Category: government

Dis-harmonisation over OHS laws

Victoria’s largest OHS conference and trade show has ended.   The shadow of the impending harmonisation of OHS laws hung over both events.  The OHS message throughout the conference was one of nothing to worry about. WorkSafe’s Ian Forsythe felt that Victoria was well-placed for minimal disruption as the OHS laws in that State had been thoroughly reviewed by Chris Maxwell QC in 2003.  Forsythe described the current OHS review as “Maxwell on steroids”, a good line for the conference audience but one that reflects the, often, smug approach of many Victorians to the harmonisation process, an approach not shared elsewhere as shown by a front-page article in The Australian on 9 April 2011.

The Business Council of Australia is concerned about the different interpretations of the laws by each of the states.  This has been a possibility from the very start of the reform process because the focus was always harmonisation, not uniformity. Continue reading “Dis-harmonisation over OHS laws”

Australian lawyers comment on Brodie’s Law

Clayton Utz lawyers have looked at Victoria’s new bullying-related law changes for their relevance to workplace safety management and have found the following.

“Is this an issue for employers?

Yes and no.

Theoretically, even before these proposed amendments, certain types of workplace bullying already fell within the definition of stalking.  In one sense, therefore, this doesn’t change the situation much – employers already had the potential problem of, for example, dealing with keeping apart at work a victim and stalker subject to an intervention order.

In another sense, this is clearly an important change.  More types of workplace bullying are now criminalised, and public awareness of bullying issues will certainly have been increased by the publicity surrounding this Bill.  We can therefore expect a rise in complaints and the number of victims coming forward, and not just in Victoria, as other States and Territories have stalking laws that could cover at least some types of workplace bullying.”

Clearly the awareness of bullying in the workplace is already high but these laws are likely to make the management of this issue more complex and and challenging. Continue reading “Australian lawyers comment on Brodie’s Law”

South Australia is the first to table a new WHS bill

The South Australian Parliament will be the first in Australia to be presented with a Work Health and Safety Bill based on the model National OHS laws. The Work Health and Safety Bill 2011 will be tabled in parliament on 7 April 2011, according to a media release from the South Australian Minister for Industrial Relations, Bernard Finnigan.

Finnigan sees great advantages in the bill:

“Harmonised work health and safety laws will slash red tape for business operators while maintaining a high level of protection for employees,” he said. “It will also provide for greater labour mobility, with training and licences recognised across states and territories.

Organisations will have to comply with just one set of laws regardless of the number of states or territories in which they operate, thereby reducing their compliance costs. Ultimately it means greater certainty for employers and enhanced safety protection for workers.”

There remains some dispute about the optimism that Finnigan shares with many other harmonisation advocates but the validity of the optimism will only be assessed through hindsight.

Kevin Jones

Update 8 April 2011

The Work Health and Safety Bill 2011 is now available online with an FAQ site by SafeWorkSA.

Brodie Panlock – the catalyst for new bullying/stalking laws

“Brodie’s Law” is gaining considerable attention in the Victorian newspapers in anticipation of the introduction of the Crimes Amendment (Bullying) Bill 2011 in Parliament but it may be unreasonable to label these changes “Brodie’s Law” as, although Brodie Panlock’s suicide and the related court actions were the catalyst for the Bill, the proposed Bill is much broader than workplace bullying and, in many ways, focuses more on stalking than bullying, if there can be a differentiation.

The draft bill will broaden the existing offence of stalking in the Crimes Act to capture types of bullying behaviour and are likely to expand the types of  environments in which such bullying can occur. Continue reading “Brodie Panlock – the catalyst for new bullying/stalking laws”

Success from enlightenment not compliance

An article in the InDaily online newspaper for 4 April 2011 provides several safety management issues that are worth pondering. (Thanks to the readers who brought the article to my attention)

Keith Brown was the CEO of South Australia’s Workcover Corporation earlier this century.  He has told InDaily that he lost his position due to a change in the politics of the state and has not been welcome since. (A more personal perspective on Brown was provided by Rosemary McKenzie-Ferguson in a January 2011 blog comment.)

Brown says that the most effective way of reducing the unfunded liabilities of workers compensation is to communicate with all stakeholders in the injury management process.  He believes that

“WorkCover now operates more to service the needs of the bureaucracy compared to the operation he ran for six years in favour of the clients.” Continue reading “Success from enlightenment not compliance”

Useful safety information from the US

One always has to be careful about information released on April Fools’ Day but in 2011 an important pieces of safety information from the United States was released – a video message from the Chemical Safety Board (CSB).  A reader also pointed to a set of OHS case studies from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMASS) released in January.

Twelve months after the Tesoro Refinery fire in Washington in which seven people died, CSB is continuing its investigation but has released a video message, by Chairperson Rafael Moure-Eraso, that is confronting and displays the exasperation of  safety regulators.

Continue reading “Useful safety information from the US”

Election excitement masks OHS confusion

The Liberal Party of New South Wales won last Saturday’s State election in a landslide.  The New South Wales employer associations are jubilant but the jubilation masks some confusion over OHS reforms.

The new NSW government is being urged to act promptly on OHS reform issues particularly by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and the NSW Business Council but the media statement of the AICD illustrates the confused understanding of the national OHS reforms. It says

“Reforms should include reducing the burden on business of excessive regulation, re-committing NSW to participate in the national reform of occupational health and safety laws and reducing the excessive liability burden imposed on company directors by state legislation.”

“The new government must move decisively in its first term to reduce unnecessary regulation and red tape, which is strangling business.”

It is acknowledged that the introduction of new OHS laws will substantially increase the need for paperwork in order to produce the evidence required to support compliance, due diligence and positive OHS duties on managers. It seems impossible to achieve OHS reforms with also accepting the increased documentation. Continue reading “Election excitement masks OHS confusion”

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