Safety & Wellbeing

Our Commitment

The ACT Greens are committed to providing volunteers and employees with a safe, healthy and welcoming workplace whether it be in the office or in the field.

Our aim is that volunteers and employees always feel comfortable in discussing their health and safety concerns with Wellbeing Officers, staff, office bearers, and other volunteers.

Helping our volunteers and employees to look out for themselves and others

All volunteers and employees have the right to a safe, healthy and welcoming workplace and access to policies, services and training to help keep them safe. They also have responsibilities for their own safety and for the safety of others.

These rights and responsibilities are detailed in the Volunteer Code of Conduct Agreement that all volunteers are required to sign before starting work.

Health & Safety

Incident report form (Online form)

Hazard report form (Downloadable pdf)

Please use these forms to formally report any of the following situations:

  1. Any injury that occurs while you are at the party office or while you are on party business
  2. Serious personal medical events that occur at work
  3. Incidents or situations that could have resulted in injury (called near misses)
  4. Hazards with the potential to cause damage to people, the environment, property, or equipment.

ACT Greens Health and Safety Handbook

Smoke-free Workplace

Smoking (including vaping) is not permitted by volunteers or employees while engaging in campaign activities or voter contact, or at any time within the party’s offices. Volunteers who smoke will be required to do so in a location that allows others to participate in party activities without exposure to secondhand smoke.

Wellbeing Officers

Wellbeing Officers are available to any member of the ACT Greens to discuss any personal difficulty concerning the Party or any of its members. The Wellbeing Officers are effectively trained, authentically assessed, and in receipt of ongoing support in their roles.

Wellbeing Officers aim to be a sounding board for your concerns, help you to cope with your feelings, and help you to clarify your issues and decide what you want to do next.

If you are a member of the ACT Greens and you feel you have been treated unfairly, or you are considering making a complaint about behaviour of a harassing, bullying or discriminatory nature, then the first option  for you may be to talk, in complete confidence, to a Wellbeing Officer. You can choose whichever Wellbeing Officer you would prefer to approach.

Find out more about who our Wellbeing Officers are and how to contact them.

Wellbeing Tips

Here are some great wellbeing tips for candidates & volunteers. (Downloadable pdf)

Employee and Office Bearer Assistance Program

All ACT Greens employees and party office bearers have access to an assistance program provided by Converge International. This provides you with confidential counselling, coaching and support for workplace and personal issues, and helps you deal with the challenges and demands of your work and personal life. Click here for more details or to make an appointment.

Online trainings

As part of our commitment to wellbeing, two online training courses are provided. These trainings ensure that we understand the law relating to sexual harrassment/assault and bullying, and critical issues involving consent, communication, relationships and bystander intervention. This is also part of our commitment to improving broader culture around these issues, by providing training to our staff and volunteers as they work with us, that they can then take into the broader world.

The courses are: Consent Matters: Boundaries, Respect and Positive Intervention and Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence

We encourage all volunteers to complete the Consent Matters training as part of building and maintaining a safe and positive culture, and ensuring that individual experiences within our party are meaningful and enjoyable. Employees and volunteers leading campaign activities must complete both courses.

Click here for details about how to access the courses.

Grievance Resolution

The ACT Greens is committed to good governance and maintenance of a safe environment for all members and volunteers. The ACT Greens has groups, processes and policies to assist members when grievances arise. These groups include:

Relevant policies are included in the list below.

Policies