Queensland's WHS Amendment Bill has passed through Parliament, with the Bill's architect - the Attorney-General - repeating his seemingly incongruous boast that work injury rates are falling under the current laws. Meanwhile, Safe Work Australia is keeping tight-lipped on its position on the Queensland changes.
The Work Health and Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014, which will take effect when it receives assent, amends the State's mirror WHS Act to require WHS entry permit holders (usually union officials) to give PCBUs 24 hours' written notice before entering workplaces to investigate suspected safety contraventions.
The maximum penalty for permit holders who breach the entry provisions will be doubled to more than $20,000.
The Bill also removes the right of health and safety reps to direct workers to cease unsafe work, and will require an HSR who requests the "assistance of a person" from outside the workplace to give 24 hours' notice before the person can enter the site.
Further, the Bill increases the maximum fine for breaches of the State Electrical Safety Regulation 2002 by 650 per cent - from $4400 to $33,000.
Queensland Parliament passed the Bill yesterday without adopting any of the amendments recommended by the Finance and Administration Committee.
As reported by OHS Alert on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Committee recommended allowing union officials to enter a site within the notice period, and HSRs to direct the cessation of unsafe work, with the permission of Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.
It said it is concerned that many workers are unaware of their individual right to cease work that exposes them to serious risks, and many workplaces are "not adequately placed to cope with major incidents", instead relying "heavily" on the help of unions.
State Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie, in flagging some of the changes late last year, said it was vital to make the regulator the "first port of call" for workers with safety concerns, and to prevent construction unions from using safety-entry rules as an "industrial weapon".
Oddly, Bleijie boasted that the workers' compensation claims rate among Queensland construction workers had fallen by 24 per cent in recent years - a reduction that occurred under the current WHS entry rules (where a permit holder can enter a site for safety reasons without giving notice).
He made a similar statement yesterday, saying the State construction sector's non-fatal injury and disease claims rate had fallen by 25 per cent.
But the changes were needed to protect employers from "militant industrial activity", Bleijie said.
"Under the old system, unions were entering worksites without prior notice and then shutting them down using trumped up or suspected safety contraventions."
See:
Work Health and Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 Amendment Bill explanatory notes Explanatory speech
SWA provides confidential advice to Select Council
Meanwhile, Safe Work Australia has declined to comment on whether it has advised the Select Council on Workplace Relations to amend the model WHS Act to include Queensland's right-of-entry changes.
As reported by OHS Alert, the statutory agency's members have been assessing the proposed changes since November.
In a communique from a members meeting held in Sydney yesterday, SWA says it has provided advice to the Select Council on possible amendments to the model Act, but does not specify the areas of the Act the amendments relate to.
An SWA spokesperson told OHS Alert that "we cannot provide any further detail on the advice as all material provided to COAG Councils, such as the Select Council on Workplace Relations, is to be treated as confidential unless Ministers agree otherwise".
When amendments are made to the model WHS Act, the harmonised states and territories must then decide whether to adopt the changes.
