WHEN THE INSPECTOR CALLS…

Wes Bird, Allstone Quarries

It was the telephone call that I am sure a lot of Quarries would dread to hear. A call from Len Thomas, an Inspector from the Department of Primary Industries; he was calling to schedule a time to meet and perform an audit on our Quarry at Newbridge.

That was the call I received on 6th December, 2004. My mind started to race – Have I got the OH&S files up to date? Have I got the necessary information that is required on site for a Quarry? Have all my operators and staff been educated enough and can I produce the records and information to show Len?

We confirmed the date for the audit – 16th December, 2004. Len advised that he would send out a copy of the DNRE Health and Safety Audit report so that I could go through it and have everything ready for when he arrived.

The paper work arrived for the audit; I was flicking through it and thinking to myself that I had covered a lot of the criteria in the CMPA Work Safely and Risk Assessment courses run by Box Hill TAFE, that I had attended.

Just these two courses alone had covered a huge portion of the audit report, with questions like “Have Managers and Supervisors received Health and Safety related training?” and “Where a risk to Health and Safety was identified has a Risk Assessment been undertaken”.

Knowing that I had covered all of these questions in the CMPA courses I had previously attended, I felt confident regarding the pending audit with Len.

Some of the other sections on the audit forms concerned making sure we had the correct documentation on site that employees could reference, as well as copies of the relevant Acts and Regulations. I referred to the CMPA General Industry Guidelines Reference Manual and CMPA Work Safely Reference Manual and was able to tick the majority of the boxes on the audit form with confidence.

After some organisation and tidying up of my own book work, by the time Len arrived on site I had the piece of mind that a large portion of the audit had already been covered, with help from the CMPA courses ran by Box Hill TAFE, along with the CMPA Reference Manuals.

The audit took four and a half hours to complete and being our first audit since we opened the Quarry at Newbridge in 2000, all things considered it ran surprisingly smooth.

Len was extremely helpful in all aspects of the audit. He was keen to offer positive advice on how to implement new OH&S procedures, and how to safeguard plant and equipment to meet the required standards.

We still have some tidying up to do in areas such as documentation, plant and equipment; however I am confident that the recommendations that we plan to take action upon after the audit will make our Quarry an even safer place to work.

For those Quarries out there that have an audit scheduled, and even those that don’t, I strongly recommend sending your Management, Operators, Staff and Subcontractors to the training courses run by the CMPA, along with purchasing copies of the CMPA General Industry Guidelines, Operator Daily Safety Checklists, Work Safely Reference Manuals, and ACT Packs etc.

All of these courses and manuals relate to certain parts of the audit performed by the DNRE, and can make your life that little bit easier when you get that telephone call. Most importantly, it makes your site a safer place to work.

WES BIRD
Site Manager
Allstone Quarries, Newbridge

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