State Member for Pine Rivers Carolyn Male encourages local medium sized businesses to take advantage of a free health and safety initiative being offered by the Bligh Government.

Carolyn Male said 60 local medium sized businesses, who are looking to improve their workplace safety, have already registered interest in the initiative.

“I’d urge any other local medium size businesses who are looking to improve their workplace safety to take advantage of this free initiative,” said Carolyn Male.

“Medium size businesses help to keep this state’s economy strong and generate thousands of jobs for Queenslanders. But unfortunately, they have a relatively high incidence of workplace injury.

“While employees in medium sized businesses make up 20 per cent of the Queensland workforce, they account for more than 30 per cent of all worker’s compensation claims,” Carolyn Male said.

This initiative is about working with medium size business to turn these figures around,” said Carolyn Male.

“Workplace Health and Safety inspectors will visit businesses in the Caboolture and north Brisbane areas, including Brendale, Bray Park, Warner, Narangba, Burpengary and Morayfield over the next few months.

“Information kits are available to be mailed to businesses inviting them to register their interest in a free workshop, industry group information session or one-on-one consultation with a WHSQ expert,” Carolyn Male said.

“The free consultation is a chance for WHSQ and businesses to work together to identify health and safety issues in a collaborative way and not as a result of an accident.

“Each year nearly 100 Queenslanders die as a result of a workplace incident and nearly 30,000 workers are seriously injured requiring more than 5 days off work. This costs the Queensland economy $5.2 billion dollars a year.” Carolyn Male said.

This campaign is part of the Government’s commitment to reduce workplace injuries by 40% and fatalities by 20% by 2012.We want to ensure Queensland workers come home safe to their families each day,” Carolyn Male said.

Medium sized businesses interested in participating in this free initiative can contact Workplace Health and Safety Queensland information line on 1300 369 915.