Michael Tooma
Head of Occupational health, safety and security, Asia Pacific, and Head of Government, Australia
Michael Tooma is one of Australia’s pre-eminent occupational health and safety lawyers. He leads the Australian health, safety and security practice.
Michael has one of the few truly global practices in this area, advising clients on health, safety and security compliance issues on a global basis and assisting in the development and implementation of global safety management systems. His global experience includes:
- providing advice to one of the world's largest industrial gas manufacturers on global legal requirements in material safety data sheets in the supply of chemicals
- facilitating an international safety peer review on behalf of a global investment bank, coordinating the review of assets in the energy, rail, and resources industries
- undertaking a global benchmarking study on safety positive performance indicators on behalf of an energy company
- undertaking a global benchmarking study on EHS corporate structures on behalf of a global oil and gas company
- preparing a global safety legal compliance tool for an international investment bank's property assets
- preparing regional safety legal compliance training materials for executives of an international consulting engineering firm
Michael has reviewed or written the safety management systems of companies across industries, including companies in the transport, energy and resources, infrastructure, technology and financial institutions industries. He prides himself on developing succinct, well structured and accessible documents which are written in plain English, making use of diagrams, checklists and flow charts to relay complex concepts in simpler format.
In addition to practise, Michael has written and lectured extensively on OHS law. He is the author numerous texts on occupational health and safety law and practice including Safety Security Health and Environmental Law, Federation Press, now in its second edition, 2010, a seminal text on the international and domestic laws dealing with occupational health and safety and the emerging discipline of occupational security and anti-terrorism. Michael is also the author of Tooma's Annotated Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000: New South Wales, Law Book Company, now in its third edition, published in 2009.
Michael is an adjunct Professor of Law at Edith Cowan University and a Senior Visiting Fellow of the University of New South Wales School of Safety Science. He is also a member of the Department of Defence Occupational Health Steering Committee. He is also actively involved in law reform in occupational health and safety. He is currently assisting in the drafting of National Model Mine Safety legislation in Australia and an active commentator on developments in the law and practice in the area.
Michael has a Certificate IV in Workplace Safety, has a certificate in Construction Safety induction and Rail Safety Induction, has formal training in OHS auditing and is a Chartered Professional Member of the Safety Institute of Australia and a Registered Safety Practitioner. He is a regular speaker at international safety conferences.