Welcome to the winter issue of our newsletter. Can you believe we are half way through the year already? Last month, I presented at the Conference on Rail Excellence (CORE) in Melbourne. My paper titled Demonstrating SFAIRP was well received and generated a number of interesting conversations afterwards. If you are interest in the paper, it can be accessed here. One of the interesting projects Richard and I are working on at the moment involves a VCAT hearing. This is in relation to the decision to refuse a planning permit for the construction of two new residential dwellings on a parcel of land, that currently houses a single dwelling, due to its proximity to a major hazards facility (MHF). It would appear that WorkSafe Victoria have changed the inner and outer safety areas to be consequence driven (a position the R2A practice has adopted for many years) rather than risk driven (1x10-7pa fatality risk) resulting in a substantial increase in the defined exposure area around MHF sites. Major hazards facilities provide assurance through their safety cases that they are effectively managing their hazards. However, under the OHS/WHS legislation, it is a requirement that all parties be given the highest level of protection as is reasonably practicable, and that all parties control any hazard to the extent that they have control. We believe this includes the local Council. The core hazard for the MHF of concern is explosion overpressure. To address this, the owners have specified that for the proposed two new dwellings they will install laminated glass windows (to minimise glass ‘shrapnelling’) and a Colorbond™ steel roof to mitigate potential for roof tile ‘missiles’ - the experiential consequences associated with the known hazards at the MHF. The Council and WorkSafe have rejected these robust safety-in-design controls and have gone back to exposure (number of persons) controls as the only option to mitigate the consequence. As an engineer and a family that lives and has children that go to primary school in close proximity to such MHFs, this idea is just absurd. It will be interesting to see where this lands especially after I speak with representatives of my school council.
(Look out for a podcast episode on this topic scheduled for this Sunday evening.) R2A is also excited to announce that we are an in-kind sponsor at Engineers Australia’s Risk 2023. With a dedicated Project Risk and control stream, delegates will be able to collect a copy of R2A’s new Project Governance booklet. The conference is being held in Brisbane from 7-8 September. Further information and registration details can be found on the conference website.
As always, if you would like to discuss engineering due diligence and how to demonstrate SFAIRP for your credible critical issues, please get in touch with me or Richard. Email admin@r2a.com.au or call 1300 772 333. Until
next time,
Gaye Francis
R2A Partner | 
