Browsing: Jurisdiction (ACT) | Page 7

• SWA finalises model WHS Code on psychosocial hazards;
  
• OHS Code on tackling language barriers released in Vic; and
  
• Silica advice and revised WHS Codes issued in ACT.

• WHS recommendations released with fatality memorial in ACT; and
  
• Proactive anti-harassment duties proposed in NT.

Employers continue to have a pandemic-related WHS duty to ensure all workers who can work remotely do so, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has claimed, following its executive meeting on the nation's high number of COVID-19 cases.

In this report, OHS Alert reviews all the key work health and safety and workers' compensation developments from the second quarter of 2022. Highlights include major changes to the model WHS Act and Regulations, High Court judgments, inquests into work-related deaths, an inquiry into harassment, and "claim farming" bans.

• Manslaughter charge laid after forklift death;
  
• Transition time allowed for new WHS clauses in ACT; and
  
• New injury dispute system sidesteps "unethical" decisions in Vic.

• Current workplace silica exposures to cause 10,400 lung cancers: Curtin; and
  
• WHS Regulation amended with new silica and GHS rules in ACT.

• PCBU fined $450k over fatality, another charged;
  
• New digital system slashes SafeWork NSW registration times; and
  
• WHS warning issued to NT's high-risk licence holders.

Canberra PCBUs will be required to report actual or suspected incidents of s-xual assault to the WHS regulator, and be blocked from entering into insurance contracts against WHS penalties, under a Bill that implements a string of Marie Boland's safety recommendations, and cements injured workers' leave-accrual rights.

The national model Work Health and Safety Act, Regulations and related materials have been amended to reflect a wide range of recommendations from Marie Boland's independent review of the laws. Some states have already adopted some of the changes, while other jurisdictions are likely to follow suit soon.

The ACT's WHS Act could be amended to transfer the authority to initiate prosecutions from the Director of Public Prosecutions to the WHS regulator or commissioner, in a move that some stakeholders believe would increase the number of duty holders held to account and better deter unsafe workplace practices.