Welcome to the Spring issue of our newsletter.  September saw over 250 delegates attend the 10^th International Risk Conference in Brisbane where R2A were in-kind sponsors, gifting a copy of our new project governance booklet to delegates. I also had the opportunity to present a paper on project governance during one of the co-current sessions.  It was a very interesting conference covering a diverse range of risk topics and it was fabulous to note the trend towards top-down, criticality and vulnerability – all the things R2A focusses on to ensure projects are delivered fit for purpose, on time and within budget.

Then, last month, Richard was one of the keynote speakers at the Australasian Marine Pilots Institute (AMPI) Ports and Pilotage conference in Perth.  R2A has had a long association with the marine pilots and over the past 25 years we have given a number of presentations on our due diligence process.  Talking to a number of people following his presentation, Richard was saying that he felt like a "broken record" saying the same thing over and over again (although in slightly different ways each time).  He questioned if this was still adding value to the Maritime industry or if they had heard it all before.  We found the response quite interesting. 

Basically, yes many of the delegates had heard Richard speak before but there are many new people entering the maritime industry for whom the due diligence approach was new.  It was also commented that as an industry they needed to keep being reminded of the due diligence approach (which Richard — and R2A — are very good at!) because it is easy to slip back to doing the IMO target risk approach.

Our training partnership with Engineering Education Australia continues to deliver numerous in-house and public courses with our Rail Safety National Law course being very popular at the moment. Our final public course is on Rail Safety on 23^rd November.  Registrations can be made through the EEA website.    

In other news, we have recently completed a safety due diligence review for Port Macquarie Hastings Council and our annual guest lecture session at Swinburne University on Project Due Diligence.  We also had the final VCAT hearing for the planning permit issue relating to a Major Hazards Facility that we summarised in our last newsletter. Richard has expanded on some of the arguments in his blog below.

We also wrapped up the first “season” of our podcast Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. It’s fabulous to hear feedback from people - such as at the AMPI conference - that they are enjoying the episodes, especially the fact that it’s me and Richard chatting about interesting topics. Season 2 is coming - more details below.

As some of you may have seen, there has been some extensive discussions on a number of LinkedIn accounts about ALARP vs SFAIRP where R2A’s understanding of the difference has been questioned. R2A continues to stand by the position that there is a difference between the two concepts which is supported in very many places by others.  As this continues to be of interest, we have written a “right of reply” as a new blog.

As always, if you would like to discuss anything engineering due diligence, please get in touch with Richard or I. Email admin@r2a.com.au or call 1300 772 333.

Until next time,

Gaye Francis
R2A Partner

As highlighted above, we stumbled upon a LinkedIn post referencing our material on SFAIRP and ALARP. Unfortunately, some of the arguments were negative towards R2A and our work. We felt obligated to write (another) article on the topic.

We also would just like to add many comments misrepresented our position and referenced us out of context. 

As detailed in the introduction, we wrapped our final episode in our first season of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance in September. Some of the more popular topics included:

• SFAIRP vs ALARP 
  
• ISO 31000 The Risk Management Standard & the Consequences for WHS/OHS Legislation
• What do you Mean by the Term Risk? The Language of (and confusion around) Risk.

We’ve started recording our next season with the first episode scheduled to go live on 12 November. Topics Richard and Gaye have already recorded include The Demise of ALARP, Safety in Design, Safety Culture Change Agents - and they’re fantastic discussions!

Listen to all the episodes on your favourite podcast platform including Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon.

R2A recently acted as expert witnesses before VCAT (The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal) regarding the rejection of a planning permit for a two dwelling redevelopment on a single site. In this article, we discuss how the Victorian Major Hazard Regulator has adopted a consequence based approach to land use planning overturning the long established risk based (QRA - quantified risk assessment) approach. 

We have one more workshop this year in partnership with Engineering Education Australia. Register via the EEA link detailed below.

Rail Safety National Law & OHS Legislation - Obligations for Engineers & Designers
Date: 23 November  
Time: 11.30am to 2.45pm (AEDT)
Where: Online 
Audience: This course suits engineers across all disciplines, especially engineers involved in the rail industry. Other relevant roles include: Designers and Project Managers.

Further information and registration via EEA: https://eea.org.au/courses/rail-safety-national-law-and-ohs-legislation-obligations-engineers-and-designers

As a business, we challenge organisational risk and safety management within a due diligence context. That is, we ensure SFAIRP (governance) outcomes that meet Australian WHS/OHS legislation that all reasonably practicable precautions are in place for high consequence, low likelihood events.

It is within this mission statement that we support Apto PPE in designing and selling women’s and maternity workwear that ensures females are as safe (and comfortable) onsite as reasonably practicable. Check out our range below.