AUSTRALIAN Wool Innovation (AWI) has moved to enhance shearing shed safety after recent accidents including a woman being scalped on a property in central-west NSW late last year.
NSW Nationals Senator John “Wacka” Williams posed questions to AWI CEO Stuart McCullough at Senate estimates hearings in Canberra last month who outlined added measures being undertaken in light of the recent incidents; including ways to ensure emergency response teams can clearly identify a shearing shed’s GPS location.
“There have been a couple of very well publicised serious accidents in the shearing sheds,” Senator Williams said.
“What can the AWI do as far as assisting workplace safety?
“None of us want to see people hurt at work in any job.
“Workers comp may cover it, but in this land of litigation who knows whether graziers will be sued afterwards for providing a negligent or dangerous workplace?
“During my time, especially learning to shear, I've seen plenty of handpieces flying around the board et cetera - it's a pretty dangerous environment.”
Mr McCullough said AWI had monitored the accidents with one, in particular, being “particularly horrific” which involved an overhead, shaft-driven shearing shed.
He said that accident prompted AWI to take several steps to improve safety, including offering woolgrowers better safety signage for their shearing sheds.
“I think there is something like 40 different signs for a really modest, underwritten price by us - we do it at cost; they're plastic signage - to ensure the safety,” he said.
“It goes to the point of showing where exits are and areas to stay away from.
“We offer that and continue to offer that.
“I think something like 7000 of those packs have gone out to shearing sheds around Australia, at a moderate cost - that's something that we've been doing.”
Mr McCullough said AWI was aware due to the recent accident, that the emergency response team weren't able to clearly identify the shearing shed’s GPS location.
“The shearing shed is not always right next to the residence of the property,” he said.
“We will be adding some signage into that package that ensures that a shearing shed can have the GPS coordinates clearly documented in the shearing shed so that, in any accident or response, the ambulance can identify where to go.
“That, we thought, was a helpful thing to do.
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“Another thing that we've started on is working with an overhead electrical machinery manufacturer to see whether we can get a mass discount for electrical down-tubes and shearing equipment so that they don't have to use their shaft-driven systems.
“We're working with the main shearing machinery manufacturer in that area - we'll promote that heavily in our publications across all our 55,000 (AWI) shareholders.”
Senator Williams questioned the cost to growers however of having buy a “huge generator” to run seven or eight individual overhead electric devices.
“In some of the station country, they may have electricity to their homestead, but the shearing shed could be five (kilometres) out the back,” he said.
“They mightn't be able to afford that.
“That's why I don't think this place (parliament) should make it compulsory, because of the cost to so many people in the outer pastoral country - if I can call it that - who don't have the access to electricity.
“It would be hugely expensive.”
But Mr McCullough said there would only be a “modest number” of shearing sheds that don't have electricity.
“I don't think it's the vast majority, but you're quite right,” he said.
“The other thing I've asked the staff that look after this business unit for the company to do is go back through all our training modules - we have a raft of training modules, both video and written - to make sure the safety components of them are adequate and clearly address shaft-driven shearing sheds.
“That's another thing that we've undertaken as well, but the main thing will be to get these shaft-driven shearing sheds out of commission by way of taking down the shaft and putting in electrical shearing down-tubes.”
Senator Williams said that task may be assisted by current high wool prices but “one season of wonderful wool prices doesn't pay the debt off either, after many, many years of bad - you know what I'm saying”.
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