Employers have been reminded of their WHS duties to pregnant and parent workers, and urged to make ergonomic adjustments where needed, after a major project found these workers continue to face "vast discrimination, disadvantage, and bias".
Workers in the legal profession will reveal whether their employers are complying with their proactive duties to tackle bullying and harassment, under a follow-up equal opportunity review announced in South Australia. Meanwhile, safety professionals have been asked to apply to present on ideas for improving WHS outcomes in Tasmania.
A major study traversing the past four years has revealed that students are the most frequent perpetrators of digital harassment of Australia's university staff, and senior managers in the sector are not doing enough to safeguard workers' psychological health.
The final quarter of 2023 was marked by wholesale WHS changes affecting all duty holders. This report examines the amendments, as well as changes to other laws and all the need-to-know caselaw from the period.
A WHS regulator has outlined the kinds of risks that employers are obligated to assess for workers travelling to remote regions, while a fellow regulator has explained how WHS laws operate in relation to high-temperature hazards.
A worker's pericarditis from his third COVID-19 vaccination was significantly contributed to by his employment and is compensable, a tribunal has ruled in examining vaccine mandates and the operation of emergency management laws.
An employer's multiple efforts to engineer out a safety risk failed to prevent a worker's serious crush injuries because of the absence of supplementary administrative controls, a court has found in fining the employer.
A magistrate has slammed a company's "casual approach" to WHS, which "fell well below the standards required" of it, finding a worker would have been conscious of and avoided placing himself in a hazardous position if proper systems had been implemented.
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.