As either a business owner or a manager you might be thinking… What is this WHS Act business about or may have just been stumped with where to start. Not a worry, we’ll summarise the new WHS Act 2020, who is affected, the changes and what you should do to prepare.
Starting off, What is the WHS Act?
The new WHS Act will be superseding the OSH Act 1984 and will combine the OSH Act, Mine Safety and Inspection Act and the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Safety Levies Act. The WHS Act will harmonise WA to majority or Australia, introducing exciting but sometimes challenging changes to our industries.
The Act will:
(a) enable the development of uniform, equitable and effective safety standards and protections for all Australian workers;
(b) address the compliance and regulatory burdens for employers with operations in more than one jurisdiction;
(c) create efficiencies for governments in the provision of OHS regulatory and support services; and
(d) achieve significant and continual reductions in the incidence of death, injury and disease in the workplace
Next, we’re going to discuss Who is Affected by the WHS Act?
Easily said: Everyone. However, practically said, small and medium businesses. The fact that the changes provide such a shift in use of insurances and the adoption of much harsher penalties and prosecution such as the introduction of Industrial manslaughter, fines become much greater and imprisonment in the picture would easily ruin a small and medium business, providing a much more need to introduce and maintain safety within small and medium businesses.
Many SMEs are able to facilitate full-time WHS support due to capital and lack of knowledge and experience. This is where you could utilise us as your WHS support services on a more practical level to ensure you’re still getting the WHS value you need without burning your pockets.
Now we know who is affected but What exactly are the changes?
A few of the changes include:
1. Increasing Penalties which include the rising fines to PCBU’s, and Individuals and the Introduction of Industrial Manslaughter carrying imprisonment times.
2. Introduction of “PCBU’. A PCBU is a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking.
This includes:
Partnerships
- • The partners in a partnership can be PCBUs but not officers
Sole Trader
- • A sole trader is a PCBU but not an officer
3. The term employee is now “worker”. “Worker” now includes people such as volunteers, contractors, trainees etc.
4. Industrial manslaughter penalties. Fines and prison Sentences have increased, plus prosecutors no longer have to convict the company to prosecute a company officer.
Officers Include:
Anyone who shifts and makes most of the company’s decisions.
An Officer can’t be a PCBU and Vice-Versa
5. Due diligence. An officer must show and maintain positive Due Diligence, and if it is seen that they have not met this, they may be prosecuted.
Due Diligence has 6 elements:
- • to acquire and keep up-to-date knowledge of work health and safety matters; and
- • to gain an understanding of the nature of the operations of the business or undertaking of the person conducting the business or undertaking and generally of the hazards and risks associated with those operations; and
- • to ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has available for use, and uses, appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise risks to health and safety from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking; and
- • to ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has appropriate processes for receiving and considering information regarding incidents, hazards and risks and responding in a timely way to that information; and
- • to ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking has, and implements, processes for complying with any duty or obligation of the person conducting the business or undertaking under this Act; and
- • to verify the provision and use of the resources and processes referred to in paragraphs (c) to (e)
6. Insurance can no longer pay for penalties. It can only pay for your legal fees. So, it is paramount to have adequate safety processes maintained to prevent this from occurring.
7. WHS Service providers are now liable. WHS Service Providers (like us) have explicit duties under the new WHS Act, where we must provide advice which will not put at risk the health and safety of persons who are at the workplace. This does not replace the PCBU/Officers duties and these duty responsibilities can’t be “passed on” we can assist you in meeting your duty.
How do I prepare for the WHS Act?
1. Ensure that staff understand their WHS Roles & Responsibilities and where they sit in the company. It’s a good idea to refresh any Safety Training, updating employees, PCBU’s and Officers on key risks within the workplace along with hazard reporting and providing ongoing proactive safety input. This can be done through our Safety Training services provided by Safetec Safety solutions
2. Ensure that adequate processes are in place and adequately communicated to the team. Due Diligence has not been met if a safety management system and
its policies and procedures and sitting in a folder collecting dust. It should a continual improvement task.
“You don’t need to know the whole alphabet of Safety. The a, b, c of it will save you if you follow it.”
-Colorado School of Mines Magazine
3. Ensure that continual improvement is consistent by auditing the company periodically to that any new requirements are accounted for and old are updated as required. Like a business plan, Safety is a continual effort and shouldn’t be a one-off activity.
When conducting company audits, ensure that any old documentation is reviewed and updated, staff are communicated and ask for further recommendations, and prepare actions to further improve safety within the company.
4. Finally, ensure that the company works on its safety culture. A great safety culture will find preventative measures to mitigate risks, an average safety culture will react to events that occur.
In this explainer, we have summed up the WHS Act helping you skyrocket to safety excellence.
