Hire and Rental News - Access in Action - February 2018

ACCESS in ACTION president's message FEBRUARY 2018 VOL19 NO 3 ELEVATING WORK PLATFORM ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA INC ABN 32 545 830 419 EWPA BOARD OF DIRECTORS President: Doug Rawlings Tel: 08 9350 5700 Vice President: (Interim) Tim Nuttall Tel: 03 9547 7700 Past President: Tim Nuttall Tel: 03 9547 7700 Chief Executive Officer: James Oxenham Tel: 0410 704 979 Operations Manager: Nicolas Chiew Tel: 0410 468 468 NSW President: John Glover Tel: 0419 663 863 VIC President: Keith Clarke Tel: 0400 369 900 QLD President: Richard Gannon Tel: 0437 477 279 SA President: Jason Gaskin Tel: 08 8449 0500 WA President: Will Reilly Tel: 0408 474 261 TECHNICAL DIRECTOR – OPERATIONS Peter Davis Tel: 02 8796 50551 TECHNICAL DIRECTOR – ENGINEERING Peter Wenn Tel: 03 9568 7211 COMMITTEE Dean Halliwell Tel: 0408 403 783 Bob Mules Tel: 0402 982 999 James Nightingale Tel: 1800 457 145 TELESCOPIC HANDLER ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA (TSHA) PRESIDENT: Chris Taylor Tel: 0448 450 132 EWPA & TSHA PO Box 1304, Mona Vale NSW 1660 Tel: 02 9998 2222 Email: info@ewpa.com.au Web: www.ewpa.com.au Opinions published in Hire and Rental News do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the association or the Editor. The HRIA accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any information contained in this magazine and readers should rely upon their own enquiries in making decisions related to their own interest. All rights reserved. ISSN 1838-1197 New to the role but not to industry safety This is my first report as EWPA President. I would like to thank Rick Mustillo for his leadership over the past five years, and the Presidents and committees I have worked alongside on the Board over the past 10 years. I look forward to working with James and his team, to maintain the standards set by the former EWPA Presidents and to working on new innovative projects that will benefit our industry. The industry has grown and developed in my time on the Board and for the most part, the MEWP industry has improved its safety standards and safety expectations; but we still have a long way to go. The EWPA has played a key role in improvements to procedures and training since its inception, and is now a well heard voice the State Regulators acknowledge as an important function to improve work place safety. The EWPA is always busy working to better our industry and improve safety. Current initiatives we have been discussing and implementing include: Opening communication with the film industry regarding safe use of EWPs in conjunction with their AV requirements. Often film industry filming requirements involve lifting heavy and bulky equipment like cameras, lights and audio tech with the operator which can hamper effective and safe use of the EWP; Improvements on distribution of guidance documents and information sheets which may see the EWPA taking our information on the road to other associations and industry conventions (like arborists, staging, agricultural field days, electrical contractors trade days, logistic and transport events etc); The EWPA Supervisors Program to educate site supervisors and safety officers on all things to do with MEWPs. This ‘Train the Trainer’ program will begin rolling out in late January and across February with Tier 1 construction companies set to begin trialling the program in its initial phase; Being a conduit for members to gain government funded training in safety, for example when loading machines, through a recent Association led relationship partner program with Strategic Alignment Training (stay tuned for more information on this). Our challenge as an organisation is to continue that industry improvement through involvement with trainers, manufacturers, owners, renters, regulators and our colleagues abroad. Yes, we still have a challenge to improve safe practices when using MEWPs. There is still plenty of work to be done; since we still get reports of: • Climbing out of the platform at height; • Operators not wearing harnesses; • People putting themselves at risk by using ladders, when the only safe way to do the work is with a MEWP; • Unsafe loading and unloading from transport; • And even fake operator licences and non-compliant training. These practices are operating outside our Association, but I am not naive to think it can’t happen even among our members. So, our challenge is to spread the knowledge, information and safe practices to do our part in improving the safety of using MEWPs. I look forward to representing the Association. Regards Doug Rawlings This issue we welcome our new EWPA President – Doug Rawlings from United Equipment. Doug has been on the EWPA committee for many years and brings a wealth of experience and initiative to the role. The Association team and industry looks forward to working with him. 32 ACCESS IN ACTION • FEBRUARY 2018