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Workplace safety professionals were among the first to foresee the extensive threats created by COVID-19, showing that involving them more in emergency decision-making can facilitate more effective responses for organisations and the community, an international study has found.

Safe Work Australia has committed to immediately drafting changes to the national model WHS laws to reflect the outcomes of yesterday's WHS ministers meeting on engineered stone and other issues. The non-harmonised state of Victoria will make similar changes to its safety legislation.

Australia's WHS ministers have unanimously agreed to prohibit the use, manufacture and supply of engineered stone, under a plan that will be matched with a "complementary customs prohibition" on the material, and new WHS laws for all industries where crystalline silica is present.

Managers have been urged to target the factors that exacerbate work stress and lead to sleep disorders, with a 12-year study suggesting this can reduce the risk of "poorer work ability trajectories" among older workers.

A study of a group of Australian workers at heightened risk of psychological injury has revealed the factors that help them return to work quicker than those in other sectors

The efforts, or lack thereof, of employers to comply with their positive duty to proactively prevent s-xual harassment will be actively scrutinised by at least one more regulator from today, with the Australian Human Rights Commission's new powers taking effect.

A major survey of leaders from large businesses and government departments from around the world has found many company officers aren't being sufficiently informed of psychosocial risks to comply with their proactive WHS duties.

• Triple prosecution urged after gas-monitoring incident;
  
• New WHS guide tackles fatigue and outlines duties in NT; and
  
• McGurk gets WHS portfolio in WA.

A WHS regulator will enforce the utilisation of risk assessments for psychosocial hazards in psychologically dangerous workplaces, under one of 18 recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry into NSW's workers' compensation system.

A WHS regulator has vowed to take a zero-tolerance approach, involving prohibition notices and hefty non-compliance penalties, in a new multi-sector blitz aimed at preventing a "false sense of security" around dust.