Regulating for Work Health and Safety in Australia: Overcoming Fragmentation

Join QUT’s Australian Centre for Health Law Research and Centre for Decent Work and Industry for a co-hosted event examining the future of work health and safety (WHS) in Australia.

Abstract
Having a safe and healthy working environment is one of the fundamental rights recognised by the International Labour Organization. In Australia, all jurisdictions except Victoria have chosen to adopt model legislation on this topic. Yet divergences from the agreed model have increased in recent years. There has also been fragmentation of a different kind in managing psychosocial hazards such as bullying and harassment, now addressed separately in multiple laws.

Against that background, Professor Andrew Stewart will explore some of the challenges in harmonising work health and safety laws and outline an option for reform that could potentially overcome some of them. He will also discuss what a more effective approach to the regulation of psychosocial hazards might look like. Following his presentation we will hear from Safe Work Australia CEO Marie Boland, whose agency is currently conducting a best practice review of the model laws.

About the speakers
Andrew Stewart is Professor of Work and Regulation at QUT, an Adjunct Professor with Adelaide Law School, and a consultant to the national law firm Piper Alderman. He is a member of both the Australian Centre for Health Law Research and the Centre for Decent Work and Industry. He is a leading expert on employment law and workplace relations, and the author of popular texts Stewart’s Guide to Employment Law and Creighton & Stewart’s Labour Law, Andrew has several decades of experience in advising employers, unions, government agencies and the International Labour Organization. Andrew is a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Law and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and a former President of the Australian Labour Law Association, the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand, and the Industrial Relations Society of South Australia.

Marie Boland has been the Chief Executive Officer of Safe Work Australia since November 2023. She is also a Commissioner of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission and, among other things, a member of the Respect@Work Council and the G20 Occupational Safety and Health Expert Network. Her previous work health and safety experience spanned many roles, including being Executive Director of SafeWork South Australia and conducting the 2018 National Review of the model work health and safety laws (the Boland Review).

Please note: This is an in-person event with the option to watch online. If you are registering here (on Humantix), you are registering for in-person attendance.