Browsing: Workplace safety legislation, regulations, standards and codes | Page 13

• Workplace justice warning issued for WHS Code commencement;
  
• New permanent impairment guide made under Comcare scheme; and
  
• SWMS guidance note issued in ACT.

• $300k safety fine sends warning on pre-start checks;
  
• Three safety Codes of Practice revoked in WA; and
  
• Comcare and WA safety awards open.

The national model WHS laws will be amended to include the offence of industrial manslaughter with a maximum fine on par with that in the country's only non-harmonised jurisdiction. Australia's WHS ministers agreed to the move yesterday, as well as to crack down on silica risks and explore an import ban on engineered stone.

Unions have welcomed the NSW Labor Opposition's new policies to ban certain engineered stone products and crackdown on dusty workplaces in the tunnelling industry, while one senior unionist has reiterated plans to ban engineered stone through WHS cease-work provisions unless all Australian governments follow Labor's lead.

Measuring, monitoring and reporting on psychosocial risk management is a major challenge and now a critical feature of any organisation's statutory safety obligations, senior safety experts say in offering tips on the process.

• Company charged with multiple breaches after two taxi deaths;
  
• Tougher driver-distraction laws commencing in Vic soon;
  
• Two in five white-card applications involve "fake" training; and
  
• Help SWA shape national WHS month.

• Safety-prosecution changes demanded after $1.5m fine imposed; and
  
• Workplace heat warning issued with concerning forecast.

• Safety regulator warns unsafe individuals after worker fined $30k; and
  
• Mobile-phone loophole closed by Qld safety amendments.

• WHS insurance bans and other provisions introduced to Senate; and
  
• On-the-spot WHS fines of $20k introduced in ACT.

A range of WHS amendments, including some improving harmonisation, are set to follow the root-and-branch review of SafeWork SA, but they won't include the softening of an entry rule pertaining to health and safety representatives, with the State Government emphatically rejecting a recommendation around this area.