Two major pieces of legislation have passed the NSW and Western Australian Parliaments: a WHS Bill nearly tripling fines and doubling jail terms for category-1 breaches, and a complete workers' compensation rewrite that has been a decade in the making.
Employers and insurers will be banned from attending injured workers' medical appointments, under one of hundreds of provisions of a major Bill that completely rewrites Western Australia's workers' compensation laws, and implements the recommendations from a legislative review conducted nearly a decade ago.
Businesses that breach workplace safety, workers' compensation, employment or environmental laws in any jurisdiction or overseas can now be blocked from supplying goods, services or works to Western Australian agencies, under Australia's "first debarment regime".
In a busy two days in the west, the State Government has mandated COVID-19 vaccines for most workers, extended emergency safety measures for the pandemic, introduced a major IR Bill with protections for bullied and s-xually harassed workers, and established a compensation scheme for medically retired police.