Category: Statutory duties & consultation
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The Cost of Administrative Neglect: The SAET Decorative Ethanol Burner Precedent
The South Australian Employment Court (SAET) has penalized a prominent hospitality group, delivering a stark reminder that failing to operationalize manufacturer safety specifications or implement written safe operating procedures constitutes a severe breach of work health and safety laws. In Farrell v Winona Way Pty Ltd [2026] SAET 33, a hotel operator pleaded guilty to…
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Essential welfare facilities: Safe Work Australia expands the work environment code to mandate period product access
Safe Work Australia (SWA) has formally updated the national model WHS Code of Practice, Managing the work environment and facilities, introducing an explicit compliance requirement for Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBUs) to provide essential sanitary and period products. This national framework is reinforced by legislative activity across harmonised jurisdictions, where three states have…
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The Boundary Shift: Why SWA’s New Incident Notification Framework is a Corporate Vulnerability
The upcoming integration of Safe Work Australia’s (SWA) model WHS incident notification amendments represents the most disruptive structural shift in safety governance since the 2011 harmonization. Driven by recommendations from Marie Boland’s independent review, these changes legally codify systemic oversight for psychological harm, psychosocial hazards, and non-injury operational failures. For executive leadership, this eliminates the…
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Corporate Attribution and Systemic Failure: How the Commonwealth WHS Framework Aggregates Risk
The federal work health and safety landscape has undergone a significant structural shift with the full enforcement of the industrial manslaughter provisions introduced under the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023 (Cth). For multi-state organizations, national self-insurers, and entities operating under the Comcare jurisdiction, these amendments alter how corporate liability is evaluated following…
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The standalone cop on the beat—Deconstructing the structural splitting of SafeWork NSW
The New South Wales regulatory landscape has undergone a major transformation that alters how work health and safety compliance is enforced across the state. Through the passage of the SafeWork NSW (Independent Regulator Reorganization) Act 2025, the state Parliament has permanently removed the safety regulator from the Department of Customer Service, establishing it as a…
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The aggregated negligence framework—Analyzing the Commonwealth’s new industrial manslaughter tier system
In a profound escalation of federal safety enforcement, the Commonwealth jurisdiction has permanently closed the technical loopholes used by multi-state organizations to isolate liability. Under the industrial manslaughter provisions introduced via the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023 (Cth), which entered its full enforcement phase on 1 July 2024, federal safety regulators have…