Sydney, 10 June was a bid day for hope in the world of workers' compensation. It marked the first meeting of the Council of Safe Work Australia, the new body set up to - as well as reduce death, injury and disease in the workplace, and achieve national uniformity of the OHS legislative framework -  take on responsibility for improving national workers’ compensation. It's a big job in a system so fraught with systematic hiccups and worrying outcomes for many workers who enter the system.

So, how did the meeting go?

Well, it might seem a slow start, but it’s a start none-the-less; the Council agreed to:

• Establish a Strategic Issues Group on occupational health and safety, with membership consisting of one representative of Safe Work Australia, one representative from each of the Commonwealth/State/Territory jurisdictions, two employee representatives and two employer representatives.
• Recommend a revised timeframe in relation to the development of the model OHS Act. This includes the exposure draft of the model OHS legislation being released in September 2009 and the draft model OHS legislation submitted for agreement by the end of 2009.
• The specifications of the Australian Mesothelioma Register, which requires the mandatory notification of mesothelioma to the cancer registries and combines with expertise in asbestos disease research and occupational epidemiology; and to the online publication of the report Mesothelioma in Australia: Incidence 1982 to 2005, Deaths 1997 to 2006.
• Safe Work Australia Week being held 25 – 31 October 2009 (to be its fifth year).

If you’d had some control over what was discussed at this first meeting, what would you have prioritised? Does Safe Work Australia’s first meeting reflect your concerns? Does its agenda give you hope that the body whose job it is to fix the problematic and costly state of workers' comp in Australia will curb a trend that sees too many people not returning to work after an illness or injury when so many more of them could – and should. All we need is the right systems in place – perhaps it's too early yet to say if this is an effective step in the right direction.

What do you think? Let us know here.