Browsing: Authority/inspectorate (ACT) | Page 16

Doctors in the ACT have been directed to use "fit notes" to help sick and injured workers return to work as soon as possible, in the first stage of a plan to implement the new certificates nationally under the Comcare scheme, the Federal Employment Minister announced today.

The state and territory governments have agreed to a four-year national plan to remove the riskiest asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) from the built environment - as opposed to removing all ACMs within a designated timeframe - while safety regulators have issued more warnings on asbestos-containing imported products.

An employer has been handed the highest fine for a single safety offence in Australian history, in a case, according to the ACT Work Safety Commissioner, which shows judges will impose significant penalties, under the harmonised WHS Act, on those with poor safety records.

An Industrial Magistrate's June decision to acquit the first person charged as an "officer" under the harmonised WHS laws has been published, and is, according to a leading safety lawyer, the first judgment to examine the meaning of due diligence under the new laws.

A recent safety prosecution involving a liquidated company, and the first person charged as an "officer" under the harmonised WHS laws, has highlighted one of the main reasons the officer provisions were included in the new legislation, according to a regulator.

In this article, OHS Alert examines all the most important workplace safety and workers' compensation news from the second quarter of 2015, including a record OHS fine, a world-first decision on PTSD, and legislative changes in every state and territory.

• Seacare and "exit contributions" Bills progress;
  
• ACT passes asbestos Bill and applauds safety improvements;
  
• Asbestos levy cut by 12.5 per cent in Tasmania;
  
• ACCC recalling unsafe disposable respirators; and
  
• Alerts issued after bike death and overloaded-truck incident.

Major legislative changes occurred in all nine Australian jurisdictions in the first quarter of 2015. This article examines these and other developments in work health and safety and workers' compensation.

• Workers waiting too long to report back pain; and
  
• Generous wellbeing providers offered free publicity in ACT.

Comcare has assured Commonwealth agencies and licensees that their premiums won't increase as a result of the ACT leaving the scheme, while the Federal Employment Minister says he hopes to scrap "over generous" workers' comp benefits that make the scheme unviable for entities like the ACT.