Significant reforms to strengthen South Australian work health and safety laws come into effect from today.

The Work Health and Safety (Review Recommendations) Amendment Act 2024 implements law reform recommendations made by the Independent Review of SafeWork SA, delivering on a major Government election commitment.

The Independent Review was conducted by respected former WorkSafe Victoria executive director Mr John Merritt in 2022, and included dozens of meetings with different individuals and groups involved in work health and safety.

The Independent Review made 39 recommendations of which the Government has accepted 36 in whole, in part, or in-principle.

Significant changes made by the Act include:

• Giving the state’s independent industrial umpire – the South Australian Employment Tribunal – a greater role in resolving health and safety disputes, including the power to order employers to fix safety issues on a worksite.
• Reforming restrictive confidentiality rules and enabling SafeWork SA to share more information with people affected by health and safety incidents, including victims, their families, and their representatives.
• Establishing the SafeWork SA Advisory Committee as a permanent forum to build a stronger relationship between the regulator and key stakeholders such as business groups, trade unions, and safety professionals.
• Prohibiting insurance contracts which purport to indemnify employers against serious criminal penalties for breaches of workplace laws, such as for industrial manslaughter offences.

Quotes

Attributable to Kyam Maher

These reforms represent some of the most important changes to South Australia’s health and safety laws since the creation of the Work Health and Safety Act.

They will make South Australian workplaces safer, they will make our system fairer for victims and their families, and they will help to fix safety issues at an early stage before serious workplace injuries or workplace deaths can occur.

Attributable to SA Unions Secretary Dale Beasley

These WHS reforms are a huge step forward for every South Australian worker's safety and wellbeing. It puts us on the right track to become the safest place to work and do business in the country.

Coming home from work safe isn't just a priority; it's a right. These reforms give workers a say in keeping themselves and their workmates safe.

It's much harder to make a workplace safer when you can't demonstrate that there's a hazard. So, these reforms close absurd legal loopholes that prevented union representatives from taking appropriate measurements and photographic evidence of safety issues.