WHS Practitioner/Advisor - Legislative obligations
Further information
Revised draft 26 November 2010Is the new WHS Act different from the previous OHS Act?
The laws for occupational health and safety have changed. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991 (OHS Act) changed to the Commonwealth Work Health and Safety Act (WHS Act). This is a significant and historic change to OHS laws in Australia and represents a time for review and change in how we look at work health and safety.
From 1 January 2012 most States, Territories and the Commonwealth will have harmonised and implement similar work health and safety laws. If you complied with the previous OHS laws, then you are well on your way to meeting the requirements of the WHS laws.
The WHS Act is not significantly different from many current work health and safety laws. Much of it is based on policies that are common to many jurisdictions. Practitioners/advisors will find that the new laws do not significantly change how they support, educate and inform managers and workers.
The intention is for each jurisdiction to enact the model provisions, subject to permitted minor variations that are needed to ensure the model provisions are workable in each jurisdiction and interact effectively with local laws without affecting harmonisation.
When the harmonised work health and safety laws are in place across Australia, it will be easier for PCBU's and workers to comply with their work health and safety responsibilities because the requirements will largely be the same, regardless of how many States and Territories they operate in.
What’s changing?
Harmonised occupational health and safety laws have long been recognised as a critical area of regulatory reform. In July 2008 the Council of Australian Governments signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in OHS (IGA) that established the commitment of the Commonwealth, States and Territories to adopt uniform work health and safety (WHS) laws by the end of 2011. This cooperation is the most effective way to achieve harmonisation of work health and safety laws in Australia. The WHS laws are complemented by nationally consistent approaches to compliance and enforcement.
There are some important changes to the WHS Act that will affect the way managers interact and promote health and safety to their workers. As a practitioner/advisor it is important to be aware of these changes and ready and able to provide support and advice. These include:
- New terminology. E.g. work health and safety replaces occupational health and safety.
- The introduction of the term ‘workers’ replacing ‘employees’. Workers will include contractors, volunteers.
- Broader consultation requirements. e.g. Who needs to be consulted, when and to what extent.
- The addition of a new ‘officer’ duty holder.
- Enhanced and changed duties on most duty holders, however the duties on workers remains essentially unchanged.
- Changes to the potential numbers of HSRs and deputies in a work group and who can be a HSR.
- Changes to how the regulator is notified of incidents in the workplace. PCBUs have the overall duty to notify the regulator for certain serious injuries or illnesses and dangerous incidents that arise out of work that occur at a workplace. A PCBU must notify immediately once they become aware of a notifiable incident by the fastest possible means.
How will these new laws affect me in my role as a practitioner?
As a WHS practitioner/advisor you already play an essential support and education role for managers and workers in your workplace.
Your role under the WHS laws will continue to focus on engaging senior leaders and managers in the design and implementation of policies and procedures. At the same time you will also need to encourage worker involvement in consultation, communication and decision making processes.
It is essential that workers are given the opportunity to raise issues or provide ideas and feedback directly to their manager, HSR, employee representative or through you as a WHS practitioner/advisor.
By emphasising the importance of strong workplace relationships, WHS practitioners/advisors facilitate engagement between workers and managers and assist to deliver positive health and safety outcomes.
What do I have to do?
The WHS laws offer an opportunity to review how your organisation's health and safety systems, and policies and procedures support managers to lead and support workers in their daily work activities.
To assess if you are already doing things that will meet the requirements of the WHS laws ask yourself the following questions. Do you, as a practitioner/advisor:
- develop, understand, promote and communicate health and safety policies and procedures?
- foster open lines of communication between workers, managers and senior leaders?
- actively support and encourage managers to communicate with workers in an open, honest and meaningful way?
- demonstrate your commitment to health and safety and model safe work practices?
- put into practice what you expect workers and managers to follow, the standard you set is the one they will follow?
When do I need to do this by?
WHS practitioners/advisors and senior leaders should continue to review governance and change, refresh or modify to align with the provisions under the WHS Act.
Practitioners/advisors should review the following checkpoints that were suggested leading up to the implementation of the WHS laws:
By May 2011:
- Discuss any immediate concerns or issues with senior leaders and brief them on the urgency to commit to action.
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- Tip: see the CEO/agency head and senior managers/executive toolkits for ideas on ways to approach the discussion.
- Design and program in any workshops, information sessions or other initiatives that will support workers to transition.
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- Tip: keep up to date with the latest information though Comcare’s website (events and harmonisation pages).
- Introduce discussion on the new WHS laws into the workplace through HSRs, managers and WHS committees and in everyday discussions with workers.
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- Tip: see the workers and manager’s toolkits for communication ideas.
- Review, in consultation with all stakeholders, your local health and safety arrangements to identify gaps or potential improvements.
By August 2011:
- Encourage managers and workers to include WHS updates at all team meetings and to have WHS as a set agenda.
- Commence delivery of any designed workshops, information sessions or intranet messages.
- Assess if the WHS regulations and codes of practice impact on the PCBUs legislative obligations.
- Assess if awareness of the WHS laws has been raised.
- Assist managers to schedule time for workers to attend potential workshops, training session on the WHS laws.
By December 2011:
- Check that all workers and business functions are ready to transition to the WHS laws.
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- Tip: focus on the systems, polices and procedures that have been reviewed, updated and communicated.
- Identify what activities need to be continued between January and June 2012.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of consultation and communication processes.
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- Tip: have the gaps been identified and considered in the planning of the next phase of communication?
- HSRs and worker representatives have been consulted and included in potential WHS changes that may affect their work group
- Workers are aware of, and understand the need for, any changes to align with the new WHS laws.
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- Tip: Have you ordered the worker e-learning module for your organisation yet?
- Tip: Have you ordered the worker e-learning module for your organisation yet?
- Determine who will now be ‘workers’ in your workplace and how this may affect your day to day work.
- Be prepared for potential changes to work groups and HSRs.
- Conduct a final governance review to assess any gaps.