Browsing: WHS legislation, regulations, standards and codes (QLD)

• WHS Code remade with significant changes in Qld; and
  
• Qld reveals workers' comp premium rate for 2021-22.

Australia's WHS ministers have agreed to amend the model WHS Regulations to prescribe control measures for psychological risks, and significantly increase safety penalties, but proposed industrial manslaughter laws were voted down at their meeting yesterday.

Twenty WHS Codes of Practice have been updated in Queensland, while an amended Code for managing workplace electrical risks has been approved, and asbestos regulations have been changed.

Industrial manslaughter provisions should be amended in Queensland to ensure all companies that negligently cause a worker's death can be prosecuted, according to a major inquiry report that also makes important recommendations on safety metrics.

• WHS amendments in Qld remove national model provisions; and
  
• Height blitz relaunched after "disappointing" results in Vic.

• COVID face coverings can create new work risks, regulator warns;
  
• "Second line of defence" prescribed for Qld mines;
  
• Employers reminded of new quad bike safety standards; and
  
• New online system helps WHS notifications in Tas.

• New exposure thresholds, height Code commence in two states;
  
• Worker fined for reversing forklift without looking; and
  
• Duty holders warned after rolling-vehicle death.

Employers will be forced to make quickfire decisions on right-of-entry disputes, under recent amendments to the Queensland WHS Act, according to workplace health and safety lawyers.

An Amendment Bill extending the offence of industrial manslaughter to Queensland's resources sector, with tougher financial penalties than under the WHS Act, has passed Parliament, and will commence on a day to be fixed by proclamation.

Coronavirus controls and restrictions have been stepped up across the country, with exemptions for certain workplaces and workers, while the ACTU's "name and fame" list of businesses providing special paid sick leave to staff is rapidly growing.