New OHSE Harmonization Laws may be here soon!
Western Australia is one of four jurisdictions (including Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia) which did not adopt the model WHS laws from 1 January 2012. Tasmania and South Australia will adopt the model WHS laws from 1 January 2013. Victoria has stated that it does not intend to adopt the laws in their current form.
The Western Australian Government believes it is important that the potential impact of the model work health and safety laws be fully and properly assessed - particularly in relation to the small business sector - before being implemented in this State.
The National Regulation Impact Statement (‘RIS’) prepared by the Commonwealth for the model work health and safety regulations and first stage codes of practice fell short in providing that assessment. Consequently, the WA Government is conducting a comprehensive analysis of the possible impact of those model regulations and codes of practice on businesses, workers, government and the economy in Western Australia.
The national model work health and safety regulations also continue to be missing the mining component. These regulations have an important bearing on the implementation of the overall WHS laws package. The Government has concerns that having a different commencement date for mining laws will create an uncertain regulatory environment which could conceivably have a negative impact on safety standards in this high risk industry. Western Australia is of the view that implementation of the model WHS laws requires the complete package for implementation which includes all the mining regulations.
In view of these circumstances, the date of implementation for the model laws in WA has not been determined and will need to be reassessed.
Beyond the timing issue, the process for implementing model WHS laws will involve the development of some WA specific transitional laws. Some guiding principles have been agreed through the harmonisation process to deliver a consistent transition process in each jurisdiction. However, as each jurisdiction has a different set of current laws, the transitional provisions in each jurisdiction may need to cover different topics and therefore will not be identical.
Once the WA version of these transitional provisions has been finalised, WorkSafe will make more information available on how they will operate. But by way of example, the transitional provisions will deal with numerous administrative issues such as –
- Continuity of currently elected Safety and Health Representatives so as to avoid the need for unnecessary election processes.
- The rules for the continuation of existing investigations.
