 Safe Work Australia Month encourages everyone, workers, their employers and the community to make work health and safety a priority. Raising awareness about this vital topic will save lives, be it someone in the community or even someone close to you, a friend, family member or loved one. Safe Work Australia statistics show that in the past decade the number of work-related deaths has fallen by 40% to 191 people in 2013. This is the lowest number on record but it's still 191 too many. More than 600,000 Australians are injured or made ill at work each and every year and almost one quarter of these require a week or more off work to recover. Apart from the human dimension, workplace safety obviously has big implications for the community and the economy. Work-related injury and illness costs Australian workers, their employers and the community more than $60 billion a year. To address this situation we need employers, workers and the broader community to lead by example and to empower others to bring about real change. Good work health and safety not only saves lives, it also improves long-term business productivity, worker engagement, creativity and innovation. The government understands that in order to achieve best work health and safety practice small businesses and individual employees need to be able to understand their responsibilities. That's why the Australian government is working towards ensuring straightforward and easy to understand codes of practice and guidance so that everyone can understand the state of play and understand what they can do to help. These efforts will help businesses of all sizes while still making sure that Australia's robust health and safety standards are not compromised. In 2014 the highlight of Safe Work Australia Month is the inaugural Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy virtual seminar series. This innovative free online program showcases the latest research, thinking and developments in work health and safety. It will also include presentations from national and overseas work health and safety experts, discussions with CEOs and live online panels with prominent business leaders. I encourage you to find out more about the virtual seminar series and to take part. Please remember that the series is just one of many activities being held across Australia in October. More information about the full range of events is available on the Safe Work Australia website. I urge you to be part of Safe Work Australia Month so that together we can make our workplaces even safer, healthier and more productive in the years ahead.