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In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss Hazard and Risk versus Threat and Vulnerability – Top Down, Bottom Up.

The podcast discussion includes:

• How bottom-up techniques are creeping back into risk assessments, even though WHS legislation focuses on criticality and asks what is reasonable in the circumstances,
• How prosecutions are shaping what "critical" means in practice,
• Why cutting minor-incident rates doesn't remove fatality risk, and
• Why the two methodologies each have a place if used at the right time.

If you'd like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we'd love to hear from you: email admin@r2a.com.au.

For further information on Richard and Gaye's consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you'll also find booklets (store) and a newsletter sign-up to keep informed of their latest news and events.

Timestamps

• 00:34 – Why revisit hazard and risk versus threat and vulnerability: a drift back to bottom-up techniques despite the WHS focus on criticality
• 01:13 – Prosecution patterns in Australia: SFAIRP is hard to prosecute, smaller organisations and repeat or multiple-fatality events get targeted
• 03:26 – WHS Codes of Practice are written around single-fatality hazards such as working at heights, and the language confusion that follows
• 04:03 – Bird and Heinrich's triangle, and the elimination of fatalities task force in underground mining
• 06:29 – WHS asks what controls are practicable and reasonable, not whether the risk is bad enough to act
• 07:18 – Hazard and risk as middle-management, bottom-up measures versus threat and vulnerability as national-interest, top-down thinking (the desalination plant and defence examples)
• 08:30 – Criticality in two bands: single or multiple fatalities versus rare mass-casualty events
• 09:16 – How major events change policy, and the New Zealand experience including the Port of Auckland prosecution
• 10:27 – Differing state approaches and the pending Safe Work Australia review
• 10:49 – Wrap-up: both methodologies have insight, so use each in the right place at the right time