Time Stamps
Please click through to the following times on the video above to see these presentations:
- 0:00:00 – Construc and President of the SAQ, Rob Thiess’s welcome
- 0:00:30 – Guest Speaker – Peter Rees, Workplace Health & Safety Qld – WHSQ news and responses to SAQ 2019 member survey
- 00:24:02 – Guest Speaker – Benjamin Monavari & Ramey Othman, Hilti – Legislative requirements for correct anchor selection and compliant anchor installation
- 01:04:10 – Guest Speaker – Lance Tulloch, ATEC – ATEC company introduction and scaffolding training in Australia
- 01:18:37 – Guest Speaker – Brian Simpson & Danielle Richards-Goodall, Inca Safety -Inca Safety company introduction and scaffolding site training
- 01:31:11 – Guest Speaker – Phillip Whitbread, Brand Industrial Services – Presentation of construction stair solution
- 01:39:34 – Justin Smith from Construc – Temporary Works Forum and avoiding scaffold collapse
- 01:47:31 – Guest Speaker – Construc and President of the SAQ, Rob Thiess – Updates on Scaffolding code of practice, AS 1576.7, Best Practice Guidelines, AS/NZS 4576, Silica Dust in the Workplace Guidelines and SAQ news
Workplace Health & Safety Queensland – Peter Rees, Lead Inspector South West Gold Coast
We thank Peter Rees for his commitment to our association and in always making himself available to share with us issues and information from Workplace Health & Safety Queensland. Today Peter presented and took questions on the following topics:
- Common scaffolding issues identified during inspections
- An overview and breakdown of enforcement issues for scaffolding
- Tips to help maintain scaffolding compliance
- Responding to questions received via the 2019 SAQ Member Survey
- An update on the Scaffolding Code of Practice Review
Hilti – Benjamin Monavari & Ramey Othman, Consulting Engineers
Hilti are Associate Members of the SAQ and as such, show their commitment to our industry. Today Benjamin and Ramey joined us to update us on Legislative requirements for correct anchor selection and compliant anchor installation, which included compliance information from AS 5216, installation problems with anchors and the Hilti product range.
Their presentation was very informative and entirely relevant to our industry.
ATEC (Australiasian Training & Education Centre) – Lance Tulloch
Lance Tulloch from ATEC has recently joined the association as Associate Members and Lance joined us today to tell us about his company and what services they offer. ATEC is a registered training organisation (RTO 40554) providing nationally recognised training and assessment for a wide range of services including HRWL, WHS, and short courses, but more specifically, Scaffolding. ATEC has been in operation since 2011 and Lance has 30 experience in construction and mining working in roles as a Scaffolder / Rigger, Supervision, Superintendent and Project Manager. With Lance’s experience, he understands the challenges that scaffolding training faces.
ATEC utilises a number of scaffolding systems and also tailors training to suit the clients’ operation equipment from cuplock, Haki, Ringlock, Aluminium to Kwikstage.
ATEC has a user choice agreement contract in place and as such can deliver Certificate III in scaffolding under a DET traineeship. ATEC commenced its first trainee, an employee of Central Scaffolding and they are looking to get more young people into the industry under a traineeship. ATEC would like to work with more scaffolding companies to get trainees on board to drive the industry in this direction.
ATEC operate out of the CTC, with access to all facilities. They can also provide mobile training when required.
Lance’s presentation triggered a very interesting conversation about Australia’s current scaffolding industry training system which full members will be able to hear and see on our video presentation.
Inca Safety – Brian Simpson, Danielle Richards-Goodall
Inca Safety has also recently joined us as Associate Members. Inca Safety provides online training for construction workers and site managers to be educated in WHS. Inca Safety’s goal is to provide online training to make workplaces safer and the compliance process simpler to understand.
Inca Safety is currently putting together a scaffolding specific safety program to educate construction workers, site managers and supervisors on scaffold safety and would like the associations help with what we believe should be in this training package. Their concerns include educating other trades on what they can and can’t do on scaffolding including altering scaffold.
SAQ members will be asked for their feedback on Inca Safety’s training program.
Brand Industrial Services – Phillip Whitbread
Phillip Whitbread is a branch manager for Brand Industrial Services and also sits on the SAQ Executive Committee as our Treasurer. Following the Scaffolding Code of Practice Review, the use of 1.5m construction stair risers will be changing to eliminate the 500mm step up or down and to eliminate the 1.5m entry point. Some of the industry will be moving to a 2m riser however for a lot of scaffolding businesses, this will be cost-prohibitive. Phillip has been working on a solution using the gear that is already available which has recently been approved by Workplace Health & Safety Queensland.
This solution will be made available to our members and will be sent out in an alert shortly. Full members can also see this solution in the General Meeting video presentation.
Construc – Justin Smith, Director
Justin is a Director of Construc, construction consulting engineers and today gave us an update on the new Temporary Works Forum in Australia. Scaffolding falls under temporary works but there is not a lot of information available in Australia on this subject, hence the creation of the Temporary Works Forum. A Temporary Works Forum exists in both the UK and NZ and was established due to a lot of scaffold collapses. The point of the forum is to provide education and information sharing. This will be launched through Engineers Australia and will be a national organisation. A website is due to be launched in August which will have a great range of information including risk management and site-based information.
Justin also informed us on a general misconception that he is finding on construction sites which is if an engineer approves a particular scaffold structure on one site, scaffolding companies are then assuming that they can again replicate this structure on another site, without again consulting an engineer. For example, if you can do 1.5m lifts under a birdcage on one site, that does not mean you can do 1.5m lifts on a site next door. This also goes for ties, bracing, all aspects. Engineers do very particular analysis on each area of a project and advise what is possible. This does not mean you can then replicate this on another area of a project as the conditions will be different. Standardised designs also have very strict boundary conditions, you cannot deviate from that and if you do, you need to again involve your engineer.
With regards to the recent scaffold collapses Justin says, the underlying cause typically is the use of cheap anchors and not installing ties.
NO TIES, OR NOT ENOUGH TIES, IS THE PRIMARY CAUSE FOR SCAFFOLD COLLAPSE.
President of the SAQ and Director of Constuc – Rob Thiess
President of the SAQ, and Director of Construc, Rob Thiess, regularly updates our members on what is happening in our industry and is really in touch with the issues and opportunities that he presents to us. Here is an overview of what Rob presented to our members today:
- Scaffolding Code of Practice Review – Update and dates when this code is believed to be released.
- Fire Retardant Scaffolding Containment – AS 1576.7 Scaffolding, part 7: Safe use of encapsulation on scaffolding update.
- SAQ Best Practice Guidelines update
- AS/NZS 4576 draft and release
- Silica Dust in the Workplace update
- SAQ News
