Work Health Safety Law: Analysis of Regulations and Compliance

This report provides an overview of the Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws in Australia, emphasizing their role in reducing workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. It discusses the responsibilities of states, territories, and the Commonwealth in enforcing these laws, highlighting the development of the Model WHS Act and Regulations by Safe Work Australia. The report examines key provisions, including the requirement for businesses to provide safe work environments, maintain hazard facilities, and ensure worker safety. It also outlines the duties of persons conducting business or undertakings, as well as the responsibilities of workers, and the penalties for non-compliance. The harmonization of WHS laws, as part of the COAG National Reform Agenda, is presented as a critical step towards improving workplace safety outcomes and reducing regulatory burdens. The report references key legislation and policies aimed at ensuring a safer working environment for all Australians.

Running head: WORK HEALTH SAFETY LAW
Work Health Safety law
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1WORK HEALTH SAFETY LAW
The work health and safety laws in Australia aims at reducing the occurrence of injury,
illness and death related to work at workplace. All the territories, states and the Commonwealth
are in charge of enforcing the health and safety laws in their respective states and the
Commonwealth. One of the primary functions of Safe Work Australia’s was to develop a Model
Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act which was to be supported by model WHS Regulations.
The Model requires a national compliance and enforcement policy for adopting the model in
Australia. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) committed the territories, states and
the Commonwealth to develop and apply model work health and safety laws with a view to
achieve the harmonization of work health and safety laws in Australia (Holt and Allen 2015).
The fact that the development of the Model has improved the level of protection of
workers at workplace is evident from the provisions that have been stipulated in the WHS
regulations. The regulations stipulate that every business organization must provide the workers
with a safe work environment that has first aid, personal equipment and other medical
equipments in case of emergency (Australia 2014). The organizations must maintain major
hazard facilities and their emergency plans to ensure safety of the workers. The Model Work
Health and Safety Act lays down under Division 3 that persons who are responsible for
conducting business or undertakings must ensure that the entrance and the exit of the workplace,
and anything that may arise from the workplace does not cause any harm to the health and safely
of any persons working in the workplace.
Further, division 2 and section 19 of the Act requires the persons conducting a business
must ensure that the health and safety of workers who are carrying out work that is directed by
such person. Furthermore, under section 28 of the Act, the workers must exhibit reasonable care
with respect to their own health and safety and must act in a manner that does not adversely

2WORK HEALTH SAFETY LAW
affect the health and safety of any other persons. The workers must act in compliance with the
instruction given by the person conducting the business and must act in conformity with this Act
(Hale, Borys and Adam 2015). Moreover, according to Division 5 section 31, any person who
commits any act that causes harm or exposes any individual to a risk of death or any serious
injury or illness, shall be entitled to imprisonment for 5 years or $30000 fine or both. Any person
who owes a health and safety duty but fails to comply with the same shall be liable to pay $
150000.
The WHS Ministers have agreed to comply with the National compliance and
enforcement policy with a view to support the model WHS laws (Schulte et al. 2014). The policy
highlights the aims of compliance and enforcement thus, monitoring and enforcing compliance
with WHS laws. The harmonization of the WHS laws was part of the COAG National Reform
Agenda which was introduced aiming at reducing the regulatory burden. This harmonization of
WHS laws aims at safeguarding the health and safety of laws and improving the safety outcomes
in workplace.

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Reference list
Holt, A.S.J. and Allen, J., 2015. Principles of health and safety at work. Routledge.
Australia, S.W., 2014. Work-related traumatic injury fatalities, Australia 2013. ACT: Canberra.
Hale, A., Borys, D. and Adams, M., 2015. Safety regulation: the lessons of workplace safety rule
management for managing the regulatory burden. Safety science, 71, pp.112-122.
Schulte, P.A., Geraci, C.L., Murashov, V., Kuempel, E.D., Zumwalde, R.D., Castranova, V.,
Hoover, M.D., Hodson, L. and Martinez, K.F., 2014. Occupational safety and health criteria for
responsible development of nanotechnology. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 16(1), p.2153.