Health and Safety Legislation Changes

The Government is introducing changes to Workplace Health & Safety legislation which will have an affect on all businesses… It is expected that all laws will commence on 1 January 2012.

Specifically, the Australian Government has identified work health and safety as a priority area for reform.

One of the key elements of the reform agenda is harmonisation – moving towards one set of work health and safety laws.

The harmonisation of work health and safety laws aims to reduce the incidence of death, injury and disease across Australia.

Safe Work Australia is responsible for developing model work health and safety laws. The model Work Health and Safety laws will consist of the model Work Health & Safety Act, supported by model Work Health & Safety Regulations and model Codes of Practice that can be readily adopted around Australia.

This requires each state and territory to pass their own laws that mirror the model work health and safety laws and adopt them by December 2011.

Further there is an increased focus on combating Bullying and Harassment in the workplace… 

Did you know:

• Bullying is unreasonable behaviour that creates a risk of physical or psychological harm that usually is repeated over time however can result from a single incident.
• There have been 2,400 workers compensation claims made for workplace bullying costing more than $60 million during the past two years.

WorkCover is stepping up the fight against workplace bullying with a new awareness campaign launched recently.

WorkCover inspectors and advisory officers will assess the systems that employers have in place to address bullying and provide educational resources to help businesses understand their work health and safety obligations.

Organisations will need to develop and implement systems that will ensure their compliance with these and existing [workplace] safety legislation.

Such a system would be a Business Safety Program, which has been designed to assist Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) to manage health and safety obligations consistent with their size, industry risks and available resources.

The benefits of such a program allow organisations the opportunity to reduce the impact and worry of implementing strategies for controlling safety with immediate effect.

The Business Safety Program can be designed specifically for you and the organisation.

This month is your chance to start the new financial year with a clear understanding of how you comply with the current OHS legislation and “YES” implementing such changes will not only ensure compliance to legislation, but may also be financially beneficial to the business.