Risk! Engineers Talk Governance

Due Diligence and Risk Engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss governance in an engineering context. Richard & Gaye are co-directors at R2A and have seen the risk business industry become very complex. The OHS/WHS 'business', in particular, has turned into an industry, that appears to be costing an awful lot of organisations an awful lot of money for very little result. Richard & Gaye's point of difference is that they come from the Common Law viewpoint of what would be expected to be done in the event that something happens. Which is very, very different from just applying the risk management standard (for example). They combine common law and risk management to come to a due diligence process to make organisations look at what their risk issues are and, more importantly, what they have to have in place to manage these things. Due diligence is a governance exercise. You can't always be right, but what the courts demand of you is that

Risk! Engineers Talk Governance is a technology podcast hosted by Richard Robinson & Gaye Francis, with 78 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Richard Robinson & Gaye Francis hosts Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, a technology show with 78 episodes published.

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  Episode #4

  Risk, Uncertainty & Hallucinations

  Sep 20, 202612 minS8

  Drop us a note In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and (Risk Engineer Achievement Award winner!) Gaye Francis discuss Risk, Uncertainty, and Hallucinations. Prompted by a recent course on AI and probability, Richards exaplins how large language models actually work as giant inference engines predicting the "most likely" next word, and why that's fundamentally different from genuine risk assessment. They explore why AI can widen the number of scenarios you can process without ever solving the harder problem of criticality — the rare, high-consequence events that haven't happened before, but still need to be found and controlled by human judgement. If you'd like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we'd love to hear from you: email admin@r2a.com.au . For further information on Richard and Gaye's consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au , where you'll also find their booklets (store) and a sign-up for the quarterly newsletter to keep informed of our latest news and events. Apto PPE is also available via the R2A online store. Show Notes (00:56) Richard congratulates Gaye on winning the Risk Engineer Achievement Award at the Melbourne Engineering Excellence Awards, recognising 25+ years in risk due diligence, industry publications, podcasts, bushfire and public safety work, and advocacy for women in engineering (02:27) The founding of Apto (Women's) PPE and its impact at forcing the market to offer proper female PPE (04:30) Setting up today's topic: why people still default to thinking about risk as consequence and likelihood, rather than criticality and control (04:53) Richard's University of Helsinki AI course and the link between AI probability weighting and Markov chains, used at R2A for availability modelling (05:32) Different types of probability — fixed-outcome events (a coin toss) versus genuine future uncertainty (geopolitical shocks, oil markets) (06:18) How LLMs generate "hallucinations" (or Geoffrey Hinton's term, "confabulations"), tokenising context and predicting the statistically most likely next word, sometimes inventing plausible-sounding but false attributions (07:16–08:16) AI as a Monte Carlo-style tool: useful for running large numbers of trials fast, but this doesn't eliminate criticality, it only shrinks the pool while critical outcomes still have to be identified (09:08–09:42) The limits of AI's training cutoff; it can't flag risks that haven't happened before or reflect a rapidly changing context; identifying criticality still requires human judgement (10:26–11:12) The risk of the next generation treating AI output as "gospel" without questioning it (11:16–11:41) Wrap-up: risk as future uncertainty, AI as a tool for faster insight, but criticality and control remain R2A's core focus

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  Episode #3

  Reactive vs Proactive Due Diligence - What does R2A actually do?

  Sep 13, 202612 minS8

  Drop us a note In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss Proactive vs Reactive Due Diligence - what does R2A actually do? In their chat they unpack why timing changes everything and that proactive work happens before problems occur, while reactive work (like expert witness testimony) occurs after something's already gone wrong, and by then it's often too late to fix cheaply. Drawing on real examples, they explain why early engagement is cheaper, less adversarial, and allows genuine design fixes happen while there's still time. Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction 00:40 – Why this topic: R2A is often asked "what do you do?" 01:08 – The core frustration: being brought in for "proactive" due diligence too late in the project 01:39 – Why engineering-style thinking beats legal philosophy for avoiding mistakes 03:19 – Why lawyers and busy clients use R2A 03:54 – Bringing multiple stakeholders' views together into one structured conversation 04:22 – Case example: Brought in practively 05:24 – What proactive due diligence actually delivers: structured, defensible clarity 06:28 – Why proactive due diligence doesn't need to be difficult or expensive 06:58 – Aligning siloed stakeholders (commercial, legal, operational, regulatory) 08:12 – Why design-stage fixes disappear once a project reaches "practical completion" 09:23 – Case example: relocating a Queensland switch yard to design out a hazard early 10:00 – The payoff of early engagement: easier process, stakeholders on side 11:01 – Swinburne University postgrad unit on project due diligence 11:36 – Why some people grasp the criticality-and-control approach instantly — and others don't 12:00 – Wrap-up Note, they mention discussing NZ Harbour in the last episode, this will be the next episode (#4). If you'd like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we'd love to hear from you. Email admin@r2a.com.au . For further information on Richard and Gaye's consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au , where you'll also find their booklets (store) and a sign-up for their quarterly newsletter to keep informed of their latest news and events.

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  Episode #2

  Elimination Has Its Own Hierarchy Of Control

  Sep 6, 202613 minS8

  Drop us a note In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss how Elimination Has Its Own Hierarchy Of Control. They unpack how the traditional hierarchy of controls (elimination, substitution, isolation, engineering, admin, PPE) collapses under WHS legislation into eliminate–prevent–mitigate, and why the elimination step can't be skipped until it's genuinely tested and ruled out. Using real examples, from rockfalls above a Sydney rail line to level crossings, they show that "eliminate" usually means choosing between stopping one activity, stopping another, or re-engineering the interaction entirely, and why that reasoning needs to be documented, not just assumed. Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro: elimination and its own internal hierarchy of controls 01:03 – The traditional hierarchy of controls explained via a noisy machine example, plus WHS legislation's eliminate–prevent–mitigate structure 03:49 – Why elimination must be properly tested before moving on — illustrated through the Lapstone rockfall case (stopping trains vs a tunnel vs doing nothing) 06:15 – Level crossings as a three-way elimination choice (stop trains, stop cars, grade separation), plus the dam wall and airspace design examples 09:09 – The governance shift: formally documenting why eliminated options were ruled out, and using threat barrier diagrams to test reasonableness 11:31 – Wrap-up, including the Comeng trains example of an elimination option that's valid but cost-prohibitive If you’d like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we’d love to hear from you. Email admin@r2a.com.au. For further information on Richard and Gaye’s consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you’ll also find their booklets (store) and a sign-up for their quarterly newsletter to keep informed of their latest news and events.

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  Episode #1

  Criticality & Control and Pink Elephants

  Aug 30, 202613 minS8

  Drop us a note In this first episode of Season 8, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis look at "criticality and control", starting with the pink elephant problem: Why organisations that successfully prevent bad outcomes often end up defunding the very risk functions responsible for that success. During their chat, they unpack the Port of Auckland conviction and what it reveals about the gap between Australian and New Zealand WHS enforcement, a local government case study on engineering versus insurance priorities, and why short-term commercial thinking clashes with the long timeframes in real risk management demands. They close with a preview of what's ahead this season, plus a few early thoughts on where AI does — and doesn't — belong in risk practice. Timestamps: 00:36 – Season 8 introduction 01:07 – Port of Auckland conviction and NZ vs. Australia WHS enforcement 03:23 – Season 8 topics ahead 04:57 – The pink elephant story 07:47 – Local government case study 09:07 – Short-termism vs. long-term risk 09:41 – Bushfire risk and generational memory 12:01 – Closing thoughts on AI If you’d like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we’d love to hear from you. Email admin@r2a.com.au . For further information on Richard and Gaye’s consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you’ll also find their booklets (store) and a sign-up for their quarterly newsletter to keep informed of their latest news and events.

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  Episode #11

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

  May 24, 202611 minS7

  <p>Drop us a note</p><p>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.</p><p>After their recap of topics covered, the conversation focuses on AI's growing role in decision, using <b>marine pilotage</b> 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...

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