Managing Occupational Risk in the Creative Industries: A New Perspective - Or has OHS Reached its Use-By Date?

Abstract

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) was designed in the mid nineteen-seventies to enforce compliance with workplace safety legislation and improve industrial working conditions for all workers. This initiative led to improved safety performance across most Australian industries. Thirty-five years on, industrial contexts have changed dramatically with the result that OHS, as originally conceived and currently practiced requires reform. In setting about this task, consideration should be given to the rise of 'New' or 'Creative' industries (film, television and entertainment software; writing, publishing and print media; performing arts; visual art and design; music composition and production), and a commensurate decline in traditional industry. Creative industry thrives on risk opportunity and flexibility, and is constrained by risk avoidance. An obsession with loss-control and systems methodology that permeates traditional OHS practice is antipathetic to creative enterprise. This paper discusses the contemporary context of OHS in Australia and its failure to accommodate creative enterprise. It concludes by proposing the adoption of a new model to be called Occupational Risk Management and Wellbeing (ORMW)