What should Victoria’s new WorkSafe Minister do now?

The Victoria Premier, Jacinta Allan, reshuffled her Cabinet and recently allocated responsibility for the Workcover and Transport Accident Commission portfolios to Deputy Premier Ben Carroll. This may be the first time a politician of that position has been given these portfolios. But what should Ben Carroll do now?

At the time of writing, Carroll supports the State’s bushfire fighting activities as Acting Premier but will soon settle back to the usual government business. Carroll has inherited a workers’ compensation system that his own government colleagues have described as broken and that has restricted entitlements for those workers claiming work-related mental health injuries.

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Workers Compensation

Carroll should (re)read Peter Rozen’s report into the workers’ compensation system and reassess the government’s response. He needs to realise that this insurance scheme is an essential business element for almost all Victorian companies and is not a tool of business associations or trade unions. Most businesses could not operate without this insurance backup; perhaps he should remind employers of this.

Business groups like to lobby for Workcover premiums to remain the lowest in the country, but premium rates are under employers’ control, not the government’s. The fewer physical and psychosocial injuries workers have, the lower the premiums. High Workcover premiums are not a consequence of government (in)action but of poorly managed occupational health and safety systems.

Carroll may need to promote the online, hard copy and personal advice available to all Victorian employers at no cost from WorkSafe Victoria. He could point out that there is no reason employers could claim ignorance of improving worker health and safety or strengthening their companies’ sustainability and profitability.

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Employer Responsibility

The final report of the Sentencing Advisory Council into OHS, set to be released in the next month or so, offers a good opportunity for Carroll to outline any changes to the government’s OHS enforcement and prosecution strategies based on extensive public consultation. He could point out that these strategies and penalties will only apply to those employers who fail to provide safe and healthy work environments. Again, if employers and business groups are concerned about potential impacts on their businesses, that future is in employers’ control. He could say something like:

“Workplace health and safety for all Victorians is not the government’s responsibility. That responsibility has been on employers since at least 1985. Very few new workplace hazards exist, and for most, prevention solutions are already known.”

One of those longstanding workplace hazards is work-related mental health. The government is well aware of the increase in mental health workers’ compensation claims and the high cost of each of these. The restriction on worker eligibility for compensation was a short-term strategy to defuse some of the compensation system’s costs, but the hazard is not going away.

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Psychosocial Obligations

Carroll should dust off the psychosocial legislative amendments to the OHS Act. If he does dust off these changes, they may require a rewrite even though they have been subjected to two cycles of public consultation. Most Australian jurisdictions have such laws and obligations in place so the government can learn from others about what works and what doesn’t. These changes will not improve worker mental health without employer support. Business lobbyists will claim that the changes will increase business costs (i.e., reduce company profits) but only for employers who are not already ensuring psychosocially safe workplaces. Employers cannot claim to be surprised by these amendments as these were floated by the Victorian government around three years ago. Employers should have been reviewing their psychosocial risks before now.

Other psychosocial risks, such as sexual harassment, have already created a framework on which broader psychosocial risk strategies can be built. Employers in different jurisdictions will be required to notify OHS regulators of mental health incidents after an expansion of incident categories. If Victoria adopted this, as it is “required” to do through its membership of Safe Work Australia, it could drop its mooted requirement for the lodgement of mental health action plans every six months. However, a similar requirement is already in place for sexual harassment prevention. Business lobbyists will likely protest any reporting requirements as this would increase cost and resource burdens. Possibly, but again, these costs result from poor management of one’s workers. If a company has no sexual harassment or psychosocial incidents, there is nothing to report and, therefore, no costs. Carroll could say that the government will provide whatever support employers need to control and prevent these occupational hazards, knowing that advice and support already exist and are freely available to employers.

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Revisit Work Health and Safety Harmonisation

Victoria actively participated in harmonising Australia’s OHS laws in 2008 but chose to ignore its signed commitment because, ostensibly, harmonisation would be too expensive. In 2012, it seemed like the government had PwC produce a summary economic report to support its political decision. (The full report has never been publicly released) The State’s OHS laws have been puttering along since then, and now all other jurisdictions have updated Work Health and Safety laws. Likely, PwC’s advice will no longer be applicable. Where it was too expensive in 2008 for Victoria to take the lead, it may now be too expensive in 2025 to be excluded.

Carroll could announce that Victoria will formally embrace the Model Work Health and Safety laws. The OHS and WHS laws are almost identical, and Victoria has been a constant member of Safe Work Australia and the Working Group of Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities. Harmonisation should be a primarily administrative task. If announced appropriately, those business groups who have lobbied for these changes over the last decade should be on board. If necessary, another independent report into the changes could be commissioned, allowing everyone to submit their concerns, support or tweaks.

The reforms mentioned above could be packaged to make legislative changes simultaneously. However, Carroll could be more politically strategic by announcing a new assessment of the costs and benefits of joining the WHS club. This would allow broad consultation so that all the gripes are aired, including sexual harassment and psychosocial concerns, business costs and the inevitable “unforeseen consequence” bullshit.

Once that is underway and concerns are aired, Carroll could begin consultation on the sexual harassment and psychosocial hazard amendments and enforcement coordination. These amendments could be included in the legislative changes required to move OHS to WHS. Carroll could then claim that Victoria is returning to the leadership role on workplace health and safety that it held for so long, along with its reputation as being the most progressive of Australia’s jurisdictions.

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A potential fly in the ointment could come from the Liberal Party of Australia winning the next federal election in the first half of 2025. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is on the nose with most Victorians, as was evident by his lack of participation in the State at the last federal election, and the State Liberal/National coalition remains in a mess until its newly-appointed leader, Brad Battin, settles in.

However, change is possible, and the Victorian government needs some spark in an area unrelated to infrastructure projects. OHS allows for strong moral and political messaging, such as “It’s everyone’s job to keep our people safe and healthy“. It is hard to argue against, and if unaffordable expense is mentioned by business groups, they may appear as heartless capitalists who exploit the health and safety of young workers, apprentices and those workers who are trying to provide their families with solid parentage, financial support and good quality of life – values often espoused by conservative politicians.

Bring on 2025.

Kevin Jones