Season 7 Wrap: The Growing Divide of Moral Imperative & Commercial Reality in WHS

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance Podcast
Season 7, Episode 10

In this season finale of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis reflect on Season 7's central theme of SFAIRP and the growing divide between moral imperative of work health and safety legislation and the commercial pressures organisations face in practice.

After their recap of topics covered, the conversation focuses on AI's growing role in decision, using marine pilotage as their example. Richard outlines ways AI could be applied, such as AI as the pilot, with crew simply responding to its instructions; a smarter Personal Pilotage Unit (PPU) that draws on historical passage data of what previous pilots did under similar conditions, while leaving the final call to the human pilot; and TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) where the system directs action in an emergency. 

The finish the episodes with their concerns of how commercial forces are pushing AI tools as replacements for human judgement, while the safety case for that level of trust hasn't been made, and the instinct to treat AI output as gospel needs to be actively resisted.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis wrap up the season and the theme of the growing divide of moral imperative versus commercial reality.

(00:16):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, head to the website www.r2a.com.au and we look forward to seeing you in Season 8!

Gaye Francis (00:40):

Hi, Richard. Welcome to the season wrap for season seven. SFAIRP, the moral imperative versus the commercial reality. It's been an interesting season and I think we've covered quite a lot of topics.

Richard Robinson (00:53):

Somewhat to your surprise, I've decided.

Gaye Francis (00:56):

Very much to my surprise. So (episodes): To Grock or Not. Resilient Infrastructure. Risk and Adaptation Strategies. Delayed Decisions to Avoid SFAIRP - I think that's been really well listened to. We did a special on the New Zealand amendment to their Health and Safety at Work legislation to focus on criticality, which we really applauded, and we're hoping that Australia goes the same way. Ignorance in Health and Safety. Cunning versus Smart in Leadership. How Information Sharing has Changed with SFAIRP in the Internet and the Public Sphere. And then Risk Curves was our last podcast for this season before this one.

(01:40):

We were having a discussion before we started recording this about what we were actually going to cover in the wrap and the little joke we may have to contain, Richard. There's some hot topics here that he's got some passion about. But I think one of the key things was that we're seeing that divide between what the moral imperative of as the work health and safety legislation and safety legislation versus the commercial reality. And I think the divide's getting bigger.

Richard Robinson (02:09):

Yes.

Gaye Francis (02:12):

Also, it's the way that people are now assessing what to do and the initiatives that are being taken and the innovations that are needed. And we are relying heavily on the ... And so this is now your opening, Richard. We're now relying heavily on the internet and AI in particular to help us inform those decisions, although more people are starting to rely on AI to potentially make decisions.

Richard Robinson (02:44):

Yes. Well, your children, for example, tend to regard it as gospel.

Gaye Francis (02:47):

They do. We've had the discussion and our producer did say that my girls are used as examples in these podcasts, but often that's the first thing that comes up on the internet when they do a search is the AI summary of whatever they've put in to ask a question or something. And I had to say to them, where did the source come from? And they didn't (know). They looked at me as if I was stupid and didn't really understand that.

Richard Robinson (03:14):

I don't know if you've tried it a couple of times, but I did a couple of searches on due diligence and safety due diligence and so forth and the reference is R2A.

Gaye Francis (03:21):

Oh, there you go.

Richard Robinson (03:23):

And it's the core reference. Now that was a bit of a surprise to me because I don't even know which AI I was using because Apple I think has gone with Google, I think.

Gaye Francis (03:33):

Right.

Richard Robinson (03:34):

So it's a bit hard to tell sometimes what's actually going on out there. But anyway, you want me to say my piece now?

Gaye Francis (03:40):

Yes, you can say your piece now.

Richard Robinson (03:41):

Well, I've been invited to give a presentation for the Marine Pilots in Darwin in the next month or something like that. So I was trying to work out what to say and talking about it. And one of the things that sort of pops up obviously is what's going to be the role of AI for marine pilotage. Now the whole point about marine pilots is that they're there because they're dealing with critical things because collisions or groundings with ships is bad news. And if you have a major environmental contamination or what happened in the Jolly Nero in Genoa and you knock the control tower down or something like that and a lot of people get killed, all hell breaks loose.

Gaye Francis (04:12):

High consequence, low likelihood.

Richard Robinson (04:15):

And that's the reason why marine pilots exist and why they norminally get civil immunity from all these sorts of things as long as they're acting in good faith. Now the trick is of course, because the SFAIRP business and the WHS legislation, you've got to do all reasonably practical things. And one of the things that pops up, obviously, what's the role of AI and what benefits can it provide you and ought you to be considering this. Now we've sort of looked at over time different places where things could act. I mean, we sort of commented when we're doing the grounding in Tai Ping in Southport, New Zealand all those years ago now.

Gaye Francis (04:45):

Almost 20 years ago, I think it was.

Richard Robinson (04:46):

Closer to 25 Gaye.

Gaye Francis (04:48):

Okay.

Richard Robinson (04:50):

And so forth. But one of the things we noticed, there were three pilots on the water, one on having the conduct of the vessel and one on the tug tied past the stern, and one on the pilot at the other end of the channel. And because it's very short, quick passage, as they approach their abort point, the point of no return, the pilot on the bridge asks the other two pilots, "Oh, look." But that means they've effectively got three pilots - first, second and third pilot, which is obviously very rare. But because it's such a short passage and it's convenient to do and you have the resources, it was reasonable in the circumstances and because the passage was a particularly awkward and difficult passage. Now obviously the question of a second pilot...

Gaye Francis (05:27):

Is coming up more and more, especially as the operating envelope of the pilotage...

Richard Robinson (05:35):

Bigger vessels, port size not changing, wider conditions, bring it in no matter come hell or high water, commercial pressures.

Gaye Francis (05:42):

The constraints are becoming more restrictive, aren't they?

Richard Robinson (05:46):

But if it's a two and a half hour pilotage coming down the Brisbane river or something like that, second pilots are expensive.

(05:52):

And so that obviously begs the question, what could an AI do for you? And it actually can do a number of things. One of the things that's popped up in the last 30 years obviously is the personal pilotage unit, which is a backup independent NAVAID, which these days looks at six or seven satellite geosatellites up there, but you could actually, at the highest level, actually have the AI as the pilot in effect and the ship crew just responding to the AI. Now that's a pretty scary idea, particularly since AI seems to hallucinate a fair bit of the time and tells you what you think they want to hear, not what is actually the case. We did do assessment on large language models and we won't talk about them again now, but they're just for the most part, giant inference engines. And so the more data they've got and the more times the pilot has been done, the better information you'd have.

(06:43):

But the other way to do it, for example, the PPU could actually be upgraded to in effect what would be a watchdog and it would say, over the last 2000 passages and this thing under these conditions of this size ship, here's the recommended path that you should probably follow. And if the wind or something suddenly changes, here's what the other pilots and the other times did, what would you like to do? And you have to still make the decision.

Gaye Francis (07:05):

But then you're using it in two different ways. The second way that you're using it is to improve situational awareness and to give you as much information, but the pilot is still making the decision of what they do in the circumstances.

Richard Robinson (07:18):

I suspect that's not going to change. I reckon the pilot's still got to be in charge.

Gaye Francis (07:21):

The other one is almost going to the pilot model of the TCAS system that we've talked about where it's advising or instructing you what to do.

Richard Robinson (07:35):

TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) get a resolutionary advisor for two approaching aircraft, go up, go up, go up, electronic voice to one pilot, go down, go down, go down, and electronic voice, the other pilot. And if you get that message, that's what you do.

Gaye Francis (07:48):

But I don't think AI is at a robust enough state to be able to do that.

Richard Robinson (07:54):

Well see, it depends what you mean by AI. And here's where it's starting to get messy because the current investment is for giant data centers. There's one popping up in East Fooscray, apparently which is driving the locals nuts. Huge power consumption, lots of heat and it becomes obsolete within two years and everything goes to the data center and the data comes back and all these people are trying to figure out how to make money out of you, but you still got to rely on internet communication. And in real time, are you going to rely on something that relies on internet communication even if Apple has done a deal with Starlink? I don't think so. But then you've got the other model, which is what Apple's trying to do. They're trying to drive AI down to the local device and you're looking at the two commercial of those two, I reckon Apple's got the edge. I think they're more likely because their chips now are so far ahead, it's getting embarrassing. Their latest, if you buy a MacBook, it's just a big iPhone. It's not actually...

Gaye Francis (08:54):

A computer.

Richard Robinson (08:54):

Well, it is a computer, but it's a giant iPhone in effect. And if that's what a PPU turns into with massive computing power, the M5 chip and it's got the AI on board with all the passage plans that have been used on that passage for the last 20 or 30 years into it and it's telling you this starts to happen, this is what the other pilots did.

Gaye Francis (09:17):

But you would want to think that through as you're doing it though. I mean, that's some of these things that we've talked about in this podcast about the ignorance and delaying decisions and all of that sort of thing. If you go back to just relying on an AI computer model to tell you...

Richard Robinson (09:33):

If the ship blacks out at this point unexpectedly. Under these weather conditions. This is what the last guy did.

Gaye Francis (09:39):

Okay. But then you're using it as by exception, whereas I think they want us to use it as the tool to do all of these things.

Richard Robinson (09:48):

Yes, that's right.

Gaye Francis (09:50):

So from a commercial imperative or from a commercial reality viewpoint, they're pushing these tools toward you, but from a safety and a moral imperative, we really have to treat some of these tools with a little bit of caution, maybe?

Richard Robinson (10:05):

Skepticism perhaps.

Gaye Francis (10:07):

Maybe I've got a bit too much, but I think that balance hasn't been put in place yet, especially around the safety aspects.

Richard Robinson (10:17):

And the commercial imperative, because I don't know how much money and how many billions and billions these people are spending on the giant centers, but they want to make a pile of money out of everybody and tie you into it. And I don't think as a society, I mean, you've heard me saying how I'm looking forward to disconnecting myself from a lot of this stuff.

Gaye Francis (10:35):

He reckons he's going to go back to a wind watch when he retires.

Richard Robinson (10:38):

I am. Well, I think I might go for one for sooner than that, the way it's going.

Gaye Francis (10:43):

So it's just an interesting space that we're in. There's this push to automate and have AI do these things and start to make some of these decisions. But I think we've got to step back, especially in the health and safety sphere and just treat it with a little bit of caution.

Richard Robinson (11:03):

With any luck, I've managed to give you a substantial grounding for how you're going to address your children when it comes to the use of AI.

Gaye Francis (11:10):

Carefully, I think the answer is.

Richard Robinson (11:12):

Very carefully.

Gaye Francis (11:13):

So I think that's a good place to finish season seven. We will be back for season eight. Haven't quite got a topic in mind yet, but we will be back next season. So thank you again for joining us. Thanks, Richard.

Richard Robinson (11:24):

Thanks, Gaye.

Risk Curve: Modelling the “Ideal” Hazard

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance
Season 7, Episode 10

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the mathematics behind risk modelling and why relying on heat maps for decision-making can have limitations.

Richard and Gaye explore the concept of the "ideal" hazard risk curve, unpacking why every hazard carries its own unique risk profile rather than a neat line of constant risk. Drawing on Heinrich's accident triangle and the hyperbolic relationship between consequence and likelihood, Richard walks through the calculus of integrating under a risk curve, and why simply "spotting the dot" on a five-by-five risk matrix can underestimate high-consequence, low-likelihood events by an order of magnitude or more.

They discuss the limitations of the standard risk matrix for large organisations dealing with vastly different scales of risk, and why New Zealand's updated WHS legislation is shifting focus toward identifying critical hazards and credible controls first, rather than getting bogged down debating likelihood.

Key takeaways:

• Heat maps are useful for communication, but dangerous as standalone decision-making tools

• The area under the risk curve matters – it's far larger than a single dot suggests

• Safety risk assessment should prioritise critical hazards and reasonable controls over likelihood arguments

Note: This episode references slides, for the full visual experience you may prefer to watch the video recording.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the Risk Curve: Modeling the "Ideal" Hazard.

(00:14):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:33):

Hi Richard. Welcome to another podcast session.

Richard Robinson (00:36):

Good morning, Gaye.

Gaye Francis (00:38):

Today we're going to talk about modeling the ideal hazard if that really exists.

Richard Robinson (00:42):

As we mentioned earlier, small children can be in this category.

Gaye Francis (00:46):

Ideal hazards, maybe. So what we're going to do just as an introduction, I guess, we're going to use some slides in this particular podcast. So if you usually just listen to us and it might be worth transferring over to the YouTube channel (see description), but we will explain the slides as best we can as we're holding them up as well. So not critical to go to the YouTube channel, but just be aware that we will be holding some slides up.

Richard Robinson (01:13):

Now, the reason why we're doing this particular podcast, because it's come to our attention that a lot of people have decided to use heat maps again with regards to downside risk.

Gaye Francis (01:21):

For decision making purposes.

Richard Robinson (01:22):

Rather than just reporting purposes. And we've talked about this in the past, but I thought it was worth just mathematically explaining a little more robustly why using it as a decision making tool will put you in the wrong place. Now I'll put up the slide here, but normally R2A deals with sort of three core areas of risk. Downside risk, the risk from which there's no prospective gain, that's safety risk, which is all negative.

Gaye Francis (01:47):

Yep. And that's your graph on your left hand side.

Richard Robinson (01:51):

Upside, downside risk, which is what popped up in the 1980s, particularly with the commercial people. So you can buy shares in the stock market, the price can go up or the price can go down. Or downside risk from a promised upside risk position, which is what project risk is about. Those three things are actually quite different for a start, but today we're just talking about downside safety risk in the first instance. Now, if you just look at that slide, it is downside. It's going negative. But when you're actually doing this sort of stuff, most people use the heat map. They've got the heat map on the positive side of things, which is sort of on one level, a little bit peculiar.

Gaye Francis (02:28):

So when Richard says the heat map, it's typically the five by five matrix like we see in the Australian Standard.

Richard Robinson (02:34):

Yeah, red, amber, green sort of thing. Where green's low risk and red usually don't go there. Now one of the interesting things about these things, they're normally done on a log log scale. And the reason why that's the case, there's actually some technical competent reasons for that is that back in the 1930s, a fellow called Heinrich in the US was doing studies of all US accidents and that was built upon by a guy called Bird and you probably read about it, the accident triangle where one very serious incident was accompanied by 10 not so serious events and then about 30 or 40 or 50 other events. And by the time you get down to the near misses, you're at sort of the hundreds, close to a thousand, that sort of thing.

(03:10):

The numbers were always a bit flaky because how many people actually report near misses when it comes to the crunch. But the general recognition was, and I've never seen anybody disagree with this, is that generally a tenfold increase in consequences accompanied by a tenfold decrease in risk. And that's a hyperbolic curve, Y equals one on X, Gaye.

Gaye Francis (03:33):

Excellent mass lesson, Richard. <laughs>

Richard Robinson (03:34):

Well, we haven't got there yet. Now what people do on a heat map ordinarily, they just spot the dot, one point. And if you assume the risk follows a line of constant risk, on a log log scale, that will be a 45 degree slope, which is the way most people normally sort of treat these things. And a tenfold increase in consequence, accompanied by tenfold decrease in likelihood. Then if you pick one point in that line at one level, you have characterised the full possible range of outcomes of that risk because a very small one happens a lot and a very rare one, a very big one is very rare. The problem, of course, is that no hazard has a line of constant risk associated with it. Every hazard has its own unique risk curve associated with it.

Gaye Francis (04:24):

And it's often wobbly and different shaped.

Richard Robinson (04:26):

Yeah, mine is pretty wobbling. I mean, I've sort of just sort of prepared a prior argument.

Gaye Francis (04:31):

A non-ideal.

Richard Robinson (04:32):

A non-ideal <hazard>. And what that's basically showing is that there's probably wobbles. I mean, if you just think about a high voltage hazard or something like that, if the arc flashes, it's either pretty much going to hit you or it's going to miss you. Or if there's two of you walking along...

Gaye Francis (04:45):

One goes and one doesn't.

Richard Robinson (04:47):

Or maybe both of you go. But it'll have jumps and bumps in it. But nevertheless, if you were actually trying to work out the actual risk associated with this thing, what you really need to know is the area under the risk curve.

Gaye Francis (05:00):

Okay.

Richard Robinson (05:01):

And that means you've got to really integrate the area under the risk curve. Now if you take the ideal risk curve, which is Y equals one on X, which is the hyperbolic, and then you plot that on an ordinary graph paper, it looks something like that <shows slide>, which is, if you think of a hyperbolic risk curve, it's obviously a tenfold increase. Well, you get a shape like that (high then drops sharply). Now in practical terms, this always made a lot of sense to me because the one place you do not want to be is high consequence, high likelihood.

Gaye Francis (05:36):

Correct.

Richard Robinson (05:37):

And that means you're in the top left hand corner of this diagram, the bright spot, the hotspot on the chart. And if you stay equally distance away from a point up there, what shape curve must you get?

Gaye Francis (05:48):

Hyperb...

Richard Robinson (05:50):

This is really getting <difficult>.

Gaye Francis (05:51):

I know it is. <laughs>

Richard Robinson (05:56):

Now, and if you want to integrate the area under the risk curve and it's a function Y equals one over X, Gaye, what's the integral of one over X? It's the natural log.

Gaye Francis (06:07):

It's the natural log. There you go.

Richard Robinson (06:09):

Now if you start integrating the natural log, one of the difficulties you have with a hyperbola is it goes asymptopic in both directions. So if you integrate from zero to infinity, you get an infinite number, which makes it mathematically very inconvenient.

Gaye Francis (06:24):

Almost impossible, you would think.

Richard Robinson (06:25):

So therefore you have to integrate over a range. Now obviously if it's such a small matter, then you don't worry about the really small events because nobody's being hurt and maybe somebody gets a bruise or something like that - it happens an awful lot, but who cares? It's a bit like stubbing your toe in the morning when you get up. It's very annoying, but you still go to work.

Gaye Francis (06:42):

That's true.

Richard Robinson (06:46):

And then obviously you've got to put a limit on the other end because if you keep saying planet destroying meteorites constitute a hazard that we have to deal with, then it's a one by 10 to the minus 12 and minus 14. How far do you integrate the other direction? So you have to integrate under the line over a region and what change does it get. Now the plot that I just put up was just basically one over X, so it's going through the one point. So therefore if you just sort of start integrating from say one to 10, one to 100, one to a thousand, one to 10,000, something like that, what's the actual increase you get over the actual line, which at that point is just one. It's a line of constant risk going through one. And the answer is quite significant. The handy thing about integrating that particular line is that you have to... the log integral is the LM of the upper limit minus the LM of the lower limit. The lower limit has to be one that makes the natural log zero.

Gaye Francis (07:56):

OK.

Richard Robinson (07:56):

Or if anybody's interested in this sort of stuff and you want to do it yourself, that's easy. But just to give you the rough idea, if you integrate from one to 10 of one over X and the natural log, it goes up by a factor of two point something. If you integrate from one to a hundred, it goes up by a factor of 4.6, from one to a thousand it goes up 6.9, from one to 100,000 goes up to 11 point times the value of risk. And if you went to one in a million, it goes up by a factor of something like 13, an order of magnitude. That's significant, particularly when you're dealing with high consequence, low likelihood events that happen very rarely. And as I pointed out to you before, before we started this podcast, if you want to be statistically significant about failures, you've got to fail at least three times doing the same thing, which from a risk point of view is not a particularly good thing to do.

Gaye Francis (08:51):

No, and I don't think that's particularly a lot of times have to fail either.

Richard Robinson (08:56):

No, what's the line? If it first you don't succeed, try, try again. Whether it's statistically significant. Which must be useful. I don't know. Now the point about all this is everybody spots the dot and thinks, I don't know what they sometimes think. I think they think they've done a risk assessment. But what you've done is a fearfully complicated thing and you want to be clear we have only at this point considered downside, pure risk, safety risk. We're not talking about upside normal distribution risk that the commercial people like doing. That's why people do PhDs and these things. And we certainly haven't been considering downside risk from the point of view of a critical project. Because remember with the project is downside risk from the promised upside risk position.

Gaye Francis (09:37):

So where do you start your curve?

Richard Robinson (09:39):

Well, remember the whole point of our project due diligence process is you start off with the critical things because you cannot let a showstopper happen. It's not possible with a big project.

Gaye Francis (09:50):

But that means we're still ... I think what this is saying is typically you know what the potential range of consequences are. Characterising the likelihood associated with the consequences is always the difficult part.

Richard Robinson (10:03):

And if you're talking about high consequences, likehood, like for example, an explosive air fuel mixture in the chamber and you just spot the dot and say one in a million is here, you have probably underestimated by an order of magnitude.

Gaye Francis (10:17):

And I think that's, well, primarily that was one of the reasons why the WHS legislation came in and the due diligence approach was to eliminate all of those games that people played with the likelihood things, with the likelihood arguments.

Richard Robinson (10:32):

And what are the Kiwis done with their new amendment bill? They're changing their legislation to say that you must focus on the critical ones first.

Gaye Francis (10:41):

Critical ones, but you're also still focusing on the controls that you can put in place. So there's no discussion around, you're only testing the likelihood element when you're looking at the control that you can put in place as a balanced argument.

Richard Robinson (10:57):

It's a reasonableness test.

Gaye Francis (10:59):

And I think what we've seen in a lot of these sort of stuff when people are using the risk characterisation five by five matrix and characterising risk, they get bogged down in the detail because it's always an argument about what the risk is before you even start to look at the controls you can put in place.

Richard Robinson (11:18):

But the other problem they've got is the scope of their risk curve. I mean, if you're talking about a one in a million event, awful lot of people say that 99.9, well, 0.001, rare is one in a thousand. No. They don't just cover the range.

Gaye Francis (11:36):

No. And we've found that when we have been doing some of these, the risk matrix curves are, oh, sorry, risk matrices are really good at the communication aspect and we've done it for enterprise risk frameworks and things like that. So you're communicating things and characterising things in the system of the <inaudible>.

Richard Robinson (11:58):

The value system of the decision makers.

Gaye Francis (12:01):

But often you're right, the five by five scale is not big enough to characterise all of the issues of a water company, for example, because they're dealing with dam failures, but they're dealing with burst pipes as well.

Richard Robinson (12:16):

Same thing with hospitals, but any large organisation, the state governments, remember we did a couple of jobs for hospitals. You got the hospital, what's critical for individual hospital isn't necessarily critical for Department of Health and what's critical for the Department of Health isn't necessarily critical for the state as a whole. So that's another two orders of magnitude. And BHP Bilton used to do it that way too.

Gaye Francis (12:34):

So we're not saying don't use any of these things, but what we're saying is understand what they can be useful, their limitations and have that understanding when you're doing it. But safety risk is still asking you to say, what are all the credible, critical issues, what are the controls you can put in place and what is reasonable in the circumstances?

Richard Robinson (12:58):

And that's where the Kiwis are going. I hope the Australians catch up quickly.

Gaye Francis (13:02):

Here's hoping, but as you said, New Zealand's definitely leading the way. That was a very technical podcast for us.

Richard Robinson (13:10):

Well, for some.

Gaye Francis (13:11):

For some. Yes, other people enjoy this sort of stuff. I understand. But thanks, Richard, for explaining that and we will see you next time.

Richard Robinson (13:19):

Thanks, Gaye.

How Information Sharing Has Changed: Part 2 The Public Sphere

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance
Season 7, Episode 9

In the second of two episodes of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance on How Information Sharing has Changed, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss how the Public Sphere has evolved and what it ultimately means for SFAIRP.

Richard starts the chat outlining the work of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, tracing the journey of public discourse from coffee houses through to commercially-driven newspapers and media moguls, to today's podcast landscape. 

They discuss why they believe high-quality, discussion-based podcasts seem to be rising above the noise, how real-time expert conversation is replacing the slower editorial cycle of print media, and why helping people distinguish credible information has never been more important.

Richard and Gaye conclude the episode bringing the discussion back to SFAIRP (So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable) and how truly informed decisionmaking, whether in workplace health and safety or in a democracy, depends on robust, thoughtful public discussion rather than siloed, commercially driven narratives.

They also highlight how long it took R2A to move from target level of risk and safety to SFAIRP, and how they hope their podcast helps others better understand it.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. This is the second of two episodes where due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss how information sharing has changed with part 2's discussion on the public sphere.

(00:18):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. If you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:39):

Hi Richard. Welcome to our podcast session today.

Richard Robinson (00:42):

Hi Gaye. This is part two, I believe.

Gaye Francis (00:43):

It is part two of our internet risk podcast that we're talking about. So today we're going to follow on from what we did last time and about SFAIRP internet managing internet risk and talk today about the public sphere and how information sharing has changed over time. You're going to give us a brief history.

Richard Robinson (01:07):

Well, not so much I'm going to give a brief history. I was just going to summarise. There was a fellow called Jurgen Habermas who died a couple of weeks ago, he's a German philosopher. And he was particularly concerned about the public sphere, but basically as a young bloke, he was in Nazi Germany and basically got conscripted at 16 to go and man an aircraft gun in 1945. But it wasn't until after that he actually had to look at the Holocaust sites and just realise what the total horror was. And he became a very influential, I guess, left wing, basically trying to make sure the German society didn't go to that place again. So he sort of well regarded. Now the concept he had was the public sphere and what he was pointing out, and maybe I just might just read a couple of bits here.

(01:51):

He was talking about the public sphere and the role of public sphere as in shaping Democratic administration society. In ideal form, the public sphere is made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating needs of society with the state. And basically he's saying it's very much a sort of bourgeois middle class driven thing. And he said it basically sort of arrived in a practical sense when the coffee shop's in the 18th century where we really got together and basically gab-fest about the <issues> of the age, but basically because they were the middle class and they had the voting power, they were the people who basically decided and then sort of set the theme and what politicians would or couldn't do and basically therefore established what should be the case. Now the reason why this is kind of interesting because he then went on to say, well, look, what happened, Marastof started as a coffee shop arrangement and after a while all the broad sheets and things that people were printing off to enhance discussion basically turned into newspapers and that turned into a sort of capitalist driven market forces sort of thing where in the end the editor could actually decide who got elected and who didn't, depending on what editorials were written and things like that. But it emphasised that the whole process, the public fear emphasised that the newspaper should preferably be independent and give different points of view so that the larger society could decide what it is they wanted to do and how they wanted to achieve it.

(03:06):

Now obviously what happened is the internet, COVID turned up and kind of busted this because nobody's reading newspapers anymore. And all the podcasts have sort of waxed powerfully. But we've sort of noticed partly because the fact that our podcasts has become more influential, which to say is a complete source of astonishment to both of us is an understatement.

Gaye Francis (03:28):

That's kind - influential. More, popular?

Richard Robinson (03:31):

More popular. But what I've observed was you see what's actually been happening. And you see, a whole lot of podcasters turned up, some who had more intellectual horsepower than others. But some of those who have less intellectual horsepower, actually they're fading because they're losing their clicks. And I don't know if it's because the algorithm changed or because really the thing is just sorting itself out. But the ones who are sort of sustaining, at least the ones I obviously listen to, are actually fairly high horsepower from what I can tell. Now, I didn't actually realise til I mentioned (last episode) this Patrick Boyle character and he turned out to be a professor and a former hedge fund manager, a bunch of different things. And he was the one I was telling you about who sort of was commenting that he speaks perfect English because he's Irish and everybody else has a strange accent.

Gaye Francis (04:20):

Only an Irishman could say that.

Richard Robinson (04:23):

An Irishman could say that. But the points he were making were actually quite profound, I thought. And then he was going on about the impact of the, because he was a hedge fund and he was looking at the impact of the war. I mean, one of the other points he made in passing was the oil shortage is going to affect the Scottish pretty severely, because as a population they've evolved to live on fried food, deep fried food, which I thought was a bit tough.

Gaye Francis (04:48):

Very tough, very tough.

Richard Robinson (04:50):

But he's obviously a very sharp cookie. Now, what I've observed is that the internet ones that seem to be surviving are the people and who are actually ... It's not so much individual presenters. You listen to an individual presenter and I find you get sick of it pretty fast. What you want are the people who are actually talking together that you sort of get familiar to.

Gaye Francis (05:09):

Discussion.

Richard Robinson (05:10):

Discussion. And I actually suspect that's what, because I don't know what you're going to say next any more than you know what I'm going to say next.

Gaye Francis (05:17):

That is very true, Richard.

Richard Robinson (05:19):

But then you listen to people on international politics from Australia vernacular. You see Hugh White talking with Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute. And when those two are talking about politics and the way American politics affect Australia, would you really think that America would come to Australia's defense and in the changing world, what does Australia have to do? And yes, we've gone inside free trade agreements last week with the European Union as well as Canada, because (their PM) Carney was out here, both the European president and the Carney addressed the Australian Parliament in the last month or so. The whole thing, the world is really changing fast. And these authoritative podcasters that are actually having discussions are the ones that seem to be winning the day.

Gaye Francis (06:04):

So do you think that comes back to what we're talking about, the public sphere and how information is shared? So it's that discussion?

Richard Robinson (06:12):

Yeah. And it's moving away from ... Because remember, starting the coffee houses, according to Jurgen, and it's moved to the newspapers commercially driven, run by media moguls, Murdoch and the other families and things like that.

Gaye Francis (06:25):

They're only printing what they think people want to hear.

Richard Robinson (06:27):

Yeah. But more than that, they try to then take over the blog sphere and the YouTube sphere, the podcast sphere. But I think people are actually starting to move away from that. And certainly people like me, I don't listen to some particular ... I'm listening to ... Let's find somebody who knows what they're talking about and listen to them in discussion. And I find that to be a lot more useful. Now, I may be an optimist here, but if you actually think that's the way the world is going, where that discussion used to be, I mean, you read an editorial in the newspaper. I can remember hopping on a train and buying the newspaper at the station and reading it on the train. That's what I used to do. I used to come and talk to you about it.

Gaye Francis (07:04):

You did.

Richard Robinson (07:06):

And I can't do that anymore. I'd sometimes swap between papers because I wanted different points of view or I knew different journalists had different attitudes. In effect, what I was doing is reading a discussion, but it's slow because it's in paper and word.

Gaye Francis (07:17):

Yeah, right.

Richard Robinson (07:18):

Now when you listen to these guys...

Gaye Francis (07:19):

It's five or 10 minutes.

Richard Robinson (07:21):

It's five or 10 minutes and they're talking about real time events far faster than these newspaper people can keep up with it. Now, I'm not saying that you wouldn't still want to read something like The Atlantic or The Economist or something like that because they've actually got people writing something who seriously think about it, but they're not the people sitting online writing it. They're the people get the ideas, put an article together and then publish it. So I think the world's changed. That's certainly the case. And you're fretting about your kids because at the moment they're just taking information from anywhere and all information's equal if it comes from the internet, right?

Gaye Francis (07:56):

Correct. They don't know how to <distinguish> between it.

Richard Robinson (07:58):

They have to distinguish between it. But I can remember quite distinctly thinking as a student many, many years ago, that if I had the choice between reading Plato or listening to Pato Live, I would have listened to Plato live, but you couldn't do it.

Gaye Francis (08:11):

You were a different type of person growing up, Richard. I think we can all agree with that. But if we bring it back to the stuff that we do in that SFAIRP realm, and that moral imperative, are we saying that that's trying to create this public vision and a societal vision rather than individuals just doing their own thing and thinking in silos.

Richard Robinson (08:35):

That's correct. I mean, if you talk about the public sphere where you're at gab-festing in a coffee shop and they're mostly blokes doing it anyway, to media moguls running the show, which I got a funny feeling a lot of us didn't think was the particularly best option that we could have to competent...

Gaye Francis (08:52):

People having discussions.

Richard Robinson (08:53):

Real time discussions and it's discussions. I mean, you listen to the different people and you do se them popping up now is that the people who actually make sense are getting interviewed by other people's blogs. I observe that Hugh White gets interviewed by different people and you notice that fellow I was talking about Patrick Boyle, I've noticed him getting interviewed because obviously he knows what he's talking about. So if you're a serious podcaster, the only people you want to talk to are people who actually have competent views and you can have a competent discussion and you can actually have a disagreement, but it's a disagreement that's actually intellectually thought through. So if you're talking about having a good resolution to complicated issues, you've got the best chance I think you can in real time faster with the new internet system and you can have an argument.

(09:46):

I mean, one of the problems with, we had the problem with people, the American president just keeps typing away things every night and you've got no idea what's going on and all sorts of things, but then you hear a competent discussion about this, that, and what's going on and all of a sudden you can make sense of it, which otherwise you couldn't do. Now, whether that's helpful or not, I don't know. But the optimist in me is saying, yeah, maybe it's not as bad as everybody thinks. And maybe it's not as bad for your kids as everybody thinks because if they become clear which ones are the ones worth listening to that do encourage the public sphere (and) competent information.

Gaye Francis (10:22):

To make informed decisions.

Richard Robinson (10:25):

To make competent, informed decisions, which is what you want. Democracy fails if you don't have the competence middle class, as it were, having this informed decision making.

Gaye Francis (10:39):

And I think we've talked to podcasts about informed decision making and that's the basis of SFAIRP, isn't it?

Richard Robinson (10:45):

In effect, yes. And that you thought through all the options in the circumstances. I mean, that was when we invited the professor of law and public policy from Cambridge out, David Howarth, and he was saying the lawyers and the engineers are very much aligned. You've got a problem or you want to do something, what are the options and in the circumstances which is the best way forward? Isn't that what an election is?

Gaye Francis (11:05):

Supposed to be, yes.

Richard Robinson (11:06):

Supposed to be.

Gaye Francis (11:08):

So Richard, in this podcast, there was a lot of information that my little brain's been ticking over and my summary of it is that you think R2A have really moved into that thought leadership process now again of the due diligence space and the WHS legislation in a SFAIRP sense and that SFAIRP is really encouraging that moral imperative to look at the community as a whole and do the best for the community in a public sense rather than looking at it from a commercial and individual silo sense.

Richard Robinson (11:44):

That's right. SFAIRP has moved into the public sphere and it's taking people like us to actually discuss it and so that everyone understands it.

Gaye Francis (11:50):

Understands what it is. Because it's complex.

Richard Robinson (11:54):

Well, any moral imperative tends to create difficulties for society.

Gaye Francis (12:00):

Yeah. And so you need to have these robust discussions to be able to go forward and get those best outcomes that we're hoping to get.

Richard Robinson (12:07):

Well, you know how long it took us to move from that sort of target level of risk and safety to the SFAIRP side of things. And it took us the best part of 20 years. Now that transition, I mean, we're in the business. I mean, we live and breathe this stuff. So if it was hard for us, just imagine how hard it is for ordinary people just doing going with the ordinary lives, it is to get up to speed in these things. It's very difficult.

Gaye Francis (12:30):

So I think keeping those two things in mind, look at all the things that you can do and what's reasonable in the circumstances, but with that holistic community and public context, you hopefully get the best outcomes. Thanks for joining us today and we'll see you next time.

Richard Robinson (12:48):

Thanks, Gaye.

How Information Sharing Has Changed: Part 1 SFAIRP Internet

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance Podcast
Season 7, Episode 8

In this first of two episodes of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis explore how the SFAIRP principle (So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable) applies to managing internet risk.

Richard explains R2A's journey with data security, from backing up to CDs and running an in-house server, to shifting to cloud hosting during Melbourne's COVID lockdowns, and ultimately landing on an offline-first approach that keeps them and sensitive client data off the internet as much as possible.

Richard and Gaye discuss the growing tension between staying secure and staying connected and the rising problem of how AI systems may be designed to tell you what you want to hear rather than what's true.

The episode wraps with a relatable parallel: Gaye's battle to limit her daughters' screen time is, at its core, the same SFAIRP challenge organisations face every day – you need to be online in today’s world, but being online continuously creates risk. 

Listen to Part 2 (Season 7, Episode 9), where they discuss risk in the public sphere.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. This is the first of two episodes where due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss How Information Sharing Has Changed with Part 1 on SFAIRP Internet.

(00:18):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website, www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:39):

Hello Richard. Welcome to our podcast session today.

Richard Robinson (00:42):

Morning, Elizabeth Gaye. Good to be here.

Gaye Francis (00:44):

Oh, thank you.

Richard Robinson (00:46):

You're meant to say hello in Finnish based on an early discussion?

Gaye Francis (00:53):

<laughs> Okay. Today we're going to talk about SFAIRP and how it relates to managing internet risk. And I think that's one that's really become increasingly common and needs to be thought through a little bit by organisations, especially in the age that we're living in now. And I think you were going to explain R2A's journey with internet risk and how we've been managing it over the last probably 10 years or so.

Richard Robinson (01:22):

I like the term manage in that regard, but basically it was just worth explaining the history of this because it sort of explains why we are where we are. I mean, in history, we can remember backing things up to CDs and having duplicate CDs and carting them around.

Gaye Francis (01:39):

Correct. That was my monthly task or every three months to cut a CD of everything that we backed up to the file server.

Richard Robinson (01:46):

But then this drive suddenly got big and so we could write all the CDs back to the disk drive and then we could have a server in the office. Now when we put the server in the office, we're a bit more cunning. We didn't just sort of make it live with the internet with an address. Basically, even at that time, we concluded the right way to be secure is as far as possible not to be on the internet. It's the elimination option in SFAIRP terms. So what we basically did was put a server which was just serving to the office on the hard line and it had its own dedicated internal IP address and all those sorts of things with its own security. And that means anytime you wanted to back something up or get something, you had to actually be in the office. You couldn't be offsite. And if you wanted something, you had to get somebody to mail it to you if you didn't have it with you on the time. And part of the reason for doing that was because laptops didn't just have enough memory. So anyway, then COVID turned up.

Gaye Francis (02:37):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (02:38):

And our office basically got, well, we had to sort of leave the damn thing because they gave us six months at a reduced rate, but then they wanted to put it back up to 100% again. And we had another 18 months that turned out in Melbourne locked out. So we sort of had to move out. So what we then decided to do was to put our current in-house secure server on the internet, on a secure, I think it was AWS, Amazon Web Server, I think it was. And we hired quite expensive advice from a very competent person. And that was set up and that worked, that actually worked quite well.

Gaye Francis (03:08):

So you were able to dial in remotely.

Richard Robinson (03:11):

And everything was available online. The problem with that was that we didn't have a big staff. And when something went wrong, we tended to have to rehire this person. And because he wasn't spending time with us all the time, he had to go and reconsider our system. And it was all a bit klutzy.

Gaye Francis (03:28):

It added complexity to it, didn't it? And we didn't have control over what was happening.

Richard Robinson (03:33):

Yeah. And every time we wanted something, you had to log in and then something didn't work and you're going, what the hell happened? And then I'd ring you up and say, what's going on? Or perhaps more accurately, you rang me up.

Gaye Francis (03:42):

I rang you up too. Yes. That's not my forte.

Richard Robinson (03:44):

And then we thought about that for a while. I said, look, the whole point of this SFAIRP business is not to be online unless you need to be. And it's not as though we didn't have certain things online that we wanted. Like our CRM, our booking scheduling system is Canadian software. I have no idea where the server is. It could be in Australia, it could be in Canada. And our accounting package is actually Kiwi. We still actually run that on a server, but it doesn't have to be. It could be on the cloud and we'll probably do that in the near future because the server is so old now. But all our secure data, our client data, we said, well, look...

Gaye Francis (04:20):

Internal.

Richard Robinson (04:21):

..the laptops, we have two terabytes of storage on our laptops, which is absolutely unbelievable. And obviously we only have about a terabyte of actual secure client R2A data. And if you use Apple encryption, it's ... Well, I've no doubt that American government's probably got a backdoor into it, and I may imagine the Australian government can too, but if somebody's seriously about getting into our system, well, if they got one of our laptops, they probably could, but normal mortals can't. That part's pretty clear. And then basically in our office, what we do is we don't bother having a server anymore. We just have an encrypted hard drive to which we log on and back up when we're in the office. And if one of us needs something, we then send a file around. But that basically means our client data isn't online ever, except when we're online doing something, but then somebody's got to get through the Apple encryption to get to it anyway.

(05:12):

Now, but that's still focusing on the, from our point of view, the elimination option. Now, what's sort of happened the way the world's gone with, and you're talking about your daughters and how everyone's commenting online. I think that's actually going to be the subject of our next podcast in particular, the public sphere and what's happening to it in information terms. But the obvious way, if you want to be secure...

Gaye Francis (05:36):

And keep your kids safe is not to be online.

Richard Robinson (05:38):

Not to be online. And basically that's where we're trying to head. Now, the whole world is trying to prevent you from doing this. We try to buy Office, Word and Excel and all that sort of stuff on a standalone basis.

Gaye Francis (05:52):

Correct.

Richard Robinson (05:52):

Which we've done.

(05:54):

But we keep buying it that way.

Gaye Francis (05:56):

But you keep getting these messages to automatically update and log into Google.

Richard Robinson (06:00):

As soon as you log in and you put on an application now, if anything goes off and checks to see if you're legit and all the rest of it. And the way AI has gone, if you want information, it's forcing you to be online continuously and from a SFAIRP security point of view...

Gaye Francis (06:16):

An elimination option...

Richard Robinson (06:18):

That's dumb.

Gaye Francis (06:19):

Yeah.

Richard Robinson (06:20):

And I think a lot of people have started to recognise this and trying to get themselves back offline because if you look at the comments about Microsoft forcing you to 365 and continuous logons, there's a lot of narky people out there. You're not just the only one. There's a lot of narky people out there. And the way in which the different universes and the Apple and Google and everybody else, they're trying to get you into the universe and keep you there. I mean, that's what the AI is doing in effect because I think we're talking about it time before that you can't rely on AI to give you the right <information>. Well, what seems to be happening is that AI is hallucinating basically, and it's partly because the AI people, I think ChatGTP, I forget what version they're up to, but the AI that's going to win commercially is the one that gets the most questions.

(07:09):

And so they set the AI up to give you the answers you want.

Gaye Francis (07:13):

So you keep asking the questions.

Richard Robinson (07:14):

So you keep asking the question the way they want and you get happy about it. It's a bit like the podcasters, you keep getting the information that you search and the algorithm keeps giving you to podcasters that tell you what you want to know.

Gaye Francis (07:27):

Look, as people that have had AI spit out our name a couple of times, we were doing a course last week and somebody said they put a question in and R2A came up in that AI summary, it makes you feel quite good.

Richard Robinson (07:40):

Well, I did one last week too, and I got the same thing. What I couldn't work out was if it knew I was R2A, so it was giving me what I wanted to see.

Gaye Francis (07:47):

Possibly.

Richard Robinson (07:49):

And that's why when they're saying that the AIs are hallucinating, because it's basically saying, well, I've seen this person before, they belong to this, what do they want to hear? And the AI then serving are what you want and creating false references and basically reinforcing what you want to know. So it's not giving you truth, it's just giving you what you want to hear. So if you're talking about getting into a bubble, it's getting worse and worse. So I mean, according to <Patrick Boyle, podcaster>, they were talking about it's gone up from, I think in 2024 is about 10% of the answers could be hallucinations and last years, and it was getting up to 40% in some cases.

Gaye Francis (08:25):

Wow, that's a big jump.

Richard Robinson (08:25):

That's a big jump. Now, if the AI that succeeds is the one that gets the money, and that's why they're all pushing it so hard, they've got to get you into their ecosphere and they've got to hold you there. So they're really driving this hard. But that sort of then flows onto the question, I think that was going to be our next podcast onto the public sphere and risk in the public sphere and how it all works and what's going to happen there. But in the meantime, and I've got to say, our journey getting to try to stay off the internet, I mean, I think I've commented to you a couple of times, I'm going to go with a simpler phone in future. Once I don't need use the CRM that's Apple orientated, and I'll probably get rid of the Apple watch and just go on a nice mechanical one again and generally simplify my life.

Gaye Francis (09:09):

You reckon that there's a market for Nokia phones from the 1990s to come back and in fashion.

Richard Robinson (09:14):

Nokia phones is back because Microsoft sold them back after losing six million to the Fins.

Gaye Francis (09:21):

Look, and I think that comes back down to the topic of this particular podcast season is SFAIRP the moral imperative versus the commercial reality. And maybe it's not just commercial reality, it's sort of world reality, isn't it? But SFAIRP is trying to simplify the complexities that come with the world that we find ourselves in at the moment.

Richard Robinson (09:41):

Well, your problem with your daughters, which they're desperate to be online continuously.

Gaye Francis (09:45):

They are desperate to be online continuously. And I'm the worst mum in the world and the only mom in the world that doesn't allow it.

Richard Robinson (09:51):

And you're trying to get them offline as much as you can. You and your SFAIRP principles.

Gaye Francis (09:56):

I am. But it's tricky to navigate that and to balance it in the world that we live in and organisations are having that same <problem> like we had. You have to be online to do business, but to be secure, you have to be offline. So what is the balance and what is reasonable in the circumstances?

Richard Robinson (10:16):

Well, what we've basically landed on, not necessarily due to great design processes, I guess.

Gaye Francis (10:23):

Or management.

Richard Robinson (10:24):

Is that you keep anything that's really secure offline as much as you can, and you only go online when you need it ... We want to be able to do your work without being online.

Gaye Francis (10:41):

Yes. So I think it's ours is we're the confusing people because we're sort of intermittent, aren't we, online?

Richard Robinson (10:47):

Well, that's right.

Gaye Francis (10:47):

We're really unpredictable when you can come and hack us. Whereas if you're online continuously there's the opportunity.

Richard Robinson (10:54):

You're the target. Whereas we've flashing it out. And so if somebody's trying to keep track of us, we're making a lot harder work for them. I can't say they wouldn't do it, but it's a lot harder than it used to be.

Gaye Francis (11:04):

I don't know that that was a planned mechanism.

Richard Robinson (11:07):

Well, no, I think we actually thought about it because when we come into the office, we turn our internet on, otherwise the internet's off.

Gaye Francis (11:12):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (11:13):

So the office internet only shows up every week or two days a week at the most probably when we're actually in the office together. And at home, I mean, when I flip my laptop on, it's on. And then when I close it up again, it's off. So I'm intermittent. The only inserver I still have is our financial server, and the internet number and that changes enough to confuse everybody anyway.

Gaye Francis (11:42):

Well, I think on that note, what we wanted to show you today was that we're using the SFAIRP principle for a whole lot of things, and it can be a useful tool, not just for WHS and work health and safety.

Richard Robinson (11:56):

Well, it can cause some difficulties with daughters.

Gaye Francis (11:58):

It can cause some difficulty with daughters, but I'm happy to navigate those. So thank you for joining us today, and we're going to come back with part two on the public sphere. Thanks everyone.

Richard Robinson (12:11):

Thanks.

Cunning vs Smart - Leadership in Work, Health & Safety

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance
Season 7, Episode 7

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis explore organisational Cunning versus Smart and why it matters deeply for health, safety, and governance.

Richard draws on decades of observing large organisations and argues that the people who rise to the top aren't always the most competent, they're often the most cunning. But cunning alone isn't enough. The real sweet spot, what Richard calls wisdom, is the rare combination of intellectual smarts, real-world experience, and strategic savvy.

The conversation turns to boards and the growing concern that professional board members are increasingly disconnected from the industries they govern and they reflect on how this experiential gap is shifting boards toward managing legal liability rather than optimising safety, and what that means for organisations operating under SFAIRP obligations.

They also dig into the tension between institutional knowledge and innovation. Why you need people who've lived and breathed an industry, complemented with fresh eyes willing to challenge the status quo, and how engineering's broader role in building a better society fits into all of it.

And don’t miss Richard’s Kardashians vs Muppets joke at the end and how it relates to the topic.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss Cunning versus Smart in the Health and Safety space.

(00:13):

We hope you enjoyed the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website, www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:34):

Hi, Richard. Welcome to our podcast session.

Richard Robinson (00:38):

It's good to be back again Gaye.

Gaye Francis (00:41):

Today we're going to talk about cunning versus smart, but as it applies in the risk world and especially in relation to work, health and safety.

Richard Robinson (00:53):

Sort of reminds me that I forget which comedian it was, the Australian comedian. We were talking what's the difference between the Muppets and the Kardashians? The Muppets are real.

Gaye Francis (01:04):

Okay. I wasn't expecting a Richard joke at the start of our podcast, but that's okay.

Richard Robinson (01:08):

Oh, sorry. I can't remember the comedian's (name). The guy who used to run Spicks and Specks.

Gaye Francis (01:12):

Adam Hills.

Richard Robinson (01:13):

Yes, that's right.

Gaye Francis (01:14):

Very good. So we're just sort of reflecting on why we think where we are...

Richard Robinson (01:20):

There is a relevance to that joke. I'll come back to it.

Gaye Francis (01:24):

<laughs> Okay. What when I least expect it?

Richard Robinson (01:26):

No, for the subject.

Gaye Francis (01:27):

Okay, cool. So Cunning versus Smart and especially in terms of risk and how we've seen people making decisions or not making decisions as the case may be. And you sort of broke people into three groups. Do you want to give us a quick summary of that?

Richard Robinson (01:46):

Well, this is just my observation about history and watching organisations. And one of the things I noticed is that it didn't always seem to me that it was the smart, competent people that got the top job. It was always the cunning. And what I meant by that was that in large organisations, you see there's a corporate change or some change in their business environment, and then the deck chairs shuffle around. And then the people who tend to survive that process tend to be what I call the cunning. Now, not necessarily the smart or the most competent. And that was always a bit of a frustration to me. And I used to watch all this with some interest trying to figure out what was going on. What I did work out, and because I saw people with great academic ability, for example, who had no cunnng whatsoever and just floundered around completely.

Gaye Francis (02:29):

So were they in the smart category?

Richard Robinson (02:31):

Well, no, it depends what you mean by smart. It's got to be smart and sharp. Whereas with what you really needed in your senior positions, are the people who were both smart and probably had some academic ability, but it depends what you mean by intellectual ability rather than academic ability per se, and had the cunning too. And whenever I found one of those, I found they were the right people to work for.

Gaye Francis (02:51):

Right.

Richard Robinson (02:53):

I remember, I think I told you when I was working for GHD, I was coming back on a flight. I was sitting next to Ben Fink, the managing director, and the Victorian government had gone through some crisis. I couldn't remember what. And he said, "Well, it's going to be a problem this time around. Previous times when crisis happened, they had money. And as soon as an issue happens and the government's got money, they'll start spending. And so what you're going to do is position yourself to find these things.

(03:13):

Now, when I looked at that board and they had Sir Bernard Callanan as Chair, who is the hero of Sparrow Force and all that sort of thing and the highest ranking Catholic in Australia and Ben Fink was from the Fink family who was sort of a Jewish family. And you looked at this organisation of these two people that are running this show and you thought, this is a good place to work for. These are intelligent people. They're cunning. They know what they're doing. And they also have the intellectual smarts to make it happen. And you just suddenly realise why an organisation is successful. When you see that kind of arrangement, you just know it's got to work.

Gaye Francis (03:47):

I think you called that wisdom, didn't you?

Richard Robinson (03:49):

Yeah. And that's what I referred to as the wisdom thing. And when you get a team like that, it's extraordinary. But that doesn't happen very often from what I've seen in business. And we've noticed now people keep talking about boards and how frequently they're changing and the kind of people who are getting on the boards now, that they're making it a career of professional board membership rather than being technically competent in the business that they're becoming a board member for.

Gaye Francis (04:13):

Or sitting back and saying what does this organisation need going forward? And it's not a short term vision.

Richard Robinson (04:22):

Well, particularly when it's a technological organisation, engineering organisation, where you need ... Normally you've got to have been in the business for a while to actually understand, whether it be water or rail or aviation or whatever the technology is, if you don't actually have an experience in that patch, being an outside board member is good to a point, but you need some people that really...

Gaye Francis (04:41):

Have lived and breathed it to be able to ask those hard questions or challenge those questions.

Richard Robinson (04:46):

Well, one of the things that frustrates us, I mean, I think I told you, I won't say which company it was, but I came across a lawyer board member. It was an underground mining organisation. He'd never been underground to have a look at what these people who worked for the organisation actually did. And we've commented a number of times we keep coming across ports and pilotage organisations...

Gaye Francis (05:05):

Haven't been out on the water...

Richard Robinson (05:06):

They've actually never done a job with a marine pilot to find it just what these people are doing. If you go out with a marine pilot at 2:00am in the morning on a stormy night, it's character forming, is it not?

Gaye Francis (05:16):

Yes, yes. I've done it a couple of times in my younger youth and not anymore, not for me.

Richard Robinson (05:22):

Getting off a ship when the sea is heaving one and a half to two meters and you get it wrong, you lose your legs, it's character forming.

Gaye Francis (05:29):

And I think that's probably a good thing. And I remember doing a job for a Board and they introduced that, not to do a pilotage because it wasn't a pilotage organisation, but they actually, for new board members, they actually took them around to some of their sites and they had to almost do like a site induction exercise. So they had this familiarisation with what the business did because just sitting in a boardroom and getting papers about what the organisation does doesn't really give you that appreciation.

Richard Robinson (06:01):

No, unless you're down there talking to them and seeing what they do and slopping around the mud or whatever the guys actually do in the job you don't really understand. And especially if it's 2:00am in the morning. I remember going down in the old yard in Melbourne, Flinder Street yard, which is no longer there, but I turned up at 2:00am to see what these guys are doing and they were completely astonished to see me. What are you doing here?

Gaye Francis (06:24):

I think we often do that as part of our due diligence exercise, don't we? You got to go down and you're really looking for what are all the conditions that the people who are doing the job are faced with.

Richard Robinson (06:36):

I'm not sure we do it as much as we used to.

Gaye Francis (06:38):

We don't do it as much as we used to, but we used to do it. I think that aspect of our work has changed nowadays.

Richard Robinson (06:47):

I think that's correct.

Gaye Francis (06:48):

And we're more a communication exercise of reporting up to the people that can make the decisions about what's being done and a communication tool.

Richard Robinson (06:58):

Well, I think that's correct because what we keep finding is that the organisation knows what the issues are as a whole, but the decision makers don't have a clear comprehension or articulation in a way that they can actually make useful decisions. But this is also to do with the fact that the board members don't have that experience that they used to have. So whereas previously, I mean, if you dealt with a rail organisation, several people on the Board had basically lived and breathed railways for the last 30 years, and it was visceral. They knew what the issues were.

Gaye Francis (07:28):

And then they were sort of supported by the legal representation and the accounting (representation), whereas it appears the boards that we've seen appears the other way that they're heavily leaning towards the legal and accounting.

Richard Robinson (07:39):

The independent directors and therefore they're trying to minimise legal liability rather than optimise safety per se. And part of the reason that's not because they don't necessarily want to make the organisation safe, but they just don't know enough about it.

Gaye Francis (07:53):

Well, we just did a whole podcast on that didn't we around the ignorance is endemic and what information do people have.

Richard Robinson (08:00):

Well, particularly when you see some ... I mean, obviously part of the reason the Chairs tend to influence who gets picked as a board member. One of the things you try and do is pick board members who are going to be agreeable with the Chair's point of view, but if you keep that up, you eventually wind up at a very bad place.

Gaye Francis (08:16):

Yeah. So SFAIRP is really encouraging people to be wise. So have the smarts, but also a cunningness about them that they can communicate what needs to be done going forward.

Richard Robinson (08:29):

But it's more than that because you've got to think up new ideas.

Gaye Francis (08:32):

So that's the innovation aspect.

Richard Robinson (08:34):

It's the innovation part. I mean, if you're just cunning and you don't understand the business, you're not in a position to think up new ideas because you just don't know enough about it. It's one of those weird things, and I can see why it's such a complicated thing, because on the one hand, you've got to have informed people to know what they're doing, but just doing the same thing for 30 years doesn't make you innovative, that's for sure.

Gaye Francis (08:55):

No, that is very true.

Richard Robinson (08:56):

One of the reasons why you get external partnership, because they come up with a different point of view and a different experience.

Gaye Francis (09:01):

So it's a really fine line between getting that balance of stable people who know about the thing and then new people, because it's often the new people that challenge...

Richard Robinson (09:10):

That's correct.

Gaye Francis (09:11):

... the status quo and have that innovation.

Richard Robinson (09:14):

And they'll becoming perhaps from another industry because one of the things we do is pull ideas out of other industries. It's a bit like that CORE (Conference on Railway Excellence), paper you did where you were basically saying, why don't train drivers have PPUs? They're personal pilots units that marine pilots have.

Gaye Francis (09:27):

Which is a situational awareness device.

Richard Robinson (09:30):

And technically there's no reason why they shouldn't. It's just that the railways haven' thought about it.

Gaye Francis (09:34):

Or we have never done it that way before.

Richard Robinson (09:36):

Railways don't like that. I mean, it's just not the way they go about things. We have noticed that the Boards are changing over so fast now that ignorance is becoming endemic in a way that it never used to be. And I suspect that's one of the reasons why we're showing up more often advising Boards. But what we're really doing is taking what the organisation knows and representing it in a way in which that Board, which tends to respond to liability more than safety, it answers it properly.

Gaye Francis (10:05):

Yeah.

Richard Robinson (10:06):

Which is a little bit sad, but that's what we mean by the cunnings are inheriting the world more than the whys, if that makes sense.

Gaye Francis (10:15):

But it is, it's very difficult. And how do you keep that corporate knowledge and ownership with the people that are making long-term decisions.

Richard Robinson (10:24):

Well, it's slightly more than that too, because one of the strange things that happened, if people keep talking about stakeholders, that there's the shareholders, but boards are basically taught these days that their shareholders are everything and that the people who work there are just functionaries to make it happen. And part of that's just comes down to money and when it only comes down to money and no other values and no sense of duty. I think you've got a problem. And if you look at the world at the moment, it does seem to be coming down to money, not a sense of duty.

(10:55):

Well, I told you, when I was around the Victoria Division of Engineers Australia, there's a plaque on the wall. Obviously, a lot of the Chairs that came out of there were all from the Second World War era & vintage, but I didn't even know who the guy was. I still don't know who that guy was. All I just said, there's a bust of him and it just said he served. Didn't say anything else. And so it was a question of doing the right thing by your organisation and your society as a whole, rather than just saying we're here for the money.

Gaye Francis (11:22):

That's probably, and I think that's where the importance of engineering comes in because if we all sit back, engineering makes a better society and I think sometimes we forget that.

Richard Robinson (11:35):

Well, the commercial people try to make you forget it, that's for sure. <laughs>

Gaye Francis (11:39):

Let's trying to end on a positive, Richard. But it is, you have to work in the constraints of that. And I think we've talked before, money isn't everything. You do need it to be able to do things, but I think you've got to keep that bigger picture in mind.

Richard Robinson (11:55):

But that's correct. But see, what's happened, we've commented on this before, what's happened with engineers generally is they've been pushed downwards and put into their boxes, if it were. And as that fourth year engineering student at RMIT remarked to me when I was lecturing there, you might all be born creative, but you can be trained out of it. So you've got to make sure that you keep that creative bug up.

Gaye Francis (12:14):

Creative and the innovation going.

Richard Robinson (12:16):

And that's the wise part. You keep looking for new things.

Gaye Francis (12:20):

And you do that by surrounding yourself with people and keep being more informed.

Richard Robinson (12:24):

Yeah, but it's like our frustration with the way the IT world's going. I sort of commented that one other time that I was getting frustrated that our laptop was being turned into a giant iPhone. Well, I just noticed the most recent Mac release, they've taken an iPhone chip and put into their most recent Mac laptop. That's what they've actually done. And then I was noticing that Windows world is seriously complaining. And what they've actually done is where we used to run the system ourselves and we're responsible. We keep trying to do that and we're resisting it, but what the IT people are doing is they're saying, no, we run everything out here in the cloud and you guys are just an appendage, just a phone attached.

Gaye Francis (12:59):

So they're giving you what you think you need.

Richard Robinson (13:01):

They're giving you what they think you want and where you're getting crankier and crankier about it, aren't we?

Gaye Francis (13:08):

So does that put us in the cunning, the smart or the wise category?

Richard Robinson (13:12):

We're aspiring to the wise. Let's put it that way. <laughs>

Gaye Francis (13:14):

Let's do that. Alright. On that note, thanks for joining us today, Richard, and we'll see you next time.

(13:21):

Actually, Richard, we did not finish because I don't know that you finished off your joke that you started about the difference between the Kardashians and the Muppets and how it relates to our podcast.

Richard Robinson (13:31):

Well, I tried to point out the Kardashians have been fairly cunning, but they weren't actually wise. And the question then becomes, which is wiser, a muppet or a Kardashian and obviously the Muppets.

Gaye Francis (13:41):

<laughs> Okay.

Richard Robinson (13:41):

Which tells you a bit about how we've gone as a society, doesn't it?

Gaye Francis (13:44):

It does. It certainly does. So on that note, I think we have finished now. So thank you again. We'll see you next time.

Richard Robinson (13:51):

Thanks Gaye.

The Use of Ignorance in Health & Safety Decisions

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance Podcast
Season 7, Episode 6

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis explore the use of ignorance in health and safety decisions and how it’s being used to not make decisions and not deliver the best safety outcomes for organisations.

Richard and Gaye examine the growing trend of shorter board tenures and how this lack of long-term intellectual property can affect diligent decisions, especially when directors lack deep familiarity with the technical hazards their organisations face. They also discuss how decision-makers often surround themselves with people who won't ask uncomfortable and challenging questions, or filter information that reaches Boards.

They also discuss optimism bias and the commercial tendency to dismiss risk as pessimism. They argue that the SFAIRP (So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable) framework demands more than just taking action on known hazards. It requires a clear, documented justification for inaction — and that justification needs to be revisited continuously as technology, knowledge, and circumstances evolve.

They conclude that genuine safety governance isn't about guaranteeing nothing bad will ever happen, but being able to look the next of kin in the eye and say, hand on heart, that everything reasonable was done.

The SFAIRP moral imperative versus commercial reality.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the use of ignorance in health and safety.

(00:13):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribe on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:34):

Hi, Richard. Welcome to another podcast session.

Richard Robinson (00:37):

Good to be here again, Gaye.

Gaye Francis (00:39):

Today we're going to talk about the use of ignorance in health and safety and in the way that sometimes it's used to make decisions or how they gain information.

Richard Robinson (00:51):

Well, not make decisions, might be more relevant.

Gaye Francis (00:56):

True, true. And how it's being used to maybe not give the best safety outcomes for organisations.

Richard Robinson (01:06):

Well, this is actually a number of levels. I think we were sort of just talking about this in advance, trying to work at what we're going to say.

Gaye Francis (01:12):

Always a good thing!

Richard Robinson (01:13):

What we observed is being used at a number of levels because we've observed the churn at board level.

Gaye Francis (01:17):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (01:17):

And then we observed a whole lot of directors turn up who don't know much about this stuff. And what was that line from that director you said?

Gaye Francis (01:25):

You wouldn't expect us to know all of the hazards that our organisation is exposed to.

Richard Robinson (01:29):

Well, the ones that can kill a maim, the people who work there, yes, you would.

Gaye Francis (01:33):

I think just explaining those couple of points. We've been in business (R2A) for a while, Richard, a long time. And the boards that we've seen over the years, I think their tenures are becoming shorter. They used to be, 20 years ago used to have quite stable boards that have been with the organisation for a longer period of time. We're now seeing typically that tenures are sort of in that five-year sort of span. And I know that there's strategies that go on that you don't turn your whole board over every time and you try and keep half. But the continuity of information in a board, especially when you're talking about boards that are responsible for technical issues or technical organisations and service delivery organisations, that you've got a longer horizon. They're typically boards that are going to be running, or sorry, organisations that are going to be running for 20 years and 30 years, 50 years for that investment cycle for renewal of infrastructure and things like that.

Richard Robinson (02:36):

Dams and things like that. Remember I was on a ministerial panel and the most notable result of which is that I discovered that the minister's never wrong. That's the first thing I discovered. But one of the reasons why, as far as I can tell it happened, was that they used to make sure they had a dam safety expert on the board and then that person retired, just age and things like that. And rather than appoint a new dam safety expert, they said, "No, no, we'll appoint a commercial board member and you can just retain consulting engineering advice as required." Well, that's not quite the same as having a person who actually knows about dam safety on the board.

Gaye Francis (03:10):

Yeah. Well, it's got two things there, hasn't it? Because the board has to know what questions to ask.

Richard Robinson (03:16):

Correct.

Gaye Francis (03:16):

And when to bring in the dam safety expert. And then they've got to interpret that information to make those decisions.

Richard Robinson (03:23):

Well, that's one of the reasons why I think I've observed is that ignorance is actually being used as a tool, because sometimes what seems to happen, if you've got a board member who's perhaps overly active in a certain area, when their retirement comes up, you find a new board member with other skills who doesn't actually share that same interest. But that means, in a sense, you're surrounding yourself with ... Well, it's a bit like I keep talking about autocrats. What they do is surround themselves with yes people, so they don't actually get the information they actually need. And the whole point of our democratic process is that you try to get the right information, even if you don't want to hear it.

Gaye Francis (03:58):

And I think going back to that, and they're getting the information to maybe from a governance and a liability management aspect rather than improving the safety aspect of an organisation long term.

Richard Robinson (04:13):

Well, it's very Owellian. I mean, it's one of those things.

Gaye Francis (04:16):

It's very what? Sorry.

Richard Robinson (04:17):

Orwellian.

Gaye Francis (04:18):

Orwellian.

Richard Robinson (04:19):

George Orwell, 1984 and all that sort of good stuff.

Gaye Francis (04:22):

Oh, okay. Please fill us in. Enlighten.

Richard Robinson (04:26):

I'm not sure I can give you a rapid summary of the entire book on this particular podcast.

Gaye Francis (04:32):

What's the relevance of?

Richard Robinson (04:33):

Well, that's just the basic way totalitarian systems work. You basically give people the information that you ... So they only know what you need them to know.

Gaye Francis (04:40):

Want whem to know.

Richard Robinson (04:42):

Want them to know. So they'll give the answer the way in which you wish to get it.

Gaye Francis (04:45):

Right.

Richard Robinson (04:46):

I mean, that's partly why you put people in silos. But if you leave people ignorant, well...

Gaye Francis (04:51):

But I thought one of the key things and the role to the board was to ask the difficult questions and to challenge the status quo in a way.

Richard Robinson (05:03):

Well, in a sense, the whole reason for the Work, Health and Safety legislation because boards weren't doing it when awful things happened.

Gaye Francis (05:10):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (05:11):

And so I mean, I don't know if people ever really is on the ball, but if you're a long-term director and they saw something awful happen.

Gaye Francis (05:21):

So do you think part of it is that because we've gone to shorter term tenures that people aren't seeing these bad things?

Richard Robinson (05:28):

Yeah, but I think it's got to do with the entire hierarchy. I remember I told a long, long time ago, I got seconded as a safety manager for an oil company and I had to go and look at all the oil terminals around Australia. Now, what I didn't know is the fellow that I got seconded to, he was a personal friend of the Managing Director of said company, and he'd been with the company for about 25, 30 years, and the whole organisation knew him. And when he turned up, because they'd had some health and safety problems, and when he turned up doing this audit with me tagging long taking notes and generally doing the legwork, which is what young people do, what I'd sort of worked out later was because when this guy turned up, the organisation knew who he was, and they knew he had a direct connection to the CEO, and so that if this fellow said, yeah, that's an issue, I will bring it to the attention of the CEO and he'll bring it to the board.

Gaye Francis (06:18):

It was escalated.

Richard Robinson (06:19):

I can't guarantee what the result will be, but I can guarantee it will be raised. Everyone believed him. And the direct consequence of that was their health and safety statistics abruptly improved. But that required somebody who'd been with the organisation for a long time that everybody knew and trusted. And that trust part was the key bit.

Gaye Francis (06:37):

It's the trust thing, isn't it? And the communication up, I think, and we've talked about this, not necessarily in this season, but in other seasons about the truckload and the information load that is actually going up to the boards in the risk and health and safety space, that it's not understood and it's sort of become, oh, we keep putting all of this information up, but it's not in a way that can be done.

Richard Robinson (07:02):

Wheel barrow loads and nobody understands it.

Gaye Francis (07:04):

They don't understand it. How do you actually get through it and get to the bits that are actually important?

Richard Robinson (07:10):

Remember, I mean, it's a while ago now, there used to be this thing, I forget, it was sort of one of those James Reason-ish things where you actually sent somebody to go and talk to everybody. I remember the funniest one was, remember that water company I got the job for? The bigger water company had taken over the smaller water company and they'd been forced to upgrade the water supply to a Class A water, which was just a holiday settlement. So basically a lot of people turned up in summer, the rest of the year, everyone just used tank water, and didn't care. But anyway, they'd been forced to upgrade it. But what had happened was because the water supply had been upgraded, all the tourists turned up in summer and drank the place dry where previously they avoided the water.

Gaye Francis (07:47):

So you add your supply and demand bit as well.

Richard Robinson (07:51):

But the funny thing was, when I turned up, I started wandering around talking to the people who work for the smaller water company. And I was asking all these questions and this guy, some character turns up in a suit asking the guy actually doing the job, the question, you can sort of see them look at you with a fair degree of suspicion, what are you and who are you and what do you want? And I was busy writing down these notes, what this guy said. And he was looking at me astonically said, you're actually writing down what I'm saying, aren't you? And I said, yeah, I'm really writing down what you're saying. And I said, I can't guarantee because the smaller company had been overwhelmed by the new company's rules and processes and they were just frustrated even though they had quite a good process in the team, they were just getting a hard time. And I said, look, I can't promise that anything will get done, but what I can promise is I always tell them competently what you guys are doing, the good bits are doing, the bad things that are happening. And I can promise them to tell you that. Now, I actually can't remember if the company did anything, that's our problem, we do our bit and then we move on.

Gaye Francis (08:52):

I do remember that job, but I think they took some of the cultural issues or the cultural benefits.

Richard Robinson (08:57):

From the small one.

Gaye Francis (09:01):

Into the big organisation

Richard Robinson (09:02):

I think they did.

Gaye Francis (09:03):

They had a really good team environment and culture of reporting issues. Whereas sometimes we see that issues in larger organisations are often buried and not escalated to the level that they need to be.

Richard Robinson (09:15):

Well, what's like that stoplight thing, which I think seems to have disappeared, the red, amber, green business where if you've been blocked by the normal line management getting something done, you had the right to report it and once a week, I think it was, the senior management got a red amber green. And if red meant that there was an issue that had been tabled, but nobody looked at it yet. Amber means it was being thought through. And green meant it had been dealt with. And every week, all senior decision makers, all GMs got a summary of what the troops were directly reporting.

Gaye Francis (09:44):

I think everybody in the organisation had access to that. So you could report a red issue and that would in the health and safety sphere.

Richard Robinson (09:52):

You didn't want to be a serial whinger because that would have other consequences.

Gaye Francis (09:56):

That's right. And I think people were primarily using it for those kill and maime, those really...

Richard Robinson (10:00):

People were frustrated by things that weren't <getting done>. Well, the one that particularly annoyed them was when something broke down, a remote SCADA instrument broke down, somebody goes out and fixes it and a week later it's <broken> again and they do it again and there's bung again, you do it again. Well, after a while, you don't keep fixing it. It's got to be properly dealt with.

Gaye Francis (10:21):

Yes. So it's closed.

Richard Robinson (10:23):

But if it's an important thing that's going to stop something critical happening, then you really need to make sure it's working. So it was a backup to the QA system, I suppose.

Gaye Francis (10:32):

So I think we talked about ignorance being endemic and that sometimes it's being used as a tool to not give the right information so decisions can be made. But we also had in this one that we might talk a little bit about testing optimism bias.

Richard Robinson (10:49):

Yeah. Well, that's sort of ... I mean, in the commercial world, the commercial world generally is a bunch of optimists okay because they sort of look at the upside downside and risk and say, ooh, we could make all this money and get all these things and this, that and the other thing.

Gaye Francis (11:00):

I think they also look at it and say for the health and safety aspects, oh, that's not going to happen, so we don't have to worry about it.

Richard Robinson (11:07):

Well, it's more than that. They sort of say all those risk people, I mean, they're a bunch of pessimists, they'll never let us do anything. And at one level, they're probably right, but they still have to think it through. I mean, I think the whole point of the due diligence part, it isn't that you can't be optimistic, but if the pessimist put up something, you must explain why it's not reasonable to do it.

Gaye Francis (11:29):

And I think that's what comes back to that SFAIRP approach, isn't it? And we've said this a number of times, it's often more important to say why you're not going to do something compared to justifying why you are going to do something.

Richard Robinson (11:40):

I did get that enquiry about the report we did several years ago now saying, 'you need to do these things', and the question came back, well, it's not been done anywhere else on the site. And I said, well, there's a reason for it, there's a hazard next door. But at the time, that's what was needed to get it through all the regulatory hoops and loops. So to change it now would be very difficult and it wasn't prohibitively expensive. That's the point.

Gaye Francis (12:04):

I think it also comes back to, just on your point there, the SFAIRP approach is a snapshot in time, but it doesn't mean that you can then put it on the shelf and let it go. Technology's changing all the time, more information's becoming available, you should be able to make better decisions with the information. So I think this is something that has to be a continuous improvement, continuous process as an ongoing governance exercise at that board level.

Richard Robinson (12:37):

Yeah, that's right. If it can kill and maime. Then you need to show that you've done every reasonable practical thing you can to stop it going wrong. It doesn't mean it still can't happen. It's like that CFA (Country Fire Assoc) captain. He said, you know what? I know if I stay being a volunteer fire captain for another 10 years, <there will be> a fatality and I need to be able to look the next to kin in the eye. It's got nothing to do with insurance. It's got nothing to do with liability. I need to be able to look the next to kin in the eye and say, we had done every reasonable practical thing we could to make sure this thing wouldn't happen. But fighting bushfires is an inherently dangerous activity. There are lots of variables which we can't control. It's like the two young people who got killed the by the tree. But the tree that fell downhill, but they knew the wind and going up they were already retreating.

Gaye Francis (13:25):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (13:25):

They were trying to do every reasonable thing they can.

Gaye Francis (13:28):

Just bad luck, isn't it?

Richard Robinson (13:30):

But that's one of the reasons why we had that job to design cabins so they'd be more resistant. It still won't stop if a big tree hits it square, but it will deflect it.

Gaye Francis (13:39):

Well, that comes down to our whole theme around what this podcast season is SFAIRP, the moral imperative versus the commercial reality. So it's hand-on-heart stuff. Have we done every reasonable practicable precaution we can -- control we can -- that's reasonable in the conditions that we find ourselves?

Richard Robinson (14:01):

Well, it's a bit like the bushfires. I mean, like Black Saturday was 2009, we're now 20 years on.

Gaye Francis (14:08):

We're coming up to our once in a generation bushfire time again.

Richard Robinson (14:12):

And you go and look at the bush out there and it's all grown back and it's all looking lovely and I guess we're all moving back into the bush again, or at least a new set of people's moving back into the bush. The government has put in some new rules, but we're a bunch of optimists. It is lovely out there.

Gaye Francis (14:25):

Yeah. And why wouldn't you live out there? But I mean, there's things that you can do now that are practical (now), that you have to test whether they're reasonable or not. And I think it's that long-term vision that it has to keep going. And that's where we would probably, we've seen the downfall in organisations not having that really long-term outlook.

Richard Robinson (14:49):

It's like building bushfire bunkers. I mean, it's entirely impossible and practicable and it's probably another $50,000 when you buy a place in the bush. Maybe it's a good idea.

Gaye Francis (14:57):

But there's some facilities in those bush areas like we've seen at schools and things like that, that do have those in place.

Richard Robinson (15:06):

Well, only after the last <fires>.

Gaye Francis (15:07):

Yeah. But what I'm saying is that has been the change. So what is now reasonably practicable, and there's some organisations, would you put it in for a single house? Maybe, maybe not. But if you're inviting a whole lot of people to a location during bushfire season, then you may.

Richard Robinson (15:24):

Yeah, that's right because you can't ... Well, the program, better not say which school it is, but the program is they'll take the kids out of the edge if there's any kind of bushfire season around, but if they truly get stuck, they have a bunker.

Gaye Francis (15:34):

Correct, correct. All right. On that note, I think we're at the end. Thank you for joining us today, Richard. As we said, there's always a conflict between the moral imperative and the commercial reality.

Richard Robinson (15:48):

The SFAIRP moral imperative and the commercial reality.

Gaye Francis (15:51):

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. But we hope it's been an interesting conversation. Thanks, Richard.

Richard Robinson (15:57):

Thanks, Gaye.

Delaying Decisions to Avoid SFAIRP

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance
Season 7, Episode 5

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss Delaying Decisions to avoid SFAIRP (So Far As Is Reasonably Practicable).

Their conversation covers:

• if lack of a decision is the result of ignorance and poor governance rather than deliberate strategy

• how the elimination option often gets tested far too late in the design process

• why briefing board members and their legal counsel on WHS legislation obligations is often what finally moves the needle

• the example the case of the Port of Auckland's Chief Executive serve as a reminder that commercial priorities don't shield senior decision makers from criminal consequences

• if you're going to delay or decline a safety decision, you must document your reasoning thoroughly, revisit it regularly as circumstances change, and understand that sitting on a decision is itself a courageous choice.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:01):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss delaying decisions to avoid SFARP.

(00:13):

We hope you enjoyed the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:33):

Hi Richard. Welcome to another podcast podcast episode.

Richard Robinson (00:37):

Good to be here, Gaye.

(00:38):

We were just commenting that you keep saying, "What are we going to talk about today?" And we pointed out that whenever we start one of these (podcasts), we never seem to run out.

Gaye Francis (00:49):

No, that's true. We always do have interesting chats. Well, I think they're interesting. Today's really a question that we're going to try and answer and discuss. We get often asked during our courses and also during the (live) forum about decision makers taking very, very long time to make a decision. And so SFAIRP then becomes, or an option becomes not reasonable because so much time has lapsed.

Richard Robinson (01:19):

Particularly, the elimination option or a preventative option becomes non-viable because you're so far into the design process that you can't go backwards. Or they've already committed initial construction and so forth. And remember we came across that chemical plant, they were doing a fast track because that was the thing to do. And they built the control room lunchroom next door to one of the key-

Gaye Francis (01:42):

Processing. ...

Richard Robinson (01:43):

Plants. And if that processing plant went wrong, it would take out the control room. And so they then had to knock it down and build it somewhere else. But that was an oil company, I think. And resources when you're in a hurry doesn't seem to be the same problem as other people.

Gaye Francis (01:57):

They probably got their money back for that one. So yeah, the concept that decisions are being delayed, so they don't demonstrate SFAIRP. And I think one of the key one is actually looking at for that elimination option. Elimination options are often tested quite late in the design phase.

Richard Robinson (02:18):

That's correct. But I think the question you are asking is, is this just accidental or is this actually a deliberate policy of some people? I mean, I generally have a theory that stupidity theories take precedence over conspiracy theories. And so for that reason, I tend to think, well, they've had this process that either they've used before or done before or they've just launched into it without thinking too hard about what it is they're trying to achieve. And we come across that a lot.

Gaye Francis (02:43):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (02:44):

Some quite big projects, often dealing with councils, perhaps. We've had some experience there where they haven't really thought through what this thing is supposed to achieve in terms of the critical success outcomes in a way that all the key players understand.

Gaye Francis (02:56):

Yeah, all the key stakeholders on the board.

Richard Robinson (02:57):

And one particular parties politically pushed it probably from their own silo's point of view. And from their silo's point of view probably makes a lot of sense. But if you don't take it from a holistic viewpoint, you can actually waste an awful lot of community resources for no great value.

Gaye Francis (03:10):

Yeah. So that's your ignorance, not deliberate, but then if you don't have that governance process in place that decisions go through and get punted up to the right level and then they're delayed.

Richard Robinson (03:29):

Well, it's also the Orwellian thing. That was the point I was sort of making, that ignorance is sort of knowledge and that if you sort of launch into something, you don't really know what's going on, you can push the system to a place that somebody who's pulling the strings would like it to be, and yet it doesn't really suit the community. But that's a really kind of Macchiavellan way to think about things or a Soviet way, perhaps.

Gaye Francis (03:52):

Yeah, maybe. And that's not what we've typically seen. I think some things for organisations just get put in the too hard basket.

Richard Robinson (04:01):

Well, some people have a focus on good intentions in their particular patch and just can't see anything else.

Gaye Francis (04:06):

But we have seen decisions being delayed for years, not just months. And we then do come along and are asked to resolve them. And I always say, I definitely need my fairy wings and my fairy wand for this particular one when they've gone along on for that amount of time. But what we have found with those sort of decisions is the safety decision often breaks through a lot of that stuff and taking the due diligence process and the governance top down process often cuts through a lot of the things that a decision can be made.

Richard Robinson (04:43):

Well, it's the safety imperative actually forces it because the criminal consequences are certainly focused on the senior decision makers, although I've got to ... And those who understand the significance of it are on the ball.

Gaye Francis (04:56):

Correct. But what we're finding is a lot of those decision makers don't understand the implications of some of the WHS legislation.

Richard Robinson (05:04):

And that's where we've found that if we brief whoever's the board or whatever they're talking about, their legal counsel and their legal counsel often they haven't thought about it that well either, which is a bit of a surprise to us because I mean, obviously we get beaten up by lawyers fairly regularly in different places, but they're saying, look, the SFAIRP is real, it's got to be done. Remember the first one we did was in Queensland with the tunnel and we were doing a SIL rating and it was the lawyer for the ventilation company insisted that we had to come back and do it the SFAIRP way rather than the old target levels of risk wave.

Gaye Francis (05:42):

Because the legislation had come into effect.

Richard Robinson (05:44):

And that was 2012 and the legislation passed 2011 commenced the first January 2012. So we got hit with this pretty hard, but we've been finding lately that, and only some board members are fully aware of this. And it isn't until the lawyer turns up to confirm that what we technical people are saying is legit, that that imperative is reasserted.

Gaye Francis (06:05):

And then they're looking at it from a liability management viewpoint. But if it gets the decision across the line, I guess that's what it is. But we are finding that that safety lens often doesn't come across in much of the work that's being done. And I think even if you go back to the example that we've used about Taupo and about the Black Star from the Pilots Federation for that incident, it was only when we started looking at all of the different users in that airspace and these were the controls that could be put in place that it actually cut through and that had been going on doing risk assessments for seven years.

Richard Robinson (06:42):

Yes. And endlessly, at great expense to all the players. And then, well, obviously the judicial process that was kicking in before you turned up.

Gaye Francis (06:49):

Yeah. And so I think by coming in with that safety lens and that due diligence lens, it sometimes stops organisations making or delaying decisions because on a purely commercial basis. And we always say to our clients: Oh, but that's expensive, but how expensive is it? And it's often very hard to get them to articulate the actual quantum of what expensive is when they're looking at a solution.

Richard Robinson (07:18):

Well, it's interesting because you might recall that the Chief Executive of the Port of...

Gaye Francis (07:24):

Auckland.

Richard Robinson (07:25):

Auckland got clobbered in the New Zealandi courts. And I've got to say, the NZ courts have been hammering the SFAIRP business particularly vigorously, and their legislation only commenced in 2015. But anybody who's in the port business in New Zealand is very much aware of the consequences of not acting when you know the issues are there, because that's what he got done for. It wasn't that any particular failure that it was a sequence, that is to say the commercial aspects...

Gaye Francis (07:55):

Were overriding or taking over some of the safety.

Richard Robinson (08:01):

It was a failure to address the safety aspect. And I mean, at the time, I assume the shareholders were particularly quite delighted with what he was doing, but the courts were particularly not delighted with the safety results.

Gaye Francis (08:15):

So I think delaying decisions in our viewpoint would be...

Richard Robinson (08:22):

Courageous.

Gaye Francis (08:23):

Richard likes the word courageous. And if you are going to delay or not do something, we always say it's much more important to document why you're not going to do it and have robust justification around that.

Richard Robinson (08:37):

Correct.

Gaye Francis (08:39):

The problem with that sort of stuff is the goalposts often change. So you've got to go and revisit these ideas. So delaying a decision for seven and eight years, you might say it's not SFAIRP at the moment for these particular reasons. And yes, it then moves on, but you have to have that argument upfront. I think you're putting yourself in a very difficult position if you're just saying, we're not going to address it and we're not going to make a decision around that.

Richard Robinson (09:06):

Well, one of the advantages in doing the way we do it with the threat barrier diagrams and things like that is you do put down all the possibilities, including things that might be emerging. You can recognise it's not current at the moment, like the ship's divers work we're doing with ... I mean, sending down an ROV, remotely operated vehicle, you have look under the ship before you send a diver down is obviously a very good idea because in a heavy sea...

Gaye Francis (09:27):

 You're not putting someone at risk.

Richard Robinson (09:30):

And going under a hull of a ship in a heavy sea is a particularly dangerous activity for a diver to do.

Gaye Francis (09:35):

I think that's sort of in two parts, isn't it? That's giving you your situational awareness and that becomes with knowledge a safety thing.

Richard Robinson (09:41):

With the ROVs you're getting these little nippers out there and they can probably untangle the propeller that previously a diver had to do.

Gaye Francis (09:47):

Possibly, possibly. So the reasonableness of some of those solutions is changing on balance potentially.

Richard Robinson (09:54):

Do you see what those drones in Ukraine are doing now and how many people they've rescued? You couldn't send somebody to save a soldier, but they can put them on a wheel drone and just drive them out.

Gaye Francis (10:06):

So I guess from an engineering viewpoint, because I think the complaints that we've had or the questions that we've had in our forum and online in the courses is that engineering decisions are made here, but they often have to be punted up to an executive level to make the decision. And that's where the decisions aren't being made. But is it enough for the engineers to say, we've made these recommendations on these basis, and then it's with the people that make the decisions, I guess.

Richard Robinson (10:36):

We're about to do that next week, if I recall correctly, with regards to the movement of large ships under a bridge that have previously fallen down.

Gaye Francis (10:43):

We are. We're going to test those arguments again to make sure that we're still SFAIRP. And I think that's that regular revisiting of the particular issues.

Richard Robinson (10:53):

And the elimination option is obviously practicable, but expensive. So the decision will be punted up again for review and the world keeps changing. What was previously expensive can sometimes have changed in cost. Other times, particularly the modern area, it's probably gone up.

Gaye Francis (11:10):

I think we just have to be careful that not all decisions can purely be based on cost either. We always say it's on the scale, so it's the reasonableness. So it's the difficulty and inconvenience of doing it, the cost and also the utility of conduct, what other things go missing because you adopt those course of action. So when we're doing it that balance, I think you got to keep it ... Often the commercial imperative drives it, but then I think you got to ... And that's the whole discussion of this particular podcast season is around the moral imperative versus that commercial reality and the context in which organisations have to do business.

Richard Robinson (11:51):

I agree that's what we say, but it was Justice Mason's decision in Wyingshire Council versus Shirt.

Gaye Francis (11:58):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (11:59):

Yeah.

Gaye Francis (12:00):

Okay. He's going to pick on me at the very end of the episode, but that's all right. <laughs>

Richard Robinson (12:06):

No, I'm just pointing out that we didn't dream that idea up. We adapted it.

Gaye Francis (12:10):

Yes. We use that as a decision making process, but often the decision is commercially focused when there's a whole lot of other things that should have been taken into account.

Richard Robinson (12:20):

But that's why having the lawyer with you who endorses that position from the high court of Australia means that you actually get an answer from a senior decision maker who previously they were just say, oh, let's go with the money.

Gaye Francis (12:31):

And that comes down to what we've talked about in other places, silos and being driven by other things. But I think from a moral imperative, the SFAIRP option or this delaying SFAIRP options, (are) very courageous and you just hope that something doesn't happen in that time.

Richard Robinson (12:53):

Yeah. And if you're a punter, you're probably right, which is the scary thing.

Gaye Francis (12:57):

It is very scary. All right. Thank you for joining me today, Richard, and we'll see you next time.

Richard Robinson (13:03):

Thanks, Gaye.

New Zealand's Health & Safety Amendment Bill - Leading the Way

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance Podcast
Season 7, Episode 4

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss New Zealand's Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill and explore why New Zealand is leading the in workplace health and safety.

They break down the key changes in the amendment, including a sharper focus on critical risk and what this means for both large organisations and small PCBUs. 

The conversation touches on the real-world prosecutions that appear to have motivated the reform, including the White Island volcanic eruption and the conviction of the former CEO of the Port of Auckland.

Richard and Gaye also reflect on how many organisations are getting too consumed by lower-level compliance activity while the critical risks get deprioritised or ignored entirely.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the latest amendments to the New Zealand Health and Safety Act and how they're leading the way.

(00:16):

We hope you enjoyed the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favorite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:36):

Hi Richard. Welcome to our podcast session.

Richard Robinson (00:38):

Good morning, Gaye. Good to be back.

Gaye Francis (00:40):

It is good to be back. It's been a crazy couple of weeks.

Richard Robinson (00:44):

I keep reading that as you get older, you're meant to get happier.

Gaye Francis (00:48):

Okay.

Richard Robinson (00:49):

I'm supposed to be ecstatic at my stage of life.

Gaye Francis (00:51):

I was going to make that joke. I thought I'd better not. <laughs>

(00:55):

Today's topic, we're going to talk about the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill out of New Zealand and some interesting developments that it's recommending and looking like implementing, but they're really leading the way in this health and safety space at the moment. So I think, as you always do, can you give us a brief summary of what the amendment bill looks like? And then we'll discuss maybe some of the implications of it.

Richard Robinson (01:24):

I better just explain the reason why we came across this because we're doing some work in New Zealand and we're briefing relevant legal counsel. And so we're just sort of checking what the status of various things were because we're fairly familiar with it all. Having done quite a lot of work in different places in New Zealand. But we came across this and we found this particularly interesting because we had noticed the Kiwis have been particularly active in prosecuting people and successfully prosecuting them. In particular, you might recall the volcanic eruption.

Gaye Francis (01:51):

White Island.

Richard Robinson (01:52):

23 people got killed. In the end, seven companies got convicted.

Gaye Francis (01:56):

Correct. The individuals walked away, but the companies were convicted.

Richard Robinson (02:00):

But the one that sort of motivated everybody was in 2024, the former CEO of the Port of Auckland got convicted for a heavy lift crane dropped something on someone and killed someone. And their former CEO got convicted. And that was despite the fact that that CEO, from all the readings I'd done, was actually pretty strong on safety and tried to get a lot of things done. Now, we're not entirely sure. I'm sort of though we're listening to the NZ Parliament to work out why they've decided to introduce this amendment. But what we thought we'd do is go through what we understood to be the key bits of it. It's obviously available online, although it does note that, and we printed this off about a week or so ago (early March 2026), and it does say it will be replaced in March. So I guess this thing's ongoing fairly fast.

(02:44):

But basically it does a number of things. The overall objective, as they sort of point out, is to make the thing more efficient because I think what they've noticed is there've been a lot of wheel spinning and an awful lot of people spending an awful lot of time on lesser matters that they shouldn't be doing. And so when you're sort of looking at the summary of this thing.

(03:01):

Now there's a clarification of regulators as the first point. It's their CAA, Civil Aviation Authority, and who we've had a bit of dealing with.

Gaye Francis (03:08):

Yes, we have.

Richard Robinson (03:09):

And their maritime regulator, whom we've had a little bit of dealing with. Their roles are more precisely defined.

Gaye Francis (03:15):

Ok.

Richard Robinson (03:16):

And much crisper. But then the next and most important thing is they say is focus on critical risk, which is something we've hammered.

Gaye Francis (03:23):

For a very long time.

Richard Robinson (03:24):

Very long time. And they define critical risk. I mean, there's a whole lot of definitions at the back about amusement rides and things like that and crane movements in particular, which presumably...

Gaye Francis (03:35):

Will be an output from the Auckland incident.

Richard Robinson (03:37):

I did notice that WorkSafe Australia has just got a call for action on-

Gaye Francis (03:42):

Crane movements.

Richard Robinson (03:43):

At ports.

Gaye Francis (03:43):

Right.

Richard Robinson (03:44):

So it's a popular subject. But the other definition of critical risk is basically, I mean, they've got better words to cover it, but it's kill or maim. If it can lead to a death, then you're meant to have it under control. That sort of led onto a little supplementary point is that they also then say that they define a small PCBU and a small PCBU is 20 people or less.

Gaye Francis (04:11):

Right.

Richard Robinson (04:11):

Small PCBUs only have to focus on the critical ones.

Gaye Francis (04:15):

Okay. So any issues that can kill a maim, the small PCBU has to just do that. For larger organisations, they have to prioritise the critical ones, but still have processes, governance processes in place to manage the other.

Richard Robinson (04:29):

Yes, but it's not an offense to failure to prioritise because presumably you're going to still do them all.

Gaye Francis (04:34):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (04:35):

Although our frustration is that people get lost in the detail and after a while, just ignore the big rare one, which is the one they really want you to focus on.

Gaye Francis (04:43):

And I think the question still comes up, especially in the consulting work that we do. It's really that question of credibility. When something is so rare, we often get the pushback of, do we really have to worry about this because it's so rare that it's not going to happen. So that likelihood argument still creeps in even when they're determining critical.

Richard Robinson (05:08):

Oh, well, this amendment's quite clear, if it can kill or maim and it's possible, then you've got to do something about it as far as I can tell. It does say that they clarify overlaps with the legislation, which wasn't totally clear to me. What they're saying is that the Work Health and Safety Act is not meant to be a backstop to public health.

Gaye Francis (05:32):

Okay.

Richard Robinson (05:33):

But that doesn't mean ... I mean, for example, one of the examples they sort of give is if in order to get to a recreational area, somebody has to walk over private land like farmland or something like that. The mere factor walking over the farmland doesn't create a liability for the farmer. But obviously if the farmer runs the poor character over with a tractor, that's the consequence of work. So you still have to consider those sorts of things. So they're being very clear about what you're trying to do there.

(05:57):

The other thing they do is they clarify the duty of a director. In our work health and safety legislation, it says, demonstrated due diligence includes these six points." Remember, between the penultimate and the final they changed one word. Although all the lawyers keep telling us, if it's not in the Act, then including something else would be hard to do, but we're not lawyers, so you can check that one. But when they define it, they actually then define it and I'll sort of go (through).

Gaye Francis (06:28):

This is in the (NZ) amendment bill.

Richard Robinson (06:30):

This is in the amendment bill.

Gaye Francis (06:31):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (06:31):

They basically say that ... Well, there's two parts. The first part was that I'm not quite sure why they thought necessary to do this, but if you had a duty as a worker and an officer, your duty of an officer took precedence.

Gaye Francis (06:44):

That seems logical.

Richard Robinson (06:46):

One would've thought so, but I guess if it's not clearly stated...

Gaye Francis (06:49):

It can be argued.

Richard Robinson (06:51):

And then in the section on due diligence, they now say due diligence means taking reasonable steps to understand the nature and operations of the PCBU, the hazard and risk associated with operations and work health and safety matters as it generally applies to that business. And then in terms of controlling these things to ensure that the PCBU has available to use and uses appropriate resources and processes, has appropriate process for receiving considering information, has and implements process for complying with any duty and part C is your favourite observation to verify the provision of these resources and processes.

Gaye Francis (07:28):

I think that's a really interesting one because we often get asked the question about doing these things and what controls go in place, but then what's the quality assurance around it to make sure what you say you're going to do, (a), is actually done, but also is maintained to a level that ensures that effectiveness of that control. And I think when we talk to boards and things like that, they sort of, "Oh, it's done and dusted," and you move on to the next thing because they've got a long list of things to do, but they've got to keep asking the question, "Are all of these things remaining in place?" And that comes down to that governance process that you've got. And all of these things are interlinked. And they're still being done in silos, I feel, in organisations.

Richard Robinson (08:17):

I think you're right. And it always fascinates us. You see a lot of risk registers and a failed control is a line in a risk register rather the quality thing. Although I do think, I mean, this is the case, and I suspect that's why it's in the Act. If you've got a control and somebody's dead because the control failed, all hell breaks loose.

Gaye Francis (08:36):

It has to.

Richard Robinson (08:37):

And that's why I think they're specifically listed in the legislation. What they tend to do is put in things, something bad happens, and then what they tend to do is put in what they felt ought to have been in place to make sure that they ought not to have happened.

Gaye Francis (08:51):

Yeah, right.

Richard Robinson (08:51):

But that's why it's a sort of moral philosophy thing. And it's a bit strange because you're trying to make a moral imperative. I mean, I think when you talk to anybody about it, it's self evident. The failed control's got to ... Somebody's got to suffer.

Gaye Francis (09:06):

But I think there's two interesting parts to that because when we go and talk to boards sometimes, it's sort of like, are they getting the right information about the critical issues? And then I think the second step is what are the critical controls in place to manage those issues and what's your quality assurance process and procedure around that to ensure that they're being sustained? So even though the board might not have a detailed understanding of those, they have to have the tools and be able to ask the questions to make sure that that happens. So it's that verification step of both the critical issues, the controls, and what makes us confident that they're being sustained and implemented properly.

Richard Robinson (09:49):

Yep. The last thing of significance, I think from the point of view if anybody's interested in these things, is really strengthening approved codes of practice. And they're basically saying that certain approved codes of practice, if you have implemented that code of practice, you have demonstrated due diligence.

Gaye Francis (10:06):

So that's for critical risks as well?

Richard Robinson (10:08):

Yeah. Well, I think the argument was, I mean, they've got a couple of examples here, but they're looking at obviously creating more of these approved ones to try and ... It's particularly for the smaller PCBUs. I can see how it's very, very hard for a small PCBU.

Gaye Francis (10:24):

To start from scratch. Absolutely. We've talked about the roles of standards and codes of practice and things like that. They're still lagging indicators. And in a world where technology is changing so fast, I think that could also be a little bit ... tricky.

Richard Robinson (10:42):

I think it's going to be a few test cases before they resolve that one, because if an approved code of practice has an obvious control or misses an obvious control that ought to been in place, for the life of me can't see, because the legislation still takes priorities. But again, if the legislation says-

Gaye Francis (10:57):

You rely on that code. I better guess this is our go back line, isn't it? You'd have to check that one with your lawyers.

Richard Robinson (11:04):

Every time.

Gaye Francis (11:06):

But we would probably just caution that as a black and white rule because codes of practice and standards are lagging indicators and often don't have the latest up-to-date thinking of what potential controls could be.

Richard Robinson (11:24):

That's correct. And the technology, the way the technology is changing out here...

Gaye Francis (11:28):

So fast.

Richard Robinson (11:29):

I mean, we're getting completely frustrated with Apple and Microsoft. This business is becoming an appendage to an AI in some form rather than having our own computing platform. It's just driving us crackers, but that's a common problem for everyone.

Gaye Francis (11:43):

So the New Zealanders really appear to be leading the way in this particular area.

Richard Robinson (11:49):

And we were reflecting on why might that be the case.

(11:52):

And you see, the Kiwis are a little different because they've got their Acts & Compensation commission, which is no fault. And that means something bad happens, then they've tried to patch the place up without blaming somebody particularly for it. Whereas we in Australia have always been pretty keen on common law actions, right? Now, our WHS legislation is basically a statutory statement of the common law duty of care. And obviously, I assume that if you're politicians and things like that or parliamentarian, you've seen a lot of people get hurt, and the common law didn't seem to be sufficient. You then elevate that to statute law to try and make those provisions or that philosophical and ethical understanding-

Gaye Francis (12:29):

More robust, I guess.

Richard Robinson (12:31):

Now, the Kiwis attended all their workplace relation ministers council and kept an eye on what we Australians are up to, left it for a couple of years, but then implemented their legislation in 2015. And I've got a funny suspicion, but having implemented it, some bad things happened and immediately started prosecuting.

Gaye Francis (12:48):

Successfully prosecuting as well.

Richard Robinson (12:51):

Successful prosecuting and convicting people. And they looked at that and said, hmm, we weren't expecting that robust a result. I mean, I think that's saying that if an Act exists and a prosecutor says, well, as far as I can tell, if I prosecute and I have a successful prosecution, I believe that's the duty of the prosecutor, the public prosecutor in those circumstances. So if it's a parliament you're not happy with that, then you've got to sort of tweak the Act to make it more precise so that you only prosecute the ones you want to prosecute, you don't prosecute people, which in a way that isn't helpful to society as a whole, because they're trying to stop that.

Gaye Francis (13:27):

The one they have been successful in is the White Island, I mean, they have been kill or maim incidents.

Richard Robinson (13:32):

Oh, that's certainly the case, but they're trying to work out, they sort of backed off from prosecuting individuals, but they still prosecuted the businesses.

Gaye Francis (13:40):

Organisations. I think it's also, there's probably been industry complaints or frustrations, I guess, that so much effort is put into the WHS space, work health and safety space, and you often don't see the results of it. You're putting all of this effort in...

Richard Robinson (14:01):

It's not being efficient.

Gaye Francis (14:04):

It's not being efficient. And you're right, you're getting lost in the detail and spinning the wheels for things that don't necessarily give you the biggest bang for buck.

Richard Robinson (14:13):

Bureaucratic administrative structures that are causing mayhem for the people to actually get on and do things.

Gaye Francis (14:17):

So this sort of one gives the tool. Well, it gives two things, I think. It gives people a tool to get on with the job, but it also gives those credible, critical issues that are often discounted by the likelihood so much that no one ever gets on with it. Even by, they don't even get to the stage of looking at what controls should be put in place.

Richard Robinson (14:38):

It gets too hard.

Gaye Francis (14:39):

It gets put in the too hard basket. And I think the little bit that we've read on the Auckland CEO was, yes, he was doing things around health and safety and hadn't quite got to this particular issue, although he knew about it.

Richard Robinson (14:54):

He knew about it, but I don't think he'd got on with it fast enough.

Gaye Francis (14:57):

So often, and that's what I was sort of trying to say. Some of these lesser things are taking so much time and spinning the wheels so much that you don't get onto those things that need to be prioritised and focused on, even though their potential, well, they could be rare.

Richard Robinson (15:13):

Yeah, that's right. But I think the other thing that's sort of puzzling me a little bit, I mean, they're trying to clarify and regulators and things like that, but in the end, the point is that stop bad things happening, and in the end, the duty is to demonstrate SFAIRP, that hasn't changed.

Gaye Francis (15:27):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (15:27):

And the question of who's going to prosecute whom after the event and in what court and what jurisdiction. At one level it doesn't matter. It's all about control. It's not about ownership.

Gaye Francis (15:36):

And controlling before the fact.

Richard Robinson (15:38):

Correct. And I think that's why there's some other confusions going on still around the place, which regrettably, I suspect it will take a court case to determine.

Gaye Francis (15:46):

Yeah. So interesting space at the moment in New Zealand. It'll be interesting to see if Australia goes down that path as well.

Richard Robinson (15:54):

Well, the way it seems to work, the four big jurisdictions have to get together and the lesser jurisdictions will follow along, but that's a complicated process.

Gaye Francis (16:02):

It is. It is and not one to solve today.

Richard Robinson (16:04):

No.

Gaye Francis (16:04):

So thanks for joining us today, Richard, and we'll see you next time.

Richard Robinson (16:08):

Thanks, Gaye.

Resilient Infrastructure, Risk & Adaptation Strategies

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance Podcast
Season 7, Episode 3

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss Resilient Infrastructure, Risk & Adaptation Strategies.

Following their attendance at the recent forum hosted by Engineers Australia's Risk Engineering Society and the Institute of Strategic Risk Management they unpack the big questions it raised about resilient infrastructure.

From Victorian bushfires to the Dreamworld tragedy, to Finland's invasion-proof subways, they explore what resilience really means in practice; who defines it, who's responsible for it, and why "future proofing" is often considered optional.

They discuss why resilience can't be managed in silos, how it means different things to different people, and how a due diligence and SFAIRP approach can shift resilience from a reactive response to a proactive strategy.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss resilient infrastructure, risk and adaptation strategies.

(00:14):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources or have any feedback or topic ideas, head to the website r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:32):

Hi, Richard. Welcome to another podcast.

Richard Robinson (00:35):

Morning, Gaye. Pleasure to be here.

Gaye Francis (00:38):

Good to hear. Today we're going to talk about a forum that we attended last week. I attended in person. You were online.

Richard Robinson (00:45):

Most recent, very recently.

Gaye Francis (00:46):

Very recently. That is true. And it was run by Engineers Australia's Risk Management or Risk Engineering Society and the Institute of Strategic Risk Management. And they were talking about resilient infrastructure, risk and adaptation strategies. And it was quite an interesting and robust discussion. There were some very interesting presentations and they were quite diverse.

Richard Robinson (01:15):

As you pointed out, I missed part of it because they couldn't actually get the online part working initially. So you were there for the whole thing and I was sort of sporadic.

Gaye Francis (01:24):

That's correct. So I guess one of the first things that for me that came out was the notion of resilience and what is resilience. And nobody really had a precise definition of what that meant. And they were taking it from different contexts and different ways. And I think one of the interesting ones was the presentation by Luke Belford, and it was about authorising resilience and value. And I think he came up with three key points: Success is silent. Failure is visible. Future proofing is seen as optional. And in the resilience space, it sort of showed up as avoided costs in the event of a disaster. I know the people in the resilience world don't like the word disaster, but it shows up when something happens. So for me, resilience is really about, it's a solution to a disruption or to a risk per se.

Richard Robinson (02:27):

Yes. I agree.

Gaye Francis (02:29):

So it was how risk management and resilience went hand in hand. And I think some of those things were really interesting.

Richard Robinson (02:36):

Well, we were talking about this before we started the podcast, and the ones that immediately came to mind to us with the Victorian bushfires and the desalination plant. Now the Victorian bushfires, because it's a fascinating thing because of the activities of the AER, the energy regulator, and the fact that a lot of bushfires are started by clashing conductors, but it's self-evident the bushfires start for all sorts of other reasons too, like lightning and so forth.

(02:58):

And that the bushfire, the really bad ones that burn lots of houses happen about once a generation in Victoria. And so the question then becomes, well, how much trouble are you going to go to to try and stop these things? And there comes a point where there's diminishing returns and it's better to be resilient. And so, okay, well, we want to keep building expensive houses, we'll all evacuate when the bad fires appear. And if it happens to burn our house down, it's cheaper to build back than it is to ... And you consider it as part of the cost of resilience.

Gaye Francis (03:23):

And I think that was one of the key things about the resilience discussion was what are we trying to protect against? What is the extent that we want to be resilient to? So what is this infrastructure? And it was an infrastructure context, of course. What does this infrastructure have to deliver and for how long and what situations does it have to be resilient to?

Richard Robinson (03:47):

But we took that a little bit further because one of the comments we have was in the Dreamworld incident where the four young people got killed, the cost of the payout to the people who got killed was about $3 million or so, but the cost to the underwriter for shareholder value was about a $30 million claim. And you're sort of going, wait a minute, that's the sort of order of magnitude.

Gaye Francis (04:07):

Seems disproportionate doesn't it.

Richard Robinson (04:08):

And the fact that the company was badly managed or didn't think these things through and wasn't applying the legislation consistently, these things like that, and the underwriter had to pay the shareholders for it. There's something not quite right about that. But of course, but if you define the whole purpose of company to make shareholder value, then it's entirely rational.

Gaye Francis (04:28):

And that was one of the other presentations was about that strategic risk management element and what boards had to consider in terms of being resilient. And we were talking along the lines of the board's there to sort of see the longer term strategy of an organisation typically, but then board directorships are often only a shorter term tenure.

Richard Robinson (04:52):

But that sometimes depends on the type of board. I mean, if you're talking about a water company, its business is providing a service to the community first and foremost ahead of any commercial consequence. Okay? It's meant to do it cost effectively, but failure to deliver water is number one.

Gaye Francis (05:06):

Yes. So the resilience comes in, is it the failure of water supply? And we've talked about this in a number of other podcasts, I think, and how long do you have to continue to deliver water or an essential service in the event that another essential service such as power goes out?

Richard Robinson (05:23):

And we did that cabinet in confidence work addressing that not so long ago in Victoria.

Gaye Francis (05:27):

So the key is you really do have to come top down and articulate what your critical success outcomes are or what is fit for purpose. What's the definition of this.

Richard Robinson (05:41):

What are you doing here? What are we trying to achieve? Now, the problem is politically that's a difficult thing to do because if you state that and then it all goes wrong, it's a bit of a problem.

Gaye Francis (05:50):

Well, and that went back to Luke's third point, wasn't it about future proofing is seen as optional.

Richard Robinson (05:56):

Well, if it hadn't gone wrong in your term of office, I mean, we've talked about this before, but if you're a politician, you actually quite like things going badly for the guys who are in office, because that means you're likely to get into power in the next election.

Gaye Francis (06:09):

That's a bit cynical, but true, true.

Richard Robinson (06:12):

That's like underwriters. I mean, underwriters are all in favour of losses as long as it's not to their company. It's fine when it's all the other insurance companies, because then premiums go up. It's a great success.

Gaye Francis (06:23):

You would hope though in a critical infrastructure environment, we're trying to have the whole community, the resilience of the community as a whole. But I think that comes down to one of our other issues that we've talked about in a number of other cases, and that's things are done in silos.

Richard Robinson (06:39):

Correct.

Gaye Francis (06:41):

And bringing it all together for that greater good of a community. And I think resilience is larger than an organisation.

Richard Robinson (06:49):

Well, that's meant to be what cabinet does for you, because they're the ones who meant to balance all these things. I mean, you want a well-educated community, you want to have a resilient community against bushfires, and there's obviously a balance there that has to be decided. Now, the problem you got is your political ... The politics has gone a bit strange in different parts of the world, and we're trying in Australia in some odd ways that I haven't quite figured out... But to have the high level resilience is ... I mean, why do you need a defense force to be resilient against external threats? And when you need it, you need it, so you better get it right. And it's getting very complicated out there.

Gaye Francis (07:30):

But I've never seen an overall infrastructure plan or resilient infrastructure plan for a community as a whole.

Richard Robinson (07:39):

Wait a minute, you go to Finland, of course you do.

Gaye Francis (07:42):

Explain.

Richard Robinson (07:43):

The Fins have their world set up for an invasion. They're all trained, they're all ready to go, and they can put every member of their community into a secure facility in the event of war. True or false? You've been telling me about this. Not me. <laughs>

Gaye Francis (08:02):

They all do national training and yeah.

Richard Robinson (08:05):

And when they design something like a subway or an underground station, they design it so it becomes a bunker that they can protect themselves against just about anything.

Gaye Francis (08:13):

Yeah, true. I guess I never thought about it like that as a...

Richard Robinson (08:16):

But you've been telling me. <laughs>

Gaye Francis (08:19):

I think one of the other interesting things, Richard, was the sort of perception that you got that things are being done in silos. So the whole wasn't considered. So it was being thought out from a commercial aspect or an environmental aspect and not maybe from the whole of organisational aspect or whole of community aspect. And what was surprising to me, I guess, because we do a lot of our stuff from a safety perspective, there wasn't much discussion about the relationship between the safety aspect and resilience.

Richard Robinson (08:56):

Well, and that was interesting too, because one of the things we've noticed that safety can actually drive a solution. In fact, one of the speakers did make the point that when you look at when there's a disaster or an emergency, like during COVID and various things like that, we were really good at making rapid decisions on what was best as fast as we could get there.

Gaye Francis (09:13):

And finding resources to make things happen.

Richard Robinson (09:17):

But once the disaster was over, we just sort of slump back to whatever slow decision-making process we were previously used to. That's not particularly helpful. You would have thought that we could actually do better than that.

Gaye Francis (09:27):

And I think it is bringing that idea of resilience into a proactive manner rather than making it reactive. And that changes the way that people think about what resilience is.

Richard Robinson (09:40):

Yeah, because it has been a term which a lot of people use, which everyone sort of understands, but it's sort of gone to the same category as risk because it's a term everybody uses with great enthusiasm.

Gaye Francis (09:50):

Correct.

Richard Robinson (09:51):

And yet when you actually try to investigate what they mean by it, there's a general underlying confusion.

Gaye Francis (09:57):

And it means different things to different people depending on the context in which you find yourself.

Richard Robinson (10:02):

That's correct. I mean, we keep noticing that in our courts and our legislators actually use it as a noun and a thing in itself, the risks. And then they talk about the risk associated with the hazard, meaning it's a description or an adjective associated with it. And that's sort of a basic fundamental problem. And that's even in the legislation.

Gaye Francis (10:18):

When Jordan (Bartlett) used the term resilience in his particular presentation, it was the buildup to a certain capacity. You've defined a capacity that you can achieve for a fit for purpose and you can be resilient to that capacity and then disaster results once you exceed that capacity.

Richard Robinson (10:40):

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because that's a bit like in a cabinet in confidence stuff we were doing for the water utilities. I mean, how long should a water utility be able to supply water if there's a loss of power and deal with sewage and is it eight hours, 24 hours or two days? Obviously it'd be nice if it was two days, but it would cost an awful lot and that's where you have to balance those community...

Gaye Francis (11:00):

Expectations.

Richard Robinson (11:01):

You can't do it just within a silo. I think that was the main takeaway, wasn't it?

Gaye Francis (11:05):

I think that was the main takeaway. I think there are a couple of main takeaways for us. It's top down. You really have to articulate and define what you're trying to protect. It can't be done in a silo. And I think you've got to consider the collective. So it is the safety aspects. It is the disruption aspects. It is the commercial aspects. It is the community expectation. So all of that needs to be articulated and then what you can put in place. And I think that's where that SFAIRP provision comes in because you're really saying not just from a safety viewpoint, here are the controls that we can put in place or the precautions we can put in place, what are reasonable in the circumstances?

Richard Robinson (11:47):

Yeah. Well, I think that's what we took it to be a moral imperative. And I think that's what the parliaments basically were trying to say. They were taken chiefly from a safety viewpoint, but as we've pointed out, Victoria's thrown it into environmental legislation and there's no particular reason that it couldn't actually be thrown into other areas if we chose to do it.

Gaye Francis (12:05):

And I think that was one of the other comments from one of the presenters that risk analysis doesn't necessarily get you over the line for issues of resilience.

Richard Robinson (12:17):

Correct. I agree with that.

Gaye Francis (12:19):

And that's primarily because risk is really poor at dealing with high consequence, low likelihood events, regardless of what they are. So if you take the SFAIRP or due diligence approach, then you can do it that way.

Richard Robinson (12:32):

And resilience is all about what can be done. So it's an options analysis, which is the point you're making, which is what I guess an awful lot of the presenters that we've been listening to for the last few years are achievely saying.

Gaye Francis (12:44):

Yeah. So I think resilience is absolutely critical, especially in the risk management or the due diligence space. If you can be proactive rather than reactive, that'd make a huge difference. And if you take the due diligence approach, the SFAIRP approach, you will get an action list of things to do.

Richard Robinson (13:04):

Well, you've gone through the hierarchy, you eliminate it if you can, you prevent it if you can. If you can't do that, you can mitigate it. And I tend to regard resilience as an aspect of mitigation for the big things that you really can't fix preventativly.

Gaye Francis (13:18):

Outside of your control.

Richard Robinson (13:19):

Correct.

Gaye Francis (13:20):

But then you're talking about disaster recovery or recovery access.

Richard Robinson (13:24):

That's right.

Gaye Francis (13:25):

So I hope you found that interesting. Thanks for joining us today, Richard. See you next time.

Richard Robinson (13:29):

Thanks, Gaye.

To Grok or Not? Using AI for Risk Management & Governance Decisions

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance
Season 7, Episode 2

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis how AI in Risk Management?

Richard begins with a deep-dive into how large language models work, and where they fall short. He explains why AI systems are sophisticated inference engines rather than true reasoning machines, and why that distinction matters enormously for high-stakes decision-making and risk management.

The conversation covers the parallels between AI and Monte Carlo simulation (great for likely scenarios, unreliable for rare critical events), the growing wave of fabricated legal citations produced by AI tools, and why the common law system itself mirrors how large language models operate.

Gaye and Richard then bring the discussion back to governance and what does responsible AI use look like for boards and organisations? Who carries liability when a decision is based on AI output? And how do you ensure the sources AI cites are actually real?

They conclude by agreeing that AI is a powerful tool for gathering information faster than ever before, but it demands that essential second layer of human thought, verification, and documented decision-making. 

They reiterate that thinking, and SFAIRP, is hard.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:01):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss AI in Risk Management.

(00:12):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and subscribing on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A, our newsletter and resources, or have any feedback or topic ideas, please head to the website www.r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:33):

Good morning, Richard. Welcome to another podcast.

Richard Robinson (00:36):

Hi Gaye. I wonder if it's going to go like last time?

Gaye Francis (00:39):

Let's hope it goes a little bit more smoothly.

Richard Robinson (00:42):

I'm actually going to take a bit of a book on whether you're going to Finland this year at Christmas.

Gaye Francis (00:49):

We'll have to wait and see. Depends how well I can plan. But today's podcast, we're going to talk about AI because we get asked lots and lots of questions on this.

Richard Robinson (00:59):

In the Risk Management space.

Gaye Francis (01:01):

In the risk management space, how it's used, etc. So we're going to title this one to Grok or Not. And Richard's been doing some research, so he's going to give you a bit of a brain dump first and a summary of things. And then we're going to talk about how it's used in the risk management space.

Richard Robinson (01:19):

Well, this originally popped up because a couple of weeks ago I spent the weekend trying to get some of our old software going, in particular, the simulation in supercard for Singapore. Now, that simulation basically put down all the ship tracks and then it basically fired different ships at different speeds doing different things to see if you threw enough ships at it for long enough for it to tell you where the potential collision points were. But it was a bit of crude sort of simulation. And it was obviously under 32 bits. So as Apple moved on, it was Apple software, we couldn't use it.

(01:51):

But anyway, because we're now onto M4 computer chips and these things are so powerful, you can actually get an emulator and run the old interface and the old software and it's faster than it was before. But every time I sort of started doing this, strange things happen.

(02:04):

So I just kept typing into (AI), if this thing happens, what's the problem? What happens next? And obviously what was I thought the Apple AI was coming back with answers. But I commented to you, this thing was coming back with really good answers. I mean, I was asking very complicated questions like I'm running an M4 and I'm trying to use a UTM simulator with System 10 and Supercard and this thing isn't working and it's giving me this message. What's the answer? And it came back three answers. One of these, probably if this is the problem, this is the problem, do this, do that. And it all worked.

(02:35):

It wasn't until I was reading later, they suddenly realised that Apple had done a deal with Google and it adopted Google's main AI, Gemini, to run the core answers from Apple. And that had happened in January this year (2026). And it commenced. Apple are paying a billion dollars a year, I think, to Google for the privilege. Although Google is currently paying Apple $20 billion a year for being able to put Google on Apple instruments.

Gaye Francis (02:58):

I have noticed that there's a lot more Google reminders and sign up for Google and sign in.

Richard Robinson (03:03):

It's getting very annoying.

Gaye Francis (03:04):

For Google and Apple machines.

Richard Robinson (03:05):

It's getting very annoying.

Gaye Francis (03:06):

Yes.

Richard Robinson (03:06):

But that meant I suddenly had to have a look at what was the AI actually doing and where was it coming and what was it doing? Now, I mean, you listen to these podcasts. Anyway, I found this podcast by a fellow called Gary Marcus. He's being interviewed by financial people. And he'd been apparently in the AI business for the last 30 years or something like that. And what he was pointing out is in the last 10 years, all the AIs are basically focused on large language models. Now effectively, what you've got to do to think about that is it's basically scraping the internet. And as the new AI has come up, they scrape more and more. But the logical inference engines from his point of view, they're not actually thinking.

(03:43):

And the example he gave, which I thought was kind of entertaining was when Tesla was trying to get their software going up in the early days, it's an inference engine in the sense that what you do is you throw a whole lot of experiences at this thing. So it looks for cars, bikes, pedestrians, and things like that, and it gives them all the scenarios in which these things could happen. So when it's looking at something, it picks the scenario that's most like that, and then that tells it what to do. It's not thinking through what should be done of itself. And the example it gave was some Tesla guy was at an airport somewhere, and he said, "Well, I'll show you how it works." And he called the Tesla to go somewhere to come to him. And the first thing he did was take out an aircraft because it'd never been told about that you shouldn't run into aircraft and it wasn't in the database so it didn't recognise what it was. And that means it's just an inference engine.

(04:32):

And then he went on to explain that human cognition is a bit like that because the example he sort of gave ... Well, he gave it, but it was my inference from it. But when you drive to work in a car, you drive there and you wouldn't even remember when you stopped at a red light, you just get there. And it's only every now and then when something strange happened. You sort of go, "What the hell is going on? And do I have to think about this? " And he said, there's an extra bit where you're actually thinking about something as opposed to just sort of doing what's in background and that you know. And he said, basically these large language models from his point of view is the background thinking. It's not the high level thinking, the actual reasoning path.

Gaye Francis (05:08):

So it's giving you information that then you're supposed to think about to interpret into your context.

Richard Robinson (05:14):

It's the new and novel experience. If it's a repetitive routine experience, a large language model will get it right because you're scraping the internet for all the circumstances. So if it says the right way or the best way, if you take the top 10 people that have written English grammar or something like that, this is how they'd express what you'd want to say. So that's what it does.

(05:33):

He then sort of points out, I think that in 2024, I think the US courts had 300 cases where people misquoted cases because the lawyers use an AI to bring the case law together, and I think last year it was 600 cases so this is going exponentially. And so there was one particular case, and he was talking about how these bits of information get disconnected, but the AI had sort of said, well, you're obviously looking for this and you want this, so I'll actually construct an artificial case and put it in the reference. <laughs> So he was having quite a good time pointing it out and basically saying is that most of the time the AI is going to get it right just because if that's the way the world's done.

(06:12):

Now, in terms of that simulation, for example, we had a pretty dumb simulation. It was just sort of basically delaying the start, but every object was just every ship object was just moving around at a more less constant speed and so forth. Whereas with the power of these things, we could actually program the AI to actually be each ship and to actually slow this ship down or put helms on a sleep or put the guy watching out the front or the radar.

Gaye Francis (06:37):

Different weather conditions.

Richard Robinson (06:39):

You can manipulate it. But obviously that wouldn't, unless you ran the simulation for several hundred years, you wouldn't find all the bad things that could happen, but you could do that theoretically and obviously the more powerful these things get. And that's what you then went on to say because Apple's just done this deal with Google.

Gaye Francis (06:55):

Does that come down to similar to your Monte Carlo simulations that it's really good for predicting and helping you with the most likely scenarios?

Richard Robinson (07:04):

Correct. Very much so.

Gaye Francis (07:05):

And the things that happen all the time, but what it's going to miss is those credible, critical long tail events potentially, because they're rare and they don't happen very often.

Richard Robinson (07:14):

And they require thought.

Gaye Francis (07:15):

And they require thought.

Richard Robinson (07:17):

Well, the other thing which then struck me, which I hadn't actually thought of, but when I was just reflecting on our various experiences with the legal system, the adversary of legal common law system, actually, to one extent, acts like a large LLM, a large language model, because what happens is all the lawyers and barristers work out all the case law that's relevant to the particular situation they're looking at. And so if that's the case and this case law comes up for this particular circumstance, this is what the outcome should be. But then the judge or the jury, more likely the judge mostly in a common law case, actually acts as the higher level thinking saying, "Well, is that right?" The lawyers have put it all together, they put the case together. This is the facts. This is what the case law suggests is what the large language model saying should be the outcome, right?

(08:04):

Now, that actually could be done because that's what the lawyers are doing when they use a large language model to sort of dream up the case law. I mean, what the lawyers ... There's no reason why you shouldn't ask the AI to search all the case law and tell you which case is relevant. There's nothing wrong with that. The point about it is don't rely on it.

Gaye Francis (08:21):

But what you're saying is it's a tool. And I think Megan, our producer used that as an example today. When she's doing the podcasts and putting the transcripts together, you can use AI to get your basis, but you've got to put in human effort to make sure that the terminology is correct, that what you and I say, the AI has picked up, but also that it's verified what it refers to and it hasn't just put in something that sounds like what we thought we said.

Richard Robinson (08:47):

Yeah. And you've got the same problem marking those postgrad units of Swimburne that we do. I mean, one of academia's main problems in life is, particularly if you're dealing with postgrad students, was this original thought or how much has the AI had a benefit in here?

Gaye Francis (09:03):

And I think part of the stuff with the due diligence process that we're going back to, it's that documentation and the governance processes around how AI is going to be used.

Richard Robinson (09:14):

Well, it's interesting because you might remember, we sponsored the professional and public policy officer from Cambridge and he was pointing out, one of the examples he gave was the impact of computer aided design. And he said that the real advantage of computer aided design, there used to be draftsman who drew things up, but a lot of them lost their jobs, but didn't sort of just disappear. They turned into CAD operators. And I said the real advantage of the CAD operator and the whole system was that is that the engineers could test more ideas faster than having everything done manually. And if that's what AI does, because I can see that you could test a whole lot of ideas faster using AI, but that means you're acting as the second order brain and using the AI to help you get there. But I don't think people have been thinking about it like that.

Gaye Francis (09:58):

And I think that's when we've been and talked to boards because we get asked particularly by boards, what's the use of AI and how are the liabilities associated with if we take something that AI says and do that or implement it, who takes responsibility for that decision? And I think it does come back to that human interface, isn't it? So you're really using AI as a tool to get the information to then make an informed decision.

Richard Robinson (10:27):

So far as you can.

Gaye Francis (10:28):

So far as you can. And you're then asking, all right, how do I document that decision? I think part of the importance of AI will be when you use AI is to document the decision why you've gone with that and where you've got your sources from.

Richard Robinson (10:44):

And verifying the source is real and not just something that AI dreamed up as as an inference machine.

Gaye Francis (10:50):

And as older people have been industry and haven't had the technology available to them, we automatically do that. But I've got a daughter who started high school this year and she had to do some research. And when I asked her where she got that information from, the first thing that pops up on your screen is the AI summary ... And you had to explain to this 12-year-old that, well, you actually have to go and look at where the source came from and then does that source seem real and does it match up with other sources.

Richard Robinson (11:19):

And how many kids do you think are getting that advice?

Gaye Francis (11:22):

I'm not sure. But she got a bit of a lecture on that. And then I got an eye roll to say that was a lot more work than she expected to have to do for her homework.

Richard Robinson (11:31):

Quite. You better reward her with a holiday to Finland. That's what she wants. <laughs>

Gaye Francis (11:36):

But I think that's where the trap with AI is going to come in. We've talked about it as a tool, whereas organisations are looking to use it as the answer. And I don't think AI is there at that point to use it as the answer.

Richard Robinson (11:56):

No, I think that's probably right.

Gaye Francis (11:59):

So from a due diligence perspective, we'd say absolutely continue to use AI, use it as a tool, get the information that you can out of it, but it still requires, as you said, that second level of thought.

Richard Robinson (12:10):

It still requires thinking, which is hard.

Gaye Francis (12:13):

Which is hard. And I think that's all of this stuff. It's really tricky to do. Thinking is hard and demonstrating SFAIRP is hard.

Richard Robinson (12:24):

Yeah. And document in a way, which is pithy, but useful is hard. Actually, it's not that hard, but it does require clear thought.

Gaye Francis (12:31):

Clear thought. Clear and transparent thought. Yeah.

Richard Robinson (12:34):

Yep.

Gaye Francis (12:34):

All right. So we hope you found AI interesting and we look forward to you joining us next time. Thanks, Richard.

Richard Robinson (12:40):

Thanks, Gaye.

SFAIRP: Moral Imperative vs Commercial Reality

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance
Season 7, Episode 1

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss this season’s theme of SFAIRP: Moral Imperative versus Commercial Reality and that SFAIRP is hard. 

They discuss the tension between the legal and moral weight of “so far as is reasonably practicable” and the commercial pressures organisations face every day, including:

• How SFAIRP is an objective test, but objective to whom, and determined when?

• Why leaving the "i" out of SFAIRP matters more than you might think.

• The danger of delaying design decisions until elimination options are no longer viable.

• The misuse of HAZOP as a substitute for early-stage critical hazard thinking. 

• Why the WHS legislation may actually be trying to bring creativity and innovation back into engineering.

The season will also cover topics on AI and the human effort required to verify it, the integration of the risk curve, risk language and the creeping rigidity in how terms are used, resilient and adaptation strategies.

Access the episode’s full transcript below.

Episode transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:01):

Welcome to Season 7 of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this first episode, due diligence engineers, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the overall theme of the season: SFAIRP, Moral Imperative versus Commercial Reality.

(00:20):

We hope you enjoy the chat. If you do, please support our work and give us a rating and subscribe on your favourite podcast platform. And if you'd like more information on R2A or have any feedback or topic ideas, head to the website, www.r2a.com.au, where you can also sign up to our newsletter and purchase our books.

Gaye Francis (00:43):

Hi Richard. Welcome to another season - Season 7 of our podcast.

Richard Robinson (00:47):

Happy New Year Gaye!

Gaye Francis (00:49):

Yes, we're well and truly in the thick of it, aren't we? We just had a discussion this morning about what we were actually going to call this season after six seasons already, and is there anything else that we can particularly cover? And I think one of the key things that came out of our (live forum) event last year was the difficulty or the challenges that SFAIRP brings to an organisation. So we've titled this particular season SFAIRP: Moral Imperative and Commercial Reality. And I think the key out of this was SFAIRP's hard!

Richard Robinson (01:26):

SFAIRP's hard because the first part of it is, and that's what our lawyer at our (live event) basically said: It's so far as you can, not so far as you want, not so far as you think you can afford or your client can afford, it's so far as you can. And that's a moral imperative in a very Kantien (philisophical) sense. We might have a chance to talk about it in this podcast season.

Gaye Francis (01:49):

We might. We might. Some of your favorite rants that you like to go and talk about.

Richard Robinson (01:53):

Yes. We might get into the groundwork of the metaphysical morals that he wrote in order to clarify and explain to people what his critique of pure reason was actually about.

Gaye Francis (02:03):

It's alright, audience. I'll give you a warning before we do that podcast.<laughs>

(02:10):

And some of the things that we've been asked questions about is; and part of that is testing the optimum bias. A couple of times we got asked during the event was, we don't actually have the money to do this, so how do we justify not doing something? And then how much money do we need to spend on it? So as we said, the moral imperative versus the commercial reality, there's a lot of things that input into that decision.

Richard Robinson (02:43):

And we've heard lots of lawyers who said that, and it's one of those questions I'm always puzzled about. They keep saying that SFAIRP is an objective test. Now, objective to whom? Because if you say you have a limited amount of money and you just can't afford it, that I would've thought on one level was an objective test. But when they mean objective tests, they mean objective tests as determined by the courts. And the legal system.

Gaye Francis (03:04):

After the fact though.

Richard Robinson (03:05):

Well, very often after the fact, although the lawyers obviously think it's an objective test before the fact too, and that's from a design imperative. But that then led onto, which we've seen a fair bit of, is that during the design process, they don't consider the elimination option early in the design process when obviously it's the most cost effective.

Gaye Francis (03:25):

Correct.

Richard Robinson (03:25):

Because if you come up with a possible elimination option when you get down to the final design.

Gaye Francis (03:30):

It's never going to be SFAIRP.

Richard Robinson (03:31):

Because it's just going to be too expensive to go back and redesign the whole thing.

Gaye Francis (03:35):

I think that is another topic for podcasts is that whole safety and design and what that actually means. I think it's almost got to the point of like HAZOP and HAZID and things like that. It's got a terminology around it and a particular process that people say, this is the safety and design process or applicational technique, rather than it being a process to think through what all those high level critical hazards are.

Richard Robinson (04:06):

Yeah. Well, I think the point, I don't know if it's going to be quite deliberate, but if you have that view that HAZOP and HAZOP, from our point of view, is late in the design process when design's more or less fixed and you're testing in a very real sense more for operability than critical hazards, which you should have dealt with on the earlier in the design.

Gaye Francis (04:23):

Well long ago.

Richard Robinson (04:24):

But you sometimes start to think that it's actually been a deliberate... We don't know that. And we're not saying that's the case, but you sometimes get the feeling that it might've been deliberate because they knew that if they did think about it early, they would've had to have done it another way.

Gaye Francis (04:41):

Other things about it. And I think that's another one, isn't it? Delaying decisions so that an option is no longer SFAIRP. And we've seen that in a number of cases and organisations are grappling with that or engineers are grappling with that of we delay the decision so long, and as you said, the design's moved on from being preliminary design to more a detailed design. And of course you're never going to get ... Well, very rarely do you get the elimination option up at a detailed design stage.

Richard Robinson (05:12):

You might recall our experience with the Australian Government solicitor and Western Sydney Airport and whether it should be in Western Sydney at all.

Gaye Francis (05:19):

Yes, you were game to ask that question. Should we move the airport? And the answer was very quickly, no, it is where it is and that is it.

Richard Robinson (05:27):

But the Minister basically decided that, which the Minister's entitled to do. But if you're just doing it from an engineering viewpoint, you wouldn't put it there, you would put it in Canberra.

Gaye Francis (05:35):

So there's an elimination option. One of Richard's favourite things, and I think a topic that's becoming more and more relevant, and we're seeing more of it is AI and the human effort required to verify AI and what it does for you. So I think we'll do a session on AI.

Richard Robinson (05:57):

Likely the next session, I suspect, if you haven't been preparing, just to give you an indication of how ill prepared for these things, Gaye is, she's got a holiday in the next holiday in New Zealand booked, but she hasn't got accommodation yet.

Gaye Francis (06:10):

Now you're really telling all my secrets. I don't know about that. People have said they like the naturalness of our podcast, Richard, how they just flow. Now I'm stuck for words because you tripped me up.

(06:24):

Another thing we're going to talk about is ignorance is endemic.

Richard Robinson (06:33):

That actually flows onto ... Remember I told you when I was running some courses at RMIT and I was running an undergraduate courses in, I think it was the maker and the made, I think it was, RMIT had this thing about they should humanise engineers in some way by giving them one subject. And I remember one of the fourth year students looking at me if we'd done this blast, it was a fourth year engineering student because we had combination of art students and all sorts of interesting people in the room. And one of the fourth year engineering students looked at me and something along the line, "You might all be born creative, but you can be trained out of it". Which I thought was a reference on engineering education.

Gaye Francis (07:08):

And maybe that's what the SFAIRP provisions of the WHS legislation is trying to do. It's trying to get that creativity and innovation back into engineering and into design.

Richard Robinson (07:21):

I can remember as a mechanical engineering student, design was always about creativity. And you have these sort of kids coming up with absolutely weird ideas like some guy was having a hard time for his project for the year and you know how automatic sprinklers normally do a circle.

Gaye Francis (07:36):

Yeah.

Richard Robinson (07:36):

But most yards are square.

Gaye Francis (07:38):

Yeah.

Richard Robinson (07:39):

He designed a sprinkler that would actually do a square.

Gaye Francis (07:42):

That's sort of cool. I've never seen one.

Richard Robinson (07:44):

And that's such an obvious thing to do. And this guy just dreamed it up in a week.

Gaye Francis (07:49):

He didn't obviously have the marketing tools that he needed to keep it going though.

Richard Robinson (07:53):

I have no idea what happened to him.

Gaye Francis (07:55):

Okay. That little section may need to be a little bit edited by our producer, and now we'll continue.

(08:03):

A couple of other topics that we're going to talk about, and it sort of fits in this whole SFAIRP moral imperative and commercial reality. It's about integration of the risk curve.

Richard Robinson (08:15):

That's right. Well, mathematically how to show it, but basically if you spot the dot on a typical risk curve, the integrated area under the risk curve is probably a factor of two at least. Greater than that, you've understated the risk badly.

Gaye Francis (08:29):

Yeah. And I think ... I've gone blank. What was the last one that we said?

Richard Robinson (08:35):

That rolls onto risk language, words, numbers, and pictures and so forth, which is the threat barrier diagrams and so forth, because that's really the question of large language model AIs, which I think is probably the next (episode) we're going to do much to Gaye's surprise.

Gaye Francis (08:49):

It is. But I also think that there's additional confusion coming into the language of risk and it's becoming more ... Robust isn't the right word, but people are using certain terms to only mean certain things. And so there's a terminology and a way that people are using the risk language that hasn't got any discussion in it anymore.

Richard Robinson (09:17):

That's right. I agree. And it's particularly frustrating. I mean, our legal system is using risk in a peculiar way, as far as we can tell, but that probably needs enlarging on too. But again, that's probably that session on risk language will be quite an interesting session.

Gaye Francis (09:32):

I think just going to the language thing, and that was one of the key takeaways from our event last year, especially when Joe (Coleiro, Lawyer) talked to us: If you're going to do a health and safety review in line with the WHS and OHS legislation, make sure you use the terminology that's in the legislation.

Richard Robinson (09:50):

Correct. There's no point using any other term.

Gaye Francis (09:53):

And we're even talking about the simple thing of leaving the "i" out of SFAIRP. We see a lot of people just summarise it as SFARP without the "i". And Joe really went into, and we've been into the importance of the "i" in another podcast (Season 6 Episode 8).

Richard Robinson (10:12):

Yeah. It's "as is", the time at which you make the decision. But again, and that's the reason why people can do something late in the design process, which means at that time it's no longer. Whereas if you'd done it earlier, it would have.

Gaye Francis (10:24):

Exactly. So I think with our podcast sessions, like everything, we're going to take some of the questions that we've taken from the event. Also, Richard and I do a lot of courses through Engineering Education Australia. We get a lot of questions in that. So we sort of want to try and make this (season) more about the practical problem solving. In our newsletter, we've got a little corner called Q&A with R2A. And so this is sort of an extension of that. And we've also had some nice notes come back in our email system and Richard got one on the weekend from the AMPI Pilots inviting him to deliver a conference paper for their upcoming conference in Darwin, but saying that he finds our podcast... What was it? "Our excellent podcast" and enjoying it very much. So if anyone else has got any questions out there, we would be happy to receive them either via the chat or via email.

(11:20):

So I think there's a lot to unpack in this season, just recapping it. SFAIRP the moral imperative versus the commercial reality. And I think that there's some headbutting in that space right at the moment and it's a very difficult problem to solve for organisations.

Richard Robinson (11:43):

Yeah. I think I've got one currently I'm trying to sort out and I think the client's not going to be very happy as a result, but that's all I can do.

Gaye Francis (11:49):

Yeah. And that puts engineers in a very, very difficult position as well because you've been asked to do something and paid to do something by a client. And the discussion about, do engineers have to walk away from some of these questions?

Richard Robinson (12:04):

Yes.

Gaye Francis (12:06):

That was very short and sharp. So we're looking forward to delivering this season. We hope you can join us next time, but thanks, Richard, and we'll see you soon.

Richard Robinson (12:15):

Thanks Gaye.