Advocating for Safety's Human Impact with Andrew Ferguson | Scratchie Safety Podcast | Episode 7

Andrew Ferguson joins James for a far-ranging career conversation spanning construction safety, insurance, and community empowerment.

Beginning in the union movement fighting for better worker protections, Andrew grew to lead one of Australia's largest construction unions for 30 years. He's met the grieving families of members lost to a workplace accident. This deeply personal understanding of safety's human impact still motivates him today.

Now Managing Director of specialist insurance broker Coverforce, Andrew explains how data-driven risk management and a culture shift towards prevention are imperative for the industry's future. Can we move from penalising lagging indicators to rewarding leading ones?

With decades advocating for vulnerable groups, Andrew also shares his passions for local government, heritage preservation, multiculturalism, and broad community betterment in Australia. He offers sobering reflections on social cohesion, climate change, rising extremism and prospects for peace.

Tune in for an unfiltered insider perspective from a respected Australian leader still fighting the good fight. 

Ready to take the next step? Visit https://www.scratchie.com/book-a-demo to see how Scratchie can help you recognise and reward safe behaviour on your projects. The future of construction safety starts here.

Transcript

James Kell: Today I'm speaking with Andrew Ferguson. Andrew spent the first 30 years of his career with the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, or as it's more commonly known here in New South Wales, the CFMEU. The CFMEU is a very substantial union and I actually came across Andrew when I sat on the other side of the table. I was a young 20-something CEO of a construction company and Andrew was the Secretary of the Union. And so our relationship started there. Even though we were in different camps, there was always respect. Since 2010, Andrew has left the union entirely and is now running Coverforce insurance, which is a large broker of insurance specifically for the construction industry. So Andrew has stayed within the industry and is in it now in a different aspect of it. And there's many other areas of his life that we're discussing today. So I hope you enjoy a wide ranging conversation with a really interesting Australian. Andrew Ferguson.

James Kell: So welcome, Andrew, it's really great to have you. I've known about you since I was a kid, really. And I was, you know, the son of a builder. And you at the time, I think were running the unions. And I do remember Grandpa saying good things about Stan Sharkey back in the day and Dad saying good things about you and then my own experiences with you and so it's, awesome to interact with you; the two of us doing different things, but in the same industry really, 

Andrew Ferguson: I might say the same industry, different sides of the fence, but we were able to reach out and talk and work through issues in a tough industry. 

Exactly. And I think you were one to teach me in that sense that ultimately what let's say the unions there and I know that's no longer what you do, but it's it's where you come from is to look after the worker and to make sure the worker doesn't get screwed, really. And that is a great thing. And I remember you doing that really well, but this is not about the unions. It's just about a bit of a background piece. Do you want to tell your story basically as a kid? And you know where you grew up and how you grow up and how that's informed, where you are now? 

Well, I come from western Sydney, from a a suburb called Guilford near Granville. For those that don't know Guilford, yeah. If you don't know Granville it's Parramatta. So certainly from Western Sydney, a big part of my background was obviously my parents and in those days it was generally the the man, the husband that worked and my dad left school at 14 years of age. His father was an alcoholic. He ended up living in the streets in Sydney and at 14 years of age my father was the breadwinner. And he worked in every possible job to make a dollar from poultry farms to factories and including asbestos and low paid jobs. But it brought money into a family home. And I remember his story was that there was 30 homes where he lived during his childhood. They didn't pay rent. They didn't have money to pay rent. And when the landlord came around, they all had to be quiet and eventually they were evicted. And I went to another house and that's the way it was. But he had menial jobs, but eventually enlisted became a soldier during World War Two. And very remarkably, the government of the day did did the right thing. And when soldiers returned, that has a special scheme called the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme, and he and many other soldiers had the opportunity to learn a trade and his trade was bricklaying and the stories at the kitchen table were about life in the building trade, not the life of a an investment banker. And the life of a building worker in the late fifties. Sixties when I was growing up was a life where if it rained, workers didn't get paid, so there was no money coming into a family home. And if it rained for five days, there was no wages for five days. So that was the first part of my memory of my my father. But eventually he went into politics. He was a local member of parliament, became a minister for public works. And that's a pretty important portfolio for anyone that have an interest in the building trade. And he became deputy premier. So a lot of my opinions in life were about the building industry and that included workplace safety. And I remember as a child driving around in the back seat of a car with two other brothers and two sisters. So it's pretty squashed. And my father would often proudly point out buildings where he had laid bricks and all the building workers are like that. The story goes he built the whole job, but some of it was just laying steel or laying bricks and. And he often talked about scaffolding and he knew workers that were killed. And in fact, when my late father died, he died of many reasons. But one of them was exposure to asbestos when he was a teenager working with asbestos. So that interest in safety from school. St Patrick's Strathfield I did five years full time at university and probably inevitably I did one of my research papers on the building industry. It was specifically about the deregistration of a union being the Building Workers Industrial Union. Yep, but a big part of that whole history was understanding the struggle, but by working people for better safety. 

Got it. 

Straight after university, conveyor belt to the building union. I was a research officer. I remember a library, lots of books, plenty of dust, no work to do. And I ended up not reading books, but going out on workplaces, organising workers and core business for me was workplace safety, which I know you're very interested in. 

Absolutely. That's that's amazing. And it's interesting hearing because, you know, I remember going around Sydney with my grandfather and the same sort of deal him pointing out we were involved in that project, in that project, you know. So it's it's nice to see your own city and feel more connected to it than than a lot of people might feel. 

Yeah, it's a fantastic city. And when you see all the bricks and mortar, you certainly acknowledge the architects, the builders. But there are many building workers that simply tie steel, pour concrete, and I'm sure they're very proud and they tell their children about their contribution to building this great city. 

Yeah, absolutely. I think the acknowledgment of architects in my background was not always complimentary, shall we say. You know, being a building background, apparently, I remember learning that if you win an architecture award, it's guaranteed to leak, you know, so cutting across to the present just changing tack for a second you're running Coverforce insurance in Sydney and can you tell me a bit about that and what that's doing and who that's sort of representing that sort of thing? 

Yeah, I might say, and I mentioned it from university, went straight into the building union. There was no research to be done. I was the first academic to be employed by the union. I became a union organiser and I ended up secretary of the Union. I did 30 years in the union movement representing laborers and bricklayers. That and after that career, I went into insurance believe it or not, it's a pretty radical change for me in life. And I started off as a business development officer, currently the managing director I've now got 12 years service. So I'm pretty pleased about my entitlement to long service leave, which is about ten and a half weeks pay. So it's a business that was privately owned and the business has grown very rapidly and it ended up being the largest privately owned insurance broker in Australia. And like a lot of family businesses, they either go broke or they do extremely well and this business did extremely well and was sold to Steadfast. So the name Coverforce insurance broking continues. It's a standalone business that's part of the The Steadfast Group and I'm the managing director. And I might say in my working career with the union I was representing bricklayers and laborers about their wages, their working conditions, job safety. I also represented subcontractors when builders went broke, making sure that small businesses were paid one way or another by the developer or by a bank. And now I simply represent clients that need insurance. Got that same DNA about representing someone to act in their interests continues in a different form with clients. 

Yes. And I guess the construction industry is so many moving parts that once you kind of have a bit of an understanding of the industry, you can operate in various parts. 

Right. 

So in running Coverforce, you're still very much in the construction industry. And so using all that experience and I guess the networks that you've built up over the years, 

I think most definitely. And when I walked in the front door of Coverforce, they had a certain client base, and 12 years later, a very large section of the client base is construction. We do concreters, bricklayers, some of the largest builders in Sydney. And those connections I had, despite arguments over the years about pay and working conditions. Many of those builders understood that I was representing my constituency and I knew I was uncompromising and doing a job. And now I'm uncompromising, representing their interests to get good insurance. And if you've got a claim, just like I fought hard for a bloke underpaid, I now fight hard for a client with an insurance company if need be. So a big part of our business now is in the construction space. 

Yes. And how have you seen the industry change over the years since you started? I've been away from it from a 12 years in terms of really appreciating the changes. But if I look at the industry, you see demographic change, which I'm fascinated by demographics. And when I was in the the labor movement, it was very much a European workforce. You had all the Finns out here, the heavy drinkers in formwork, and you had the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Italians concreting was an Italian industry. And ten, ten years later, you see the very dramatic change in the workforce in now the Arabic people in in formwork, you see the Chinese and the Koreans dominating gyprock and ceramic tiling. So I'm fascinated by those changes. I think the sons and daughters of the Europeans went into a different industry and then newly arrived immigrants come into the building trade. So that's quite fascinating. The background of the workforce. I think you see the continuation of subcontracting, and so on. And when your father was building around Sydney, I think he employed a very large workforce, probably including bricklayers, direct and other trades. And now builders employ only a small number of workers, mainly in the manual handling space and project management. And everything is subcontracted out such it's very much a different industry. It's pretty tough. Price is a big issue. I think margins are poor but it's a good industry to be in and that you you see an end product built. The building industry produces homes be it high rise or stand alone infrastructure. It's a great industry. Still delivering a great product. Do you think so? 

You're right back in the day the family building company Kell & Rigby used to employ a lot of workers, pretty much it was vertically integrated. A lot of the trades were employed directly by the company. Dad used to tell me a story of - I think they were working on Sydney University - and the bricklayer, this would have been in the late sixties, the bricklayer would rock up every day like wearing a basically a tux. That was just his thing, you know. So there were some characters, as there are today. What do you think about this rise in subcontracting? It's interesting that there's no builders really that I know of that vertically integrate anymore, they employ their own people, the subcontracting model seems to be everywhere. 

Yeah. 

Your thoughts on it? Or is it merely just how things change? And that's that. 

Oh I think it's inevitably how things change. And market forces and logic decide how people run business. And the end result is subcontracting. I'm sure many people would have a nostalgia about the old days when there was a 100 people with one builder. But market forces, the need for efficiency and productivity have changed the ball game. When I was in the industry, I’ve seen some builders like Grollo or Grocon employ large numbers of formworkers and concreters. But I think even now that's gone. So everyone's adopted a model and there must be compelling market reasons why that happens. 

It's true. And so in terms of safety, so safety has been a big part of of your background and it continues indirectly today to be a part of it because of, you know, insurance is, of course, covering events that happen. And many of these events are safety related. What are your thoughts on the concept of encouraging people to be more safe? Or where do you think safety is at as a broader question in the industry today? 

I think without any doubt, safety standards have improved. I know some people say, oh, safety is worse than then 20 years ago. I don't accept that. I think safety most definitely has been improved. And I think the number of fatalities is the the good litmus test about where we are. The number of fatalities has gone down. So that's a significant improvement. And I think without a doubt, rules and regulations are a very important part of it. It's an industry that was overwhelmingly deregulated, and I know some of the big battles in this industry were for things that we now take for granted, like scaffolding on the exterior of buildings is something in the forties and fifties cause strikes when people fought to have scaffolding. And now you see scaffolding around not just high rise jobs, but even sometimes houses and and small commercial jobs. So that's a significant improvement. In the 1960s and seventies, asbestos was widely used and we know the dangers of asbestos. And it was the building unions that took strike action to ban asbestos. And I remember in my first month of work going to the the hospital at Camperdown, where a group of plasterers took strike action because they didn't want to install asbestos in a public hospital. And that was controversial when I started. And the actions of building unions led the way. Their members were dying from exposure. And the they understood it much better than perhaps a member of parliament or a a builder or a CEO. No disrespect. Yeah. And following those strikes, eventually government came on board. And there was a ban in the mid seventies on asbestos going into new projects. We still have an asbestos problem on buildings where built in the sixties and seventies where there's renovation work or demolition. So there's now a specialist licensing. And I remember when I started workers dying from demolition sites and demolition had some of the worst accidents and fatalities. And those accidents killed not just workers, but members of the public. And then we had the introduction of licensing for demolition companies. You don't drive on the road without a car license, but people could demolish buildings and not have a license, for example. So things have improved. So I'm very much supportive of rules and regulations. But I know improving standards is not just rules and regulations. It's about working out ways to motivate to reward good behavior. 

Yeah, exactly. And it's interesting you say safety has improved over the last 20 years because we've looked at the data and it agrees with that. Of course, if you look at I think it's deaths per 100,000 workers being the metric, it was say let's say three back in 2000 and then it went down to one and a half by 2015. So it's like obviously a great improvement. But interestingly, we've found since 2015 it hasn't improved at all. In fact, I think it's it's it's kind of heading up a bit now. Our theory - and it's played out in practice - is that with carrot and stick, if you only have the stick, it will only take you so far. And we we reckon in those 15 years of regulation and compliance, you know, it's improved things. And then people were demotivated. They were like, “oh my God, it's like a red light camera. I don't feel good about this. All I can do is get busted for being unsafe.” Where's the flipside to that? And that's exactly as you say. It also involves encouragement and rewards and that sort of thing, which is exactly what we're doing. And it's shown some really good outcomes. And when we first met about this in December. You were pretty quick to say you don't think insurance companies necessarily would be interested in it because they're sort of more interested in the data itself than in real safety. I'd love to explore your thoughts on that more. And I loved hearing the the kind of provocative honesty from your side of the table when you said that. Where do you think insurance companies would sit with with something like Scratchie, which rewards workers on the spot for being safe or even if it's not Scratchie, but just anything that encourages safety? Do you still you still believe that it might be just too abstract for them? Or is it is there some sort of, you know, some avenue where they might say, actually, this is really interesting to us

I don't want to be disrespectful to the insurance industry. I'm joking when I say that. I think they're very slow moving. A lot of the insurance companies in Australia are global operators and I don't think they give sufficient attention to detail. I know if someone's killed they pay more attention because they might have to pay a claim, for example. And I don't think there's sufficient understanding of the detail of these issues. I know there's one space, for example, when there's been a fatality, for example, or a serious injury, the cost of insurance for that company will go up. And I know a good insurance broker can do a submission to say, ..."well, these people have learned a lesson." It's that if that's the case and they've now introduced the following initiatives, for example, they've trained the whole of their workforce. Not yesterday, but yesterday, today and tomorrow. So training is an important part of improving standards because we want sustainable improvement in understanding safety and the importance of it, not just to wack someone over the head and say you've done something wrong so a good insurance broker can provide that information and that can guide a client about what they need to do. And it's not to pretend or try and trick an insurance company to provide evidence. So training is important, employing capable people that have got a track record on safety, safety officers that have got a good CV. So that's helpful. And then there's a need for a broker to outline all the detail about the other initiatives that a builder or a contractor's had that shows a real commitment. And I think Scratchie can be part of that. But I think that's very specific where you're arguing the issue arising from a claim and proving to an insurance company these people have learned and they aren't the risk they were yesterday or last month. But as a general principle, I think they're very slow moving in appreciating these issues, unless they're nose to nose of a claim and a cost that's been imposed on their business, they should be more proactive. But I don't think that depth of understanding really exists inside the boardrooms of a lot of the big insurance companies around the world. 

And is that a market thing or is there space for let's say there was a dream insurance company that was super proactive and interested in the detail and everything. Is there space for someone like that to succeed, do you think? 

I'm not sure and I'd like to have an opinion, but being not sure is a pretty safe position because that's how I feel. As I say, they're global players and they have boardrooms and this sort of detail, I don't think necessarily filters in sufficiently. But if there's an insurance company that pays more attention to detail, they can do business with clients will have less claims. Be it on safety or environmental damage or, or whatever it is. And if you've got better clients with less claims, you increase your profitability. So it's an issue that industry needs to work on. Being peak employer organisations, master builders, housing industry associations, working with insurance brokers that specialise in construction to try and have this dialog with an industry to get better prices and to help drive better safety and better performance. 

I agree. I mean, I remember when I was working in China, we were building factories and Black & Decker was one factory we were building. And there their insurer was Factory Mutual. And Factory Mutual has gone out on its own and has said, “okay, we actually want to reduce the risk at the source. So let's create-” – and forgive me if you already know of this, but for the listeners, Factory Mutual say “if you do these things in your design and construction of your factory, then we will insure you at this rates”. Good rates. “And if you don't do those things we won't insure you”. So I love how they have been so forward, they've been so proactive in knowing the risks. You reduce them in design and construction and you've got it now so I wonder if there’s something. And sort of as an aside: Tesla. Tesla is now doing insurance and they are going to smash it out of the park because they have all the telemetry of the vehicle that they're insuring. So they say to me, who has a lead foot, your insurance is X, and they say to you, who's a careful driver, your insurance is Y, very different insurance, because they know intimately how we drive and how risky I am, as opposed to Geico that just sees the two of us as, you know, males in a certain age group, the end. So I wonder, you know, perhaps there is something like a Factory Mutual kind of different approach to insurance that actually says, hey, are you the builder doing these things? Because if you are, then we'll insure you at this rate or something like that. And one of those things might be rewarding workers for being safe. 

Yeah, I think I think that's definitely the case. And whilst I'm critical of the lack of depth inside insurance companies about these sorts of issues. I know from my experience of broking that there are situations where you can argue the case with an insurance company long as you are equipped to know all the arguments. I'll give you an example. Coverforce does a lot of strata insurance and there's a lot of buildings. I won't overplay it, but a number of buildings in Sydney where you can no longer get insurance because of defects and a good broker and we've got a designated team on brokers and this is no sales pitch here. But they understand construction. They understand what needs to be done to deal with defects. They know which defects are real and are a real risk to an insurer and which ones are a less of a risk. And they know what needs to be done to make it a better project and more insurable. So you can argue the case when there's detail to argue a case. So there's a lot of scope for this, but requires a lot of highly skilled people inside the broking industry to argue for clients. 

Yes. Okay, cool. All right. Well, changing tack, you're also involved in various community things. I was just stalking your LinkedIn. Can you talk a bit about what you've been involved in in terms of the multicultural piece and any other community involvement that you've got? 

Well as I mentioned, a pretty straightforward life: school, five years of full time university, 30 years in the union and 12 years in insurance. But during the whole of my working life, I've been interested in issues of social justice and community empowerment. I'm also an elected member of a council in Sydney. It's one of the smaller ones. It's the city of Canada Bay council. I live in that area and I got elected to council in 2017, reelected in 2021. We'll run again in 2024. And that allows me to look after the interests of local residents. I mentioned when I was in the union, I looked after labourers and bricklayers and companies not paid and in insurance I looked after clients to make sure they've got good in good insurance and battle a case for a claim and council allows me to continue my interest in life, which is representing people. And so I take up issues of potholes and broken swings and excessive council rates. So which I love doing. And I might say that probably comes back to childhood actually when my father was a local member of Parliament in those days there was no electoral office, there was no staff. And anyone that had a problem with state government used to knock on the front door, come inside the house. The office was the back verandah. Right. And in this house you had two adults and five children and three bedrooms. So the verandah should have been really turned into an extra bedroom. But it was the office. And I sat there in my pajamas and I watched my father interview someone. Someone would talk about their problem, he would ask questions, he would make representations. And often my mum had to sit there and then type a letter. She wasn't being paid and she'd type a letter to take up a case for a battler. So from from my childhood I've seen the concept of representing the interests of people and it's my DNA and I've done it all my life. So I like being on the council. Yep. And if there's any people out there that live in the Canada Bay area, from Rhodes to Concord right through to Drummoyne, I'm after your vote. Right? I'm also active in multiculturalism. I'm fascinated by the the history of this country, which is a history of immigration, of people coming from every part of the world. And we've done extremely well in this country to build a multicultural society. So I was active in forming a multicultural group in Rhodes for us, living a number of years ago called the Rhodes Multicultural Community Association. And the first task was to help teach people, English people arriving from overseas. And I was fascinated by that and very supportive of that community organisation. I'm the patron of the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia. In memory of my late father, as I said, he died of many reasons, but asbestos was one of them and I seen him at the end of his working life with tubes in an oxygen bottle struggling to breathe. And I know the importance of good safety. So I do work in that space. And the other organisation I work on is I'm a patron of a an organisation promoting the public deployment of defibrillators. Right. And we all know when Kerry Packer had his scare that we ended up with defibrillators in I think every ambulance in New South Wales or Australia, and I think we need more public deployment of defibrillators. When someone has a heart attack, you've probably got about 5 minutes to help them out. And if there's a long delay, you end up with brain damage. And if you have defibrillation, you can actually save someone and avoid brain damage. So that's a nice space to work in trying to get more public defibrillators available in our society. 

Got it and back to the multicultural piece and Australia generally. As you pointed out, Australia's done very well out of adopting that policy. Do you see there being is it is it a balance, what's too much in that sense? And, you know, what's the right path sort of thing obviously not enough -  we've seen what that looks like and it's pretty sort of bland and stale and that sort of thing. And we've also seen a huge enrichment and color brought about through multiculturalism. But is there too much in any sense? 

I think it's like everything in life. Don't drink too much, don't drive too fast. And I we occasionally go over the speed limits. It's all about the right balance and the dial's got to be turned by government. Government needs to monitor how it works, immigration policies and the job market. And at different points of time, you increase the dial and at other points of time you should be more careful. So it's just about public policy, getting the balance right as humanly possible and sometimes will make mistakes. And then we've got to rectify mistakes. But I think overwhelmingly government, Liberal, Labor have done pretty good in this country from postwar. Moving from a white Australia policy into accepting people from Europe, from wartorn countries, and now increasingly from other parts of the world. So I think it's worked well and inevitably we've made mistakes, but overwhelmingly it's been a fantastic outcome for this country. I know it's a simple example, but when I was growing up in Guilford there was only one Chinese restaurant, plenty of milk bars. You go to Guilford now, there's every possible thing from kebabs to laziko, and it's made our our world so exciting. And we've been enriched so much. 

Oh, I totally agree. In moderation. In moderation. What did Oscar Wilde say? Everything in moderation, including moderation. 

Yeah, right. Oscar Wilde. Yeah. 

Fantastic. So Australia, more broadly than just the multicultural piece. Where do you see Australia heading? Are you are you an optimist? What are your thoughts as we as we push forward in this strange world? 

I think we've got to be greatly concerned by the the environmental issues. Climate change is real. And you watch national television every night and you see the climatic issues of floods and fires. And I find it quite scary. And I know the other part of the news bulletin is about wars around the world as well. And so I don't see a lot of good news on television every night. And I'd love to say everything's fine and we're all moving in the right direction. But there's so many storm clouds. Extremism, be it not just in the Middle East or somewhere in Asia, but the forces in the United States where the country is so polarised. And I didn't see that ten years ago. I think it's a big worry for all of us. I think we're a bit quarantined in Australia and I know there's extremists on all sides of politics, but overwhelmingly the center ground here and a pretty stable political system. We're not quarantined from the environmental issues and hopefully we will be quarantined from from war. I do worry about being dragged into war, and I know there's lots of forces around the world and there's lots of issues. But I just think we need to be patient and it's good to have some people see it is good to shout at other countries and other issues. I think we should be trying as best as possible to use diplomacy and patience to work through issues rather than letting it spiral out of control. I won't be going to war, but there'll be young men and women that go to war that will be killed. And I do worry about war and I do worry about environmental change. So there are lots of storm clouds. I hate to say it, but I do worry. 

Well, I guess. Who was it? Tom Robbins, that seventies author, I think he wrote Still Life With Woodpecker I don't know if you've come across that but he in that in that book he said – and this is the seventies – he said “well the world situation is critical, as usual”, and you know so I sometimes wonder that we feel as though our situation… not to trivialize it, but just to sort of bring it into perspective. We think that our situation is critical kind of all the time, really. And whether that's just a state of mind, I don't know. Because if you take a step back and you look at the prosperity of the world of Australia, it's remarkable. And yet. And yet. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder that we tie ourselves up in knots rather than sort of smelling the flowers, you know? 

Yeah, I think that's pretty true as well. I do flag issues of war and environmental change, but there's so many good things. We do have a problem with cost of living I know that there are probably a lot of people in poverty, but they're probably not as poor as generations were 40 years ago. So there's lots of things that have improved. But we've got to work hard to build cohesion in this country looking after the interests of everyone and ensuring proper balance. 

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, poverty. I mean, it's it's relative. Relativity is a big part of it too, isn't it? You may not be as poor as generations prior. You may be able to afford shoes and that sort of thing. But it looking relatively it's I don't know, it's it's a much more complex thing than just money really, isn't it?

Now, James, you did tell me if I come on the program here, I'd get a Scratchie, So I'm looking forward to the tell my granddaughter I'm going to bring home a Scratchie tonight. 

Oh, is that right? 

How does it work anyway? 

Yeah, so well. So let's say you're a plasterboarder and and I'm your supervisor and you come over and you say, James, I've, I've just seen that there's a hole in the scaffold. Have you noticed that? And I say I, I didn't notice that Andrew, but thanks for letting me know. And I choose height safety and you scan my QR code and then there's a countdown. Five, four, three, two, one. And you win ten, 20 or 50 bucks on the spot. Right. And so you go, well, this is awesome. And then you go back to the site shed, and the other workers at lunch go, what was that? What happened with you and James, are you all good? And you say, mate, I just won 20 bucks! And they go, How'd you do that? And it's like, Oh, well, you know, that hole in the scaffold that we've seen for the last two or three days? I just told him about it and he was happy with me and so he awarded me. And so that causes the conversation in the site shed at lunchtime to change for them to go, How do I play this game? What do I need to do? And then they say: apparently on this job, you just need to be more safe and you need to be shown to be safe and you can win things. And so it becomes a bit of a game and it's something that I remember in when I started my apprenticeship in the early nineties, before safety was really a thing. It was just at the end of that sort of happy go lucky era. And there was a lot of joy actually in the construction industry. There's a lot of "unsafety" as well. Don't get me wrong, but I think in this push to improve safety over the last 20 or 30 years, a lot of the joy has left the industry, a lot of the banter, a lot of that, that kind of lightness, levity, whatever it is. And so we find that in and I think a lot of that has to do with this, the heavy weight of regulations and of and compliance and of this whole if you don't do this, you get busted. And, you know, it's all done with good intentions, but it's heavy. And so, you know, we find that rewarding workers or enabling that to happen, just lifts it a bit more, you know. 

But I think the other concept is rewarding people and maybe got to have a Scratchie to fine people that do the wrong thing as well That'll get people to pay attention now. The real issue here, James, is how I make a buck out of this. So I'm on the local council. My wife hates it, but on weekends I if I find a pothole or a trip hazard on the footpath, I take a photograph. There's some way that I can make a dollar out of this as well? Maybe the council that comes on the council should do it and they reward ratepayers that dob in potholes. 

They totally could. I'm happy to have it work with you on that. 

I don't control this council, but it's not a bad idea. I reckon I'd be pretty rich. Well, you know, I think encouraging people is something that it's a really interesting psychology. 

A lot of the time we hear people go, oh, look, that group of people that won’t work, you can't encourage them, you can't reward them for that sort of thing, that won't motivate them. And then you ask them about their own group. ‘Oh, you know, it'll work with us; $10 will go a long way as a reward or $20’. So we tend to think that groups that are not our own won't get encouraged, won't get motivated by rewards, but will by punishment, whereas ourselves ‘don't punish us so much, but more rewards’. And it's really interesting how we humans have a hard time putting ourselves in other people's shoes, you know? So yeah, I think there's a really broad application like, you know, across industries, across councils, wherever humans need to be rewarded, which is the right balance. 

Bit of stick, bit of stick, and a lotta reward for. 

Yeah, exactly, exactly that. We're not against the stick. Definitely, but it's just not everything, you know? 

Absolutely. 

Yeah. Great. Well, closing thoughts. Have you got anything else you want to cover you'd like the listeners to hear? 

Well, key issue is just sending me the Scratchie. I do think you've got a good product Coverforce have got a lot of clients in construction and I suspect a few are already on board with this scheme. So I hope more come on board and I'll certainly keep this in mind when I'm talking to people because I'm very much committed to workplace safety. When I was with the union, I met every widow. It's always widows because there's not many women in those days in construction. And I met all the families of workers killed. I built a wall at Lidcombe with the names of every worker that died when I was there. Their name, their age one, was 17 years of age. One was 21 years of age, falling off a roof not far from here at Broadway. Another one was 23, who died up here at Surry Hills on a job. So I'm very committed to workplace safety. And if I can do anything to assist this campaign to improve workplace safety, I'm very interested and I know Scratchie is part of that agenda. 

Thank you, Andrew. Thanks for coming today and look forward to working with you on that.

I thank you very much.

James Kell: So there we have it, everyone. Andrew Ferguson, an Australian with a passion for representing people, whether it's in the union space or safety or insurance or local government. Thanks for listening and I look forward to speaking again very soon. This is James Kell from Scratchie, have a great week.