Browsing: Workplace safety representatives | Page 1

• Stronger safety protections for hazardous sector pass Parliament;
  
• Admin-control failure results in gas inhalation; and
  
• Business fined for ignoring documents request in fraud probe.

• Significant WHS reforms to come with third-phase asbestos plan;
  
• Phased commencement announced for Qld's WHS amendments;
  
• Business charged over customer's mobile-plant death; and
  
• Safety and RTW awards open in Vic.

A major work health and safety Bill has passed in Queensland, with amendments aimed at facilitating a plan that could extend industrial manslaughter provisions to bystander deaths, and ensure multiple duty holders can be charged with manslaughter after a fatality.

A judge has highlighted the critical roles elected health and safety representatives play in achieving the objectives of WHS laws, and making it feasible for PCBUs to comply with their consultation duties, in fining a Qantas subsidiary for "shameful" WHS discrimination.

• Employers warned against unsafe rushing ahead of stone ban;
  
• Employer that boosted HSR numbers among Vic safety winners; and
  
• Safety awards open in WA.

• Qantas agrees to pay $21k in ongoing WHS discrimination case; and
  
• Disconnect laws highlighted on release of mental stress numbers.

The powers of elected health and safety representatives and protections against safety discrimination in the offshore sector have been stepped up and aligned with those in WHS laws, in a Bill introduced some six years after a parliamentary inquiry warned the changes were needed to combat a "culture of fear and reprisal".

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

The attitudes of workplace health and safety representatives towards the "momentous" legislative changes creating new duties for psychosocial risks will be crucial to the successful implementation of the laws, a study has found.

A major employer's failure to consult workers on a controversial WHS mandate created a "paradigm of opposition" in the workforce and led to a large number of workers being unfairly dismissed, a commission has ruled in a 529-paragraph judgment.