Tree Gear

Safe Work Australia has prepared a Draft National Code of Practice for Safe Access in Tree Trimming and Arboriculture

 

While we welcome the concept of a National COP, the draft started life as a way of getting Crane Assisted Tree Access as done in N.T. officially accepted nationwide, then someone thought it would be a good idea to expand on that and add some tree climbing standards, in haste to meet a deadline of Jan 2012, it was done without appropriate consultation to the industry in my opinion.

 

The draft is poorly considered, and has been prepared with little to no input from the tree industry. As such, the majority of what is written has been cut/pasted from AS1891:Industrial Rope Access standards. On the surface it might all sound ok, but if you dig deeper and look at these standards they are irrelevent to current tree climbing systems & practices. No current tree climbing harness would meet these requirements. 

 

So unless you want to spend the next 5 years dangling in trees from Abseiling rope in an Industrial Fall-Arrest Harness while using a shock-absorbing double lanyard then you need to let Safe Work Australia know that they have got it all wrong, and the draft should not proceed to becoming a Code of Practice untill it has been re-written with input from appropriate industry experts & organisations/associations.

 

I urge all with an interest in continuing with tree work as we know it to make a submission against the draft in it's current format. Your time to fill in 2 simple forms could make a big, big difference. If there is little opposition to this it may be introduced as is and will completely change tree work. You need to fill in the Cover Page document and the Response Form document.

 

Deadline for public comment is 16th December 2011, so you don't have long!  

 

Fill in the Cover Sheet and the Reponse Form and submit them to codes@safeworkaustralia.gov.au 

Let's make sure this is not rushed through and we become stuck with a standard that doesn't work. With the right imput i'm sure a standard can be developed that will help move the industry forward.