Views expressed on the new OHS laws voiced at The Safety Show

Employers were keen to see how the new OHS laws will affect their workplaces, with plenty of questions and discussions at The Safety Show in Sydney in October. To cater for the high levels of interest, extra seminars at The Safety Show were scheduled after the first two were quickly booked out.

Safe Work Australia, the umbrella body responsible for developing the national model OHS legislation, presented two seminars at The Safety Show and law firm Deacons hosted daily sessions at the trade shows to explain the changes and their implications for workplaces.

“The timing of the Safety Show was perfect for employers grappling to understand the implications of the new laws,” said organiser Marie Kinsella of Australian Exhibitions & Conferences. “Public comment on the draft new laws is open right now and employers are desperate for information on how they will be affected, so these free seminars couldn’t be more valuable.”

The seminars were presented by Safe Work Australia’s model legislation project manager, Julia Collins, while the Chair, Tom Phillips, made up a panel of experts addressing the new laws at The Safety Conference, held concurrently with the show.

The proposed new laws will affect union powers, the personal liability of company officers and even the onus of proof when safety breaches are judged in court.

The draft laws have drawn spirited debate since their release in September. One of those who were keen to comment was the chief executive of the Australian Federation of Employers and Industries, Garry Brack, who exhibited at the show: “We are concerned about the content of the model laws. NSW’s OHS Act is the most difficult piece of legislation in the developed world and we believe this is a lost opportunity to wind up with more balance.

“If an employee does the wrong thing, the employer is found guilty. We’re not arguing that employees should be prosecuted, but [we] reject the notion that employers should be liable when employees fail to meet safety requirements.”

Brack added that smaller employers were frustrated with the risk-management approach adopted by OHS laws: “Smaller employers don’t have the financial resources and in-house expertise to interpret what is ‘reasonably practicable’. They say: ‘Tell us what we have to do.’ They don’t wanted to return to the lunacy of years ago where every nut and bolt was defined, but they do need a more prescriptive approach and help from regulators.

“Larger employers are demanding a common system across the country, which the national model laws were designed to deliver but signalled caution. There are ‘outs’ in the draft laws where the states can specify what they want. We are yet to see how harmonisation pans out.”

Another exhibitor, College of Warehousing training director Bill Henman, was also unsure of whether the new OHS laws will deliver on their promise of harmonisation: “National legislation is highly desirable to avoid the massive duplication of work for national organisations. Unfortunately, the legislation will be enforced by various state jurisdictions and this will result in variation between states in interpretations, penalties and the finer points of the legislation.

“The devil is in the detail. Different penalties in different states currently affect the priorities of safety managers and standardised penalties would provide better outcomes.

“The laws are only drafts and I fear that state governments will change them. If we’re really honest about it, we should have a federal OHS authority (as we have the Australian Federal Police) that would have the authority to shape safety in the various states and territories.

“It’s very hard to say whether these new laws will make workplaces safer. The culture of those less safety-conscious workplaces where the employer bends the rules has to change. One would hope the new laws will help engender better safety cultures.”

Australian Workplace Software director Moshe Woods fielded plenty of questions about compliance from visitors to his booth at the show, stating: “The goal of national harmonisation of OHS laws is to remove many layers of legislative complexity for businesses. It’s also expected to reduce the reams of paperwork currently required of OHS staff as they contend with multiple state and territory laws. But the introduction of best practices and the model Act will require more than a few changes to the way that organisations currently meet their OHS obligations.”

The Master Builders Association of NSW's OHS risk management officer, Tim Stootman, told association members who visited the show that uniform national laws and regulations will be an improvement on the current state-based legislation: “Master Builders supports the review of OHS laws and believes that this is an opportunity for better, rather than greater, OHS regulation.

“Better, rather than greater, regulation will assist to improve OHS performance in the construction sector. Master Builders supports the rejection of what could be called a ‘highest common denominator’ approach to OHS duties. Essentially, this approach would have seen an absolute duty of care on employers to ensure the health and safety of their employees and provides unions with the right to bring a prosecution for a breach of the OHS law, the latter a provision adopted in recent changes to the law in the ACT. The Draft National Model OHS Act is a positive step towards harmonisation of OHS laws in this country.”