Many workers will be reluctant to speak up about safety issues for fear of reprisal if Safe Work Australia accepts Queensland's proposed changes to right-of-entry laws, according to the ACTU.
What do you do if you are accused of workplace bullying? Safe Work Australia answers this question and more in two new anti-bullying guides. SWA has also released two new fatigue guides and the revised version of the construction work Code of Practice.
Federal Employment Minister Eric Abetz has hinted at what his approach to the WHS Act will be over the next three years, in citing - as an example of overregulation - a suggestion in the now-defunct bullying Code of Practice that employers put up anti-bullying posters in lunchrooms.
Safe Work Australia has confirmed it will publish a guide - in lieu of a Code of Practice - on preventing workplace bullying, while the Federal Government says it will establish a Royal Commission into the disastrous home-insulation scheme, under which four young workers were killed.
Employers will only incur significant costs from complying with new Codes of Practice if they aren't complying with existing safety laws, Safe Work Australia says in a consultation regulation impact statement for the draft model stevedoring Code.
Safe Work Australia has confirmed it will almost certainly dump the model Code of Practice on workplace bullying in favour of a guide, but prominent safety lawyer Barry Sherriff notes that under the WHS Act, a guide has a similar evidentiary status, in practice, as a Code.
In this update, OHS Alert recaps all the important OHS and workers' compensation legislative changes made in the third quarter of 2013. We also point subscribers to the most significant court and tribunal rulings and other developments in each jurisdiction.
Employers in Queensland - and perhaps the rest of Australia - that are willing to cut corners on safety to save money, will be able to "cover up dangerous practices" under a plan to amend the right-of-entry provisions of the WHS Act, unions have warned.
A company officer's duty of care under the model WHS Act is a "live" duty, lawyer Michael Selinger has reminded employers. He also says the courts could take an "expanded view" of who is captured by the definition of officer.
