National OHS Strategy 2002–2012
Progress against targets
The National OHS Strategy 2002–2012 (the National
Strategy) provides the framework for collective efforts to
improve Australia’s work health and safety performance.
The strategy for the next decade – the Australian Work
Health and Safety Strategy 2012–2022 – was launched in
October 2012. This is the final reporting on the progress
against targets in the National Strategy.
Work-related injuries are measured using serious injury
(including musculoskeletal disorders) claims from the
National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics
(NDS). Serious claims include all fatalities, all claims for
permanent incapacity and claims involving one or more
weeks of time lost from work.
The baseline for measuring progress is the three-year
period 2000–01 to 2002–03. A three-year base period
was chosen to compensate for expected volatility in the
compensation data. As data supplied for the latest year are
updated, no adjustments were needed as updated data
likely reflect final numbers.
The National Strategy set a national target to reduce the
incidence of compensated work-related injury fatalities at
least 20% and a national target to reduce the incidence of
serious work-related injuries at least 40% by 30 June 2012.
Injury target
There was a 26% decrease in the incidence rate of work-related injuries between the base period and
2011–12. This is below the rate of improvement required to achieve a 40% reduction in the incidence rate
of work-related injuries by June 2012. Australia did not meet this target.
Incidence rate of serious injury, base period to 2011–12
Claims per 1000 employees
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
Actual
base
period
2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12
14.76
14.46
14.21
13.86
13.08
12.49
Actual
12.28
11.72
11.33
11.16
10.95
Reduction required to meet target
Fatalities target
There was a 41% decrease in the incidence rate of compensated work-related injury fatalities between
the base period and 2011–12. This is more than twice the desired result and, despite the volatility in this
measure, Australia met the target of a 20% reduction in the incidence rate of compensated work-related
injury fatalities by June 2012.
Incidence rate of work-related injury fatalities, base period to 2011–12
Claims per 100 000 employees
2.60
2.40
2.20
2.00
1.80
1.60
1.40
1.20
1.00
base
period
2.44
2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12
2.30
2.09
2.07
Actual
2.18
2.13
2.13
1.95
1.50
1.46
Reduction required to meet target
1.44
International fatalities target
Following the first triennial review of the National Strategy an additional target of having the lowest rate
of traumatic fatalities in the world by June 2009 was adopted.
Fatalities data need to be compiled on a consistent basis to undertake this type of comparison. Workrelated injury fatalities were sourced from the International Labour Organisation and only the better
performing countries, in terms of fatality incidence rates, were selected for comparison. Australian data
were taken from the Traumatic Injury Fatalities collection. This captures work-related injury fatalities
involving all workers not just those where a workers’ compensation claim has been lodged. Therefore,
the fatality rates shown in the graph below are higher than those shown for the fatalities target on
the previous page. A three-year moving average approach was adopted to reduce the volatility in the
measure.
Although the gap between Australia and the better performing countries has reduced since the
commencement of the National Strategy, the figure below shows Australia did not meet the target of
having the lowest rate of traumatic fatalities in the world. Relative to the other countries considered
here, and based on the most recent data available, Australia is still in seventh position.
Comparison of Australia’s work-related injury fatality rate with the best performing countries
Fatalities per 100 000 workers
4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
20012003
20022004
20032005
Australia
Finland
20042006
20052007
Sweden
Norway
20062008
20072009
UK
Switzerland
20082010
20092011
20102012
Denmark
New Zealand
These data were extracted from the 16th Comparative Performance Monitoring report. More information on these indicators,
including information on jurisdictional performance and information on the National OHS Strategy can be found on the
Safe Work Australia website.