“There’s a lot more to safety than compliance,” said Tony Preston, CS Energy’s recently-appointed Head of Health, Safety, and Environment.
“In high-risk environments like ours, our first priority should always be personal safety – ensuring that people go home unharmed,” he said.
“But prioritising safety also leads to positive, strategic outcomes – it ensures reliable operations, reduced costs, and builds trust through the workforce.
“Safe environments – including physical, psychological, social, environmental, and digital – reduce errors and allow employees to focus on performance without fear of hazards.
“And that’s the expectation of safety culture we have - from the top down - at CS Energy.”
From oil and gas to energy generation
Tony started his career as a boiler maker straight out of school, and a few years later started working on the oil and gas rigs in the Cooper Basin.
“Modern safety culture was emerging and I found it interesting, so I gained some qualifications and was offered a safety-related position on the rigs,” Tony said.
“Over the next few years, I was given the opportunity to work overseas on both onshore and offshore rigs, and then moved into management roles.”
Tony has worked in six different countries from West Africa, throughout Asia, and Papua New Guinea.
“Energy generation is different to oil and gas, but it’s still very similar in that they’re both high risk industries, highly regulated, and essential services,” he said.
“When I returned to Australia about 10 years ago, I took a role at a multinational oil and gas company that saw me responsible for safety on onshore and offshore operations on both the east and west coast of Australia; I also completed my Masters in Health and Safety.”
Understanding individual reasons for safety
Tony commenced at CS Energy in July 2025, and has been working on strengthening safety leadership and governance, improving and simplifying processes and systems, and identifying opportunities to improve risk management frameworks to support operational areas.
“I’ve worked in safety in high-risk work environments around the world for a couple of decades now, and an important but unexpected thing I’ve learned is that safety is different for every person,” said Tony.
“To be effective, you need to make the reason to be safe relevant to every person, linking with their personal life, values, and responsibilities.
“That also reframes safety from being about compliance to being about family, wellbeing, friends and colleagues, and personal responsibility. When safety becomes something more than a rule – it’s a commitment to themselves, their families and friends, and their futures – that connection transforms safety from compliance into culture.”
Embedding a safety culture beyond compliance
Tony said he found working at CS Energy an attractive proposition as he wanted to make an effective impact on the company’s safety performance and culture.
“I thrive on challenges, and I’ve been around long enough to know what good looks like, and what works - my goal is always to build safety processes that are effective while being easy to use,” he said.
“For it to be effective, it also has to start from the top of the organisation – and I can see there is a strong focus on safety with this management team at CS Energy.”
At the same time, Tony said he wants to build a high-performing team that can work across the business as trusted partners in safety decision making and solutions.
“To me, that means a team that goes beyond compliance and actively drives a culture where safety is embedded into every decision, every action, and every behaviour across the organisation,” he said.
“It’s not just about preventing accidents, or ticking the box – it’s about building resilience, trust, and continuous improvement into the fabric of how we do things at CS Energy.”