A major review of a WHS regulator has been quickly followed by a highly critical audit, which found the regulator lacks effective strategies for dealing with emerging WHS threats, and took about eight years to "actively and sufficiently respond" to the dangers of engineered stone.
A WHS regulator will step up its enforcement activities against workplace psychosocial hazards, like excessive workloads, with more specialist inspectors and better engagement with stakeholders, under two of 46 accepted recommendations from a highly anticipated review.
A coronial inquest into a young worker's death in a forklift crash has found his employer didn't have any written safety policies or enforce critical WHS rules, before appearing to defy WHS caselaw by concluding the business was not obligated to instruct the worker to wear his seatbelt or not perform unloading work on slopes.
Different forms of verbal aggression have different effects on workers' mental health, according to a unique study, which found supervisors are common perpetrators of abuse and need special training to help staff achieve psychological detachment from work.
Employers adopting a four-day work week are being urged to increase their employees' knowledge of the injury risks associated with work intensification, and warned against leaving it up to staff to figure out how to maintain their output.
The sentencing regime for workplace health and safety offences could be amended to ensure penalties have a "real economic impact" on large companies, and to enable imprisonment for more types of offences, under changes flagged by Victoria's Sentencing Advisory Council.
A major study traversing the past four years has revealed that students are the most frequent perpetrators of digital harassment of Australia's university staff, and senior managers in the sector are not doing enough to safeguard workers' psychological health.
Managerial experience in dealing with common mental disorders (CMDs) is a key organisational "asset", according to researchers who studied more than 3,000 managers and point employers to international guidance on the issue.
Encouraging teamwork and ensuring safety personnel provide managers with advice on legislative requirements are two vital elements researchers say facilitate workers' return to work after suffering mental health disorders.
A company and its director have been charged with WHS recklessness, which was allegedly identified during an investigation into a helicopter crash that occurred just moments after a worker suspended under the aircraft was cut free and fell to his death.
