New OHS laws divide experts

New OHS laws based on a national Model Act will bring "a race to the bottom" or much-needed clarity for employers, say experts at the recent Safety Conference in Sydney. All agreed the changes will have a big impact on employers and unions in New South Wales.On October 27, a line-up of eight experts, including lawyers, Professor Ron McCallum, the chair of Safe Work Australia, WorkCover NSW's general manager and Comcare's general manager of prevention and rehabilitation discussed the biggest reform of OHS law in 30 years. Three issues dominated discussion: the burden of proof, personal liability of company officers, and the impact on prosecutions. Neil Foster, senior law lecturer from the University of Newcastle, believes personal liability is at the heart of the changes."The harmonisation process seems to have been driven by directors' fears ofpersonal liability and the hope that there would be some watering down ofthe laws," he says."In my view, the Model Act inappropriately waters down the personal responsibility of company officers, although I do support some of the proposed changes in this area, including the acknowledgement that the officer has obligations to exercise due diligence to protect the workers. But with the change to the current onus of proof provisions, it is quite possible that guilty people will now escape justice."Michael Tooma of Deacons law firm, who moderated The Safety Conference's harmonisation panel discussion, said that while current state laws differ in their approach to the approach to personal liability of officers, all will be reshaped by the proposed Model Act. "Despite the range of liabilities, all have one thing in common: the officer will be personally liable only if their company commits an offence," Mr Tooma says. "The new regime does not require this."

Is that a GPS in your pocket?

Australia’s digital mapping expert, Whereis is giving one lucky AHJ reader the opportunity to WIN a Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman phone, with a 12 month free subscription to Whereis Navigator, providing you with the business tools to always make it to your next job on time.
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Telstra customers with selected Telstra Next G GPS enabled mobile phones can access the Whereis Navigator service for just $15 a month or $4 a day or download a free seven-day trial. To download Navigator and access a free seven-day trial scan the code below or type the following URL into your mobile Web browser http://offboardnav.whereis.com. For more information and details of handset compatibility, visit: http://www.telstra.com/navigator.
To enter the draw, read the Hardware Journal eNewsletter to locate the mystery question. Not getting it? Contact me at peta@glenv.com.au I’ll send you a copy and add you to the mailing list for future editions. Send your answers to me at the above email address before 30 September. The winner will be drawn on 1 October and announced in next month’s eNewsletter.

In the open at last

Woolworths has announced its bid to takeover Danks, Australia’s second largest hardware retailer. The deal is a joint venture between US number two hardware giant, Lowes, and Woolworths. Lowes will get a one third stake in the deal, which has been unanimously recommended by the Danks board. The share offer of $13.50, on top of the $0.53 approved final dividend, values the company at $87.6 million dollars. This is 65% up on Danks’ last closing price of $8.20. Rumours of Woolworths’ intent to enter the $24 billion hardware market ignited earlier this year when Woolies hired property specialist Richard Champion from Harvey Norman. It was reported that his role would be to locate 120 sites worth a collected $1.8 billion. Interestingly, Woolies hotel partner, Bruce Mathieson, is the landlord of the Mitre 10 mega store at Keysborough in Melbourne, thought to be Woolworths’ first store site. Woolworths now says it intends to locate a total of 150 new sites within the next five years (Bunnings currently has 175) the first of which will open in fiscal 2011. It has already secured 12 sites, with reports it is in final negotiations for another 15 greenfield sites, all of which would house stores of over 10,000 square metres. The Woolworths offer is subject to regulatory approval, will remain valid for six weeks and requires a minimum of 90% acceptance from shareholders. If it gets the go ahead, the acquisition will have a positive earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) and earnings per share contribution from day one, said Woolworths chief executive Michael Luscombe. “At the moment the sector is dominated by one major big box player, so there is a real opportunity for increased competition in that part of the sector,” said Michael. Danks currently services 939 independent hardware stores as well as 205 Home Timber & Hardware stores, 312 Thrifty-Link Hardware stores and 66 Plants Plus Garden Centre stores.

Update

Doing a quick search, even if the hardware companies themselves aren't yet using social networking sites to promote their businesses, their customers are talking about them online.

There were 20 tweets on Bunnings in the last 24 hours. Mitre 10 scored a few less, but they were more business targeted. One person commented that they liked a particular advert. Another complained about product unavailability. Search on a brand, and the top tool companies are being talked about too. And there were even classified adverts of products for sale.

It all helps to highlight that, if you're a bigger company, the chances are that your customers are talking about you in these forums. And I guess you have a choice: do you monitor and get involved in shaping that discussion, or is ignorance bliss?

Well, I'm no technological whizz. I've only been 'social networking' for about an hour. Before that, I could find my way around my emails ok and had my own Facebook page, but I am a twitter and blogging virgin. Yet, within the hour, I've created a Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and You Tube account. Do you need all of them as part of your online marketing plan? Probably not. But I'm trying to get a feel for how they all interconnect.

The results
As a starting point, although familiar, Facebook wasn't that exciting. It's more for individuals than companies. Once I have developed a community of 'friends', I guess it will be a good way to keep them up to date. But developing that community may take some time and a concerted effort on my part.

Twitter is going to get some getting used to. It's short messages, less than 140 characters in length and I suppose it will be handy once I get my online community up and running. I'll use it to announce events or promotions, reinforce advert deadlines and the like. But, like Facebook, it's not worth a damn if my customers aren't online and listening to those messages. The argument runs that social networking is cheaper than more traditional marketing, but this rings hollow if you have to advertise that you're now online.

This site, Blogger, was probably the best of them all. Although I still don't have any people following the blog, at least I felt like I could 'create' something so that when they do all flood online, they'll have something fully formed to read.

The site has a host of ways for me to promote my business. I can earn money from it by adding other people's adverts. Google searches your blog to see what you write about most often, and selects adverts that fit with your writing.

I've also managed to upload a video from Assa Abloy's recent Lock Case event (which I had already uploaded to my You Tube account). But I haven't found out how to isolate it so it's the only one playing. I've also uploaded photos, links to my twitter page and a link to www.hardwarejournal.com. All in all, not a bad hour spent.

I'll comment on the Hardware Journal's latest online activities in our September newsletter. We'll have to wait and see if that pushes people to these sites, or if they find them on their own.

Wish us luck!!!

Hardware Journal gets social

Here at the Australian Hardware Journal, we decided to run an article on the advantages of using social networking and blogging sites as part of your marketing campaign. As we couldn't really recommend it to readers without first having tried it ourselves, we're giving it a go - and this is our first post!

So far, it all seems pretty self explanatory. I've created a facebook page, and a twitter account, I've even tweeted for the first time. What I want to know is will people really read this stuff? Are you out there AHJ readers?