Notification requirement changes may be headed your way following model WHS Act amendments

All jurisdictions across Australia will be reviewing amendments to the model work health and safety (WHS) laws, which were published by Safe Work Australia in December. These amendments introduce significant changes to incident notification requirements.

Although these amendments will only become operational when adopted by each state and territory (and the Commonwealth), they have been developed in response to recommendations from the 2018 Boland Review about notification triggers for psychological injuries as well as illnesses and injuries emerging from new work practices and arrangements.

Some of the key points that employers will need to understand include new notifiable events:

Notifiable extended absence: This is an actual absence or anticipated absence for 15 consecutive calendar days that is reasonably attributable to a physical or psychological injury arising from the conduct of the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU).
Notifiable suicide: This includes a suspected work-related suicide or attempted suicide of a worker, and the suicide or attempted suicide of others that takes place at a workplace in specific circumstances.
Dangerous incident: This has been extended to include electrical arcs/explosions, mobile plant incidents that do not cause injury (e.g. a forklift tipping over without injury) and a serious fall of a person.
Violent incident: This is a physical or sexual assault (or threat). The law adopts the ordinary meaning of assault and not the criminal offence meaning. It will also include ‘deliberate deprivation’ of a person's liberty without lawful authority.

Associated with the new notification rules are requirements to preserve a worksite and/or evidence following an incident. These changes will require some interpretation about what evidence precisely should be preserved, for example, in the case of suspected self-harm.

The new model laws also fix some gaps regarding notification. Once adopted, the laws will now require one PCBU, who is aware of a notifiable incident, to inform other PCBUs of the incident, in circumstances where that other PCBU would otherwise be required to notify the incident themselves.

More information about the timing and extent of adoption of the amendments will become available from regulators in each jurisdiction during the year.

Read Safe Work Australia’s memorandum on the amendments here.

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