Work Health and Safety Regulation in Australia

Work health and safety regulation is an important and fast developing area of labour law. Over the past decade work health and safety law in Australia has undergone major reform, with all but one of the Australian jurisdictions adopting the Model Work Health and Safety Act 2010 (the Model Act). This book analyses the Australian work health and safety statutes just over 11 years after the Model Act was first adopted.

Written by an experienced academic labour lawyer and a leading work health and safety legal practitioner, the book explains work health and safety law in Australia – principally the Work Health and Safety Acts enacted since 2011 in all Australian jurisdictions apart from Victoria, the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic), and judicial interpretation of these statutory provisions. It provides a historical and policy context to the legislation, outlines practical issues, elucidates its practical operation, critically analyses its provisions, and makes proposals for the future development of the legislation.

Johnstone and Tooma critically analyse the Work Health and Safety Acts and the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 in six chapters:

• introduction to the Australian work health and safety statutes
• the general duties of PCBUs and employers
• the general duties of officers, workers, employees and other persons at a workplace
• worker representation, consultation and participation
• inspection and enforcement
• final observations and proposals.

About the Authors

Michael Tooma is the Australian Managing Partner of global law firm Clyde & Co. He has specialised in work health and safety law for over 20 years. Michael is consistently recognised in legal directories as a leading practitioner in work health and safety law and has been involved in numerous high profile cases. He is the author of numerous books and has lectured on work health and safety law at a number of universities. Michael is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Health and Safety and a recipient of its lifetime achievement award.

Richard Johnstone is a Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology, and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Law School. He is a member of the Queensland Work Health and Safety Board, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Occupational Health Law. His research interests include labour law (especially work health and safety), regulation and socio-legal research. He has published widely in work health and safety regulation. His most recent books are Creighton & Stewart’s Labour Law (Federation Press, 2016, with Andrew Stewart, Anthony Forsyth, Mark Irving and Shae McCrystal) and Strike Ballots, Democracy and Law (OUP 2020, with Breen Creighton, Catrina Denvir, Shae McCrystal and Alice Orchiston).