIG Teams are continually working to enhance engagement of our members and provide value.
- We have several exciting and topical events upcoming – I encourage you to keep abreast of our activities by checking Events page and following us on LinkedIn
- Please feel free to reach out directly to our Team to register for SIG participation, or with questions, or offers of help and suggestions of topics
Last but by no means least – I am pleased to today launch our AUSA Safety Professional of the Year Award
- We are very excited to call for applications for the 2022 AUSA Safety Professional of the Year Award.
- Are you our Safety Professional of the Year? Earn recognition as a leading health and safety professional and enter the Australasian University Safety Association’s Safety Professional of the Year Award. We want to hear from you about the significant contribution you’ve made to your workforce’s health and safety practices.
- Applications close 14 November and we will be announcing the winner at our AUSA Mini-Conference in Adelaide (and online) on 1 December. Applications are open to all AUSA members, see our website for more details: AUSA Award

Award

To keep updated on AUSA activities and news, please keep an eye out for more emails which will be provided by this MemberJungle platform. We also encourage you to follow us on LinkedIn and feel free to like and share our updates and activities.

Much great work is happening behind the scenes and I thank our committee members and volunteers for their continued support. Thanks also to our sponsors and each of you as AUSA members.

I look forward to seeing you online or in person at one of our upcoming events.

Industrial Chemicals - Do Universities need to register?

if you are a university, college, tertiary and research institute, that imports chemicals to Australia, then you need to register under ‘Level 1’ (the lowest level) and pay the registration fee (the registration charge does not apply). This is to let AICIS know that you’re introducing chemicals into Australia.

For more information, click here.

2023 Farm safety calendar now available!

The calendar features the winning drawings from Queensland primary school students who entered this year’s Farm safety calendar competition.

The creative and colourful illustrations and messages in this calendar are a year-round reminder for everyone to work and play safely on farms.

Click here to order your free copy of the 2023 Farm safety calendar.

Comcare's Emerging Evidence Alerts

Comcare regularly provides a comprehensive bank of the latest research on the health benefits of work, recovery at work, return to work, and work health and safety issues. This Emerging Evidence includes peer-reviewed articles, reports and evidence on a range of relevant prevention, and workplace health and wellbeing topics that were recently published. Read the latest information here.

	AUSA announces RESP-FIT partnership - 26th November 2020 AUSA has become a RESP-FIT partner to help promote fit testing by a competent person for all wearers of tight-fitting respirators. AUSA members have access to a range of fit testing resources such as protocols, references, and associated information. FIT TEST to FIT RIGHT Website: Resp-Fit link