This section is presented in accordance with the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act).

Work health and safety – executive commitment

In 2022-23, our Board and Executive continued their ongoing dedication to work health and safety (WHS), with the health and wellbeing of our people deemed essential to our continued success. Our priorities have centred on minimising our risk exposure in line with the Board’s Risk Appetite Statement through targeted risk reduction initiatives. Supporting the mental health and protecting the physical health of our people has also remained a key focus throughout the year.

Work health and safety initiatives

We continued to embed our strategic and tactical work health and safety management plans to reduce our exposure across the business, with a particular focus on critical risk. During the year, we also worked towards improving risk management through operational learning and enhancing the understanding and application of our procedural risk controls from a user-centred design.

We established a 3-year improvement program focused on 4 key pillars – proactive leadership, systems effectiveness, controls effectiveness and continuous learning. This program is designed to align with achieving our strategic performance outcomes.

Airservices was nominated and shortlisted for the Australian Institute of Health and Safety WHS Team of the Year for work in supporting a high number of projects, as well as the streamlining and simplification of project safety support tools.

Emergency management

In 2022-23, we explored various supplementary tools such as virtual reality to improve emergency response and management. The technology provides a safer training environment without placing employees at unnecessary risk, driving greater engagement and training standards. Work was undertaken to trial and roll out virtual reality training to support, enhance and further assist our people in responding to emergencies in facilities, in particular those who hold an emergency control organisation role such as a warden.

Electrical safety

We have continued to address electrical safety risk with programs addressing arc-flash risk in switchboards, as well as strengthening controls within project and contractor management with regards to electrical safety by design. Further programs were established to strengthen our electrical controls during the completion of works.

Driving and vehicle safety

Our vehicle fleet was fitted with in-vehicle monitoring systems and we expect to utilise the data from the systems to inform policy updates. This is due to be completed in the 2023-24 financial year.

Remote and isolated work

We addressed the isolated risk associated with lone workers in locations such as control towers. Personal duress devices that include incapacitation alerting functionality were rolled out to all lone workers.

Health and wellbeing of our people

Annual engagement activities such as Men’s Health Week, Mental Health Month, Wellness Week, Movember, RUOK Day and Women’s Health Week continued to be prioritised to promote and engage on health and wellbeing in a diverse and inclusive manner.

The 2 core initiatives focused on mental health literacy, early identification of psychological distress and low-level psychological support have progressed throughout the year. These resulted in over 180 of our workers receiving Mental Health First Aid accreditation and over 50 workers now accredited under our Peer Assistance Network (PAN) after undertaking an intensive training program. The program will continue to roll out to additional support volunteers in 2023-24.

In response to the changes to the WHS regulations for managing psychosocial hazards, a comprehensive review was undertaken during the year to identify opportunities for improvement. We will be implementing actions plans focused on preventative and critical controls to better manage these hazards throughout 2023-24.

Targeted injury risk reduction

Our body stress risk research and injury reduction program for our aviation rescue fire fighters continued throughout the year, providing actionable data to improve fire fighter performance and decrease the risk of injury. These programs provide evidence-based insights to improve the performance and resilience of our aviation rescue fire fighters. Results from the research saw the implementation of specific development programs for physical training instructors to improve their support of the physical training requirements of their local crews.

Further research was also undertaken to understand the impact of fire fighter operational requirements on their subsequent physical performance. This work informed the types of training to be completed following operational activities to further improve performance and decrease likelihood of injury. Further actions on this program will continue into the 2023-24 financial year.

Work health and safety reporting

Our total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) for 2022-23 was 10.4. We continued to focus on reducing the number and severity of injuries to our people and prioritised their wellbeing through targeted hazard and risk reduction activities. In comparison to the previous financial year, we saw a significant reduction in the number of serious injury or illness events and dangerous incidents that we are required to notify to Comcare. One fatality occurred during the year, with an external candidate suffering a fatal heart attack while undertaking a physical aptitude test during a fire fighter recruitment activity.

Consultation and health and safety committees

Local Health and Safety Committee meetings were held in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne to consult and work to resolve local work health and safety issues at those sites. We initiated a national Health and Safety Committee for Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting in June 2023 to review health and safety matters that impact our fire fighters at a national level. This provides our people an additional avenue to raise, review and consult on national solutions for safety-related issues.

Workers’ compensation premium

Our Comcare premium for 2023-24 increased from 0.67% of payroll to 0.91%. This is higher than the Commonwealth scheme average of 0.84%. This result is attributable to a number of factors including efforts to reduce stigma and increased willingness of our people to submit compensation claims, increased focus on mental health,and the impact of presumptive legislation-related claims.

Improvement notices and Comcare investigations

During 2022-23, we received no improvement notices and were not the subject of any investigations.

Table 7 – Work health and safety occurrences and hazards 2018-19 to 2022-23

1. One report recoded to non-dangerous incident based on further information received.
2. One report notification was for workplace transmission of COVID-19 in NSW.
3. One dangerous incident did not arise out of the conduct of Airservices business, however, was required to be reported under cross-jurisdiction obligations.
4. The death in 2022-23 was an external candidate (i.e. not an Airservices employee) who suffered a heart attack while undertaking a physical aptitude test during recruitment activity.