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.
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 new industrial manslaughter offence and other key safety measures passed Federal Parliament today, under a Government deal with crossbench senators, while new right-to-disconnect laws appear likely to be added to the Closing Loopholes Bill.
The passage of an amended industrial manslaughter Bill, through South Australia's Parliament, has been described as a "game-changer" for WHS compliance. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth jurisdiction's WHS Act is being amended to empower those directly affected by workplace safety incidents to provide advice to regulators.
The Federal Government has introduced the "final legislative reform" driven by recommendations from the landmark Respect@Work report, with a Bill removing a deterrent to workers bringing s-xual harassment claims.
The Commonwealth has become the latest WHS jurisdiction to explicitly ban the uncontrolled processing of engineered stone products, under one of a range of changes made by a new legislative instrument.
