Incident Reporting and Investigation Procedure

Purpose. This procedure explains how workers report incidents, near misses and hazards, and how the business investigates them and closes the actions that follow.

1.What must be reported

Every injury, illness, near miss, hazard, vehicle incident, dangerous goods spill, property damage event, Chain of Responsibility event and rail corridor safety breach must be reported. If in doubt, report it. Reporting is never used to blame a worker who has followed this procedure.

2.Immediate actions

The first priority is to make the area safe and get first aid or emergency services if needed. The supervisor must then isolate any plant involved and preserve the scene until the Safety, Compliance and Training Manager has agreed it can be released.

3.Reporting

The worker or their supervisor must complete the incident and hazard report form and enter the event in the incident register before the end of the shift. Serious incidents must be phoned through to the Safety, Compliance and Training Manager immediately. The register entry must include what happened, who was involved, the plant and location, and the immediate actions taken.

4.Notifiable incidents

Deaths, serious injuries or illnesses and dangerous incidents as defined in work health and safety legislation must be notified to the regulator immediately by the Safety, Compliance and Training Manager or the General Manager. Rail safety occurrences at the terminal must be notified as required by the Rail Safety National Law. The scene must not be disturbed except to help an injured person or make the area safe.

5.Investigation

The Safety, Compliance and Training Manager will assign an investigator within one business day. Investigations will establish the sequence of events, the contributing factors and the root causes using the five whys method, and will recommend corrective actions with an owner and a due date. Investigations of lost time injuries and near misses with high potential must be completed within ten business days.

• Interview the people involved and witnesses
• Collect photographs, records and system data
• Identify contributing factors and root causes
• Recommend corrective and preventive actions
• Record the investigation in the incident register

6.Closing actions and learning

Corrective actions will be tracked in the incident register until the owner confirms completion and the Safety, Compliance and Training Manager verifies it. Lessons from investigations will be shared at the next toolbox talk and the monthly safety report.