Greens spokesperson for Mental Health Hon Alison Xamon MLC has said that the Code of Practice for the mental health of FIFO workers released today, whilst an improvement on the draft previously circulated, still falls short of its promise as a meaningful guide for the prevention of adverse mental health and high suicide rates amongst FIFO workers.
"I have very real concerns about the Code's ability to provide adequate guidance for managers, particularly those who are inexperienced or operating on small, new sites," she said.
An example of this can be seen in the instructions for how to use the code of practice. The instructions state that the document contains mandatory and non-mandatory provisions, with mandatory provisions indicated by the use of the words "must" or "requires".
Yet upon closer inspection of the rest of the Code, the word "must" is not mentioned at all and the word "requires" is only used in contexts not related to legislative requirements.
"Clearly, nothing contained in the Code is mandatory," she said.
"How then is a manager meant to know what their legal obligations are?
"Further, how do we expect a manager to negotiate with their Board for additional funds to improve conditions for their workers without the backing of a clearly defined legislative framework?
"While I appreciate that the final version of the Code has more detail than the draft that was released early last year, it still does not go far enough.
"We know from the research into FIFO work that one third of FIFO workers in WA experience high or very high levels of distress.
"When you consider that almost 10% of WA's population is directly involved in mining – and as the industry ramps up again that proportion is likely to increase – this is a huge issue for our community and one that the government must be taking concrete, and mandated, steps to address now.
