Browsing: Workplace safety legislation, regulations, standards and codes | Page 3

Workers will be protected from the health and safety risks associated with "availability creep" and excessive hours through the right to "refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact, from an employer" outside of working hours, under agreed legislative changes.

• Safety sign-off deception leads to electrical injuries;
  
• New WHS provisions commencing in WA soon; and
  
• Employers told to utilise WHS "snapshots" in Tas.

• Five deaths in four days trigger WHS compliance warning;
  
• SWA issues update on WHS changes for stone ban; and
  
• New WHS Code commences, fulfils Dreamworld recommendation.

Australia has moved a step closer to harmonising the right to disconnect from work, with a parliamentary inquiry recommending the move after hearing workers across multiple sectors are being exhausted and injured "to no good purpose".

• Work-related fire risks must be monitored under national system;
  
• WHS amendments followed by WHSQ review; and
  
• OHS amendments create new licence in Vic.

• Workplace exposure standard for fumes slashed today;
  
• Vic responds to fumes amendment with tips for employers; and
  
• Comcare warns of big fines, reveals manslaughter start date.

• New and existing psychosocial Codes must be applied together;
  
• WHS Code amended to address major fatality risk; and
  
• RTW guide and template released.

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.