Barnett Government out to gut workplace health and safety

Thursday 06 Nov 2014

The Barnett Government have released their draft Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act which aims to harmonise WA with the Commonwealth WHS laws.

The Commonwealth law is not as worker friendly as the WA law which means the changes will reduce the rights and protections for workers in this state.

Some of the key changes include:

• Significant reduction of the rights of Health and Safety Representatives.
• Removal of regulators ability to issue enforceable undertakings or infringement notices
• New provisions to allow a workplace to indemnify/contract out their duty of care to provide a safe workplace (Section 17 (2))
• Removal of union right of entry provisions and WHS entry permits
• Removal of reverse onus of proof for discriminatory conduct (Section 105)

More details on the bill can be found here.

Submissions on the draft bill are due at the end of January. The HSUWA are working with UnionsWA on a joint response.

To participate in the review or for further information contact Owen Whittle at UnionsWA on owhittle@unionswa.com.au.

If you have a health and safety issue at your workplace , or don't have a WHS Rep please contact Scott Fairclough at the HSUWA at sfairclough@hsuwa.com.au