A Framework to Assess Australian Rail Safety

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether fundamental changes to the regulation of labour in the Australia rail industry led to an improvement in rail safety. The regulation of Australian rail safety has, like other regulatory regimes of the contemporary neoliberal era, been restructured from a state-based to national scheme. The new model contains Australia’s first national safety legislation, and the objective of this thesis is to determine whether its standards regulating labour’s knowledge and skills, or competence, have improved rail safety. The national rail safety regulatory regime is commonly described by policy makers and industry operators as one of ‘coregulation’ that contains, notwithstanding a national authority, self-regulation, self-monitoring, and industry control. It has commodified labour’s competence, and transferred its cost to the largely contractual rail workforce. Moreover, the national rail safety regulatory regime has forced labour into hierarchical roles-based structures offering limited occupational choice, and debasing national skills levels.

A conspicuous gap in the current regulatory regime is a suitable tool to assess rail safety and its performance over time. This thesis fills the void, developing ‘The Australian Rail Safety Assessment Framework’ (TARSAF). TARSAF is used to analyse publicly available competence and safety data reported during the period 2008 to 2016 for a select group of rail infrastructure workers. This thesis reveals fundamental flaws in policies, legislation, and the activities of safety regulators undermine worker competence and rail safety. The analysis reveals two significant findings: the introduction of the current model of worker competence led to no measurable improvement in rail safety; and, the national safety regulator has failed to establish a link between the legislated concept of worker competence and rail safety.