Landmark workplace safety laws set to empower workers

Landmark work health and safety reforms pass state parliament today, empowering workers with the ability to address workplace safety disputes.

The Work Health and Safety (Review Recommendations) Amendment Act 2024 embraces the recommendations of numerous expert reviews to improve workplace health and safety outcomes. “Coming home from work safe isn’t just a priority; it’s a right. These updates give workers a say in keeping themselves and their workmates safe” Said Dale Beasley, SA Unions Secretary. Beasley Continued, “Built on thorough expert reviews, these common sense amendments ensure our workplaces are safer and fairer.”

Important reforms introduced as part of this Act include:

• The South Australian Employment Tribunal can make practical orders on WHS matters
  • Workers will have the power to bring safety disputes to the Industrial umpire for resolution. This is the power workers need to get bosses to fix safety issues and to prevent the unthinkable.
• Bosses breaching orders to fix safety issues will be held to account
  • Bosses who refuse to fix a safety issue after ordered by SAET, may face penalties, businesses will no longer be able to insure against having to pay a penalty
• Removal of arbitrary barriers to accountability
  • More details about safety issues will be available to Workers, victims & their families. It also closes a loophole that prevented taking of photos & measurements to document safety hazards during safety inspections.
• Codifies the SafeWork SA Advisory Committee
  • Workers, employers & victims advocates will have a say in SafeWork SA’s actions, giving a voice to those affected by the decisions made by the regulator.

“Until now, when workers have been faced with pressure to perform unsafe work, have had their employers fail to adequately address safety concerns at work, or had their employers knowingly put profit ahead of their safety, they and their HSR could go to SafeWork SA. But in cases where SafeWork SA have not acted, workers had nowhere else to go. This Bill changes that,” Said Dale Beasley.
Beasley continued, “These WHS reforms are a huge step forward for every South Australian workers’ safety and wellbeing. It puts us on the right track to become the safest place to work and do business in the country.”