Date: Thursday, 22 October 2020

Location: Online - you will be sent more information when you register

Time/Duration: 9.00am – 12:30pm

Suited for: Directors, business owners, managers and anyone responsible for managing WHS responsibilities.

Presenter: Alan Girle, Director - WHS and Andrew Ross, Associate Director, Australian Business Lawyers & Advisors (ABLA)

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Course Overview

Never before has work health and safety come under the spotlight like it has in the year of 2020. A global pandemic, natural disasters and a first conviction under the Industrial Manslaughter laws in Queensland.

Business owners and Directors have been personally prosecuted for failure to provide a safe work environment to their employees and the regulators are not taking any excuses for failure in this area.

Are you confident you are managing your legal obligations as a Director, Business Owner or as the person charged with WHS responsibilities within your workplace?

Recent cases only highlight the severity of penalties being applied to reckless conduct and the onus is pointed squarely at those at the top of the business. How would your company fair if charged with a WHS offence?

Now is the time to upskill your knowledge so you can have the tough conversations within your business that puts a focus on safety this year.

This half-day refresher course, conducted by renowned safety legal expert, Alan Girle, will provide you with an understanding of the priorities and focus of safety regulators in Australia.

Designed for those in business who have a safety responsibility, including directors, business owners, sole traders or junior safety professionals looking to upskill.

The 1/2 day course will cover:

WHS laws and the legal system
Understanding reputational damage
Insurance laws as they relate to WHS
Obligations of directors and boards
Case examples and penalties with new legislation
Action plan for WHS audit

After participating in this training you will walk away with:

An understanding of your legal obligations and the penalties applicable for safety breaches
The ability to review your business in line with new safety legislation and identify gaps
An appreciation of the necessity to handle incidents correctly when they happen
Insights on how your business may need to address safety issues and concerns
An action plan for next steps in your business

Due to COVID-19 and social distancing requirements, this course will be conducted online via Zoom.

Places are limited. To reserve your spot for this critical safety update, book today. It could save you personally and your business significant distress in the future.

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8:45am - Virtual waiting room opens
9:00 am - Training commences
12:30 pm - Training concludes
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About the trainer

Alan Girle,
Director

With over 25 years’ experience Alan Girle is a specialist workplace and employment lawyer with focus on work health and safety (WHS) and other regulatory law.

He has assisted governments and businesses prosecute, defend and negotiate, in a variety of regulatory court actions. His experience ranges from WHS matters to environmental regulation and has appeared before most state courts and tribunals, including Royal Commissions of Inquiry and coronial inquests. Alan started his legal career at the Crown Law Office in Queensland and before joining Australian Business Lawyers & Advisors he had developed extensive experience in the private sector. He has defended numerous executives and companies throughout Australia and was recommended in the 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Doyle's Guide as a "Leading Workplace Health & Safety Lawyers – Brisbane" and consistently selected by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in the "Occupational Health & Safety Law" category.

Alan’s focus is on assisting clients following a workplace incident, including crisis management, incident investigation and regulatory response. He also assists clients in improving their compliance and risk-prevention strategies, by providing training, executive briefings and conducting compliance audits. His ability to draft submissions to government concerning legislative reform is also highly valued, having worked intensely on legislative reform in his former role as Director of Safety and Health in the Queensland Resources Council.

Andrew Ross,
Associate Director

Recognised in both Doyle’s guide to lawyers (2016 to present) and Best lawyers (2019 to 2020) as a recommended lawyer in the field of health and safety law, Andrew’s deep experience spans both diverse subject matter (construction, maritime, recycling, heavy vehicle safety and anti-fatigue, manufacturing, labour hire, the arts) and regulatory regimes (work health and safety east coast laws, mining and petroleum health and safety, food safety). Andrew regularly advises clients on internal investigations, incident response, regulatory notices, officer due diligence requirements, complex PCBU safety and health duties, guiding his client through the complex regulatory environment. Andrew has recently successfully defended clients in major heavy vehicle and mine safety prosecutions and conducted training for executives at large regional councils, a hospital and an east coast construction company.

As an employment lawyer, Andrew regularly advises clients how to successfully risk manage and navigate the areas of performance management, restructuring and redundancy, Award and EA compliance, general protections, discrimination, and enterprise bargaining. In providing strategic advice on employment issues, Andrew is always conscious of the commercial human resource imperatives driving his client and he has a capacity to rapidly absorb the critical issues unique to each industry. Andrew’s employment law clients include entities in the retail, government, and transport sectors.

From 2017 to 2020 Andrew successfully advised the managers of a major Queensland infrastructure project on safety and employment matters. Andrew’s experiences as a government lawyer in the earlier part of his career are valuable to clients needing to navigate increasingly complicated regulatory environments requiring an understanding of the regulatory landscape and how to respond effectively and assuredly to the different safety and employment regulators.

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FAQs

How can I contact the organiser with any questions?

Contact Tori Smith: 02 9458 7384 or tori.smith@ablawyers.com.au

What's the refund policy?

Participants will receive a full refund if they cancel at least seven (7) business days prior to the scheduled event. However, if participants cancel less than seven (7) business days before the event, no refund will be made. The place can be transfered to another member of the paid organisation. No-shows or cancellations after 7 days will receive the course training material and supporting documents. If there are insufficient participants, we reserve the right to cancel the event and participants will be transferred to another module of equal value or receive a full refund at their election. We will give three business days’ notice of any such cancellation.

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