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WorkSafe campaign targets “bulletproof” attitudes

WorkSafe Victoria is in the middle of a six-week advertising campaign targeting agricultural areas and “bulletproof attitudes towards farm safety”.

The campaign, described by WorkSafe’s executive director of health and safety Julie Nielsen as “confronting”, is running across regional Victoria and carries the tagline ‘it’s never you, until it is.’

It follows the release of WorkSafe’s 2020-23 Agriculture Strategy, which has highlighted accidents from vehicles, chemicals and interaction with livestock as areas to target, along with protecting migrant workers.

WorkSafe figures show that last year there were 424 worker’s compensation claims made in Victorian agriculture, which equals about eight claims per week.

The strategy describes farm deaths and injuries as “preventable, not inevitable”, something reiterated by Nielsen who says the campaign aimed to make people realise that experience alone was not enough to prevent injury.

“Farmers know their land and machinery like the back of their hand, but that doesn’t make you bulletproof,” she says.

“The impact of not managing safety risks can be absolutely catastrophic to your family, your workers, the community and to your farm’s future.

“The figures show that people from a wide range of farming backgrounds and age groups, including children, are dying or being injured on farms and it’s easy to think that a tragic incident will never happen on your farm, but if safety is not your top priority then the chances are high that it will.”

Federal Government laws requiring all quad bikes to be fitted with rollover protection will also come into effect from October.

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