Chapter heading 1

Part 1: The Regulatory Context (Chapters 1-3)

Part 1 sets the scene for our review. We briefly describe how Australia’s OHS laws have developed since the introduction of Robens-style legislation in Australia over 25 years ago. Since 1995, there have been two national reviews of OHS and all jurisdictions have undertaken reviews of their principal OHS Acts. These considered many of the matters that are in our terms of reference. The reports of the reviews have given us a useful source of information and analysis.

OHS legislation must have wide coverage, so that it applies to all hazards and risks arising from the conduct of work and imposes appropriate duties on those who are in a position to eliminate the hazards or control those risks. We therefore examine in some detail, the significant changes that have occurred to the labour market and the nature and organisation of work in Australia, such as the growth in casual, part-time and temporary work, outsourcing, the use of labour hire, migrant workers and home workers. There is a body of evidence showing that such atypical forms of employment can adversely affect health and safety outcomes and that the regulatory regime has not kept pace with these changes.

Changes, not only in work relationships, but also in the types of OHS hazards and risks, will continue to occur, and a model OHS Act should be able to accommodate such new and evolving circumstances without requiring frequent amendments to meet them.

We also note that there has been a gradual reduction in both the number and incidence rate of compensated work-related injuries and fatalities since the beginning of the decade, but the number of Australians killed and injured each year remains unacceptably high. Each year over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured at work, more than 250 are killed and it is estimated that over 2000 die as a result of work-related disease. The social and economic costs are immense.