Your Workplace Safety Obligations

Australia is a federation of six States and two Territories. Under our system of government, the States and Territories have responsibility for laws about workplace health and safety and for enforcing those laws.

Each State and Territory has a principal O&HS Act which sets out requirements for improving standards of workplace health and safety to reduce work-related injury and illness. These requirements spell out the duties of different groups of people who play a role in workplace health and safety.

These requirements are known as the Duty of Care and give employers a “Duty of Care” to:

• secure the health, safety and welfare of employees and other people at work;

• protect the public from the health & safety risks of business activities;

• eliminate workplace risks at the source; and

• involve employers, employees and the organisations that represent them in the formulation & implementation of health, safety and welfare standards.

Duty of care requires everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to be done to protect the health and safety of others at the workplace. This duty is placed on:

• all employers;

• their employees; and

• any others who have an influence on the hazards in a workplace.

Specific rights and duties logically flow from the duty of care. These include:

• provision and maintenance of safe plant and systems of work;

• safe systems of work in connection with plant and substances;

• a safe working environment and adequate welfare facilities;

• information and instruction on workplace hazards and supervision of employees in safe work;

• monitoring the health of their employees and related records keeping;

• employment of qualified persons to provide health and safety advice;

• nomination of a senior employer representative; and

• monitoring conditions at any workplace under their control and management.

OH&S Alerts

Electrical Tools & Equipment - Poor Maintenance Can Kill: Worksafe Alert - click here

Electrical Equipment - What are the Laws/guidelines: OHS Reps @ work FAQ - click here