Assist with Compliance with

WHS Laws
BSBWHS402: Assessment 1

Semester 1, 2019

Maung Maung SOE,

SID: 802653743
22 February 2019
Maung Maung SOE BSBWHS402 Assignment 1

Task 1

1. What is the difference between an Act of Parliament and a Regulation?

The Act is a law that provides for administration and enforcement of WHS by placing certain
duties on employers, employees, self-employed persons, manufacturers, designers, importers
and suppliers.
Regulations are legally binding lists of instruments that give the exact details about
requirements, duties and procedures to control risks of particular hazards.
Workplace WHS System is developed based on Act, Regulations, Codes of Practices and
Australian Standards. An Act is the most important legislation to develop the policy and
procedure in the work place. Regulations are used to add for further detail information to the
system and followed by codes of practice and Australian standards. Act and regulation can be
used for prosecution.

2. What is a Code of Practice?

Codes of practice give detailed advice about how employers can meet the requirements of
Regulations and legislation. Code of practices can be used for prosecution when they are
linked to the act and regulation by reference or used to show lack of duty of care.

3. What is an Australian Standard?

Australian Standards is guides with suggest desired quality levels for products or appropriate
procedures to carry out tasks in the work place. Australian standards can be used for
prosecution when they are linked to the act and regulation by reference or used to show lack
of duty of care.

4. What is the title of the Work Health and Safety or Occupational Health and
Safety law in your State?

Act: Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)

Regulation: Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 (NSW)

5. What is the name of the government department in your State/Territory that

administers and regulates the WHS/OHS laws there?

SafeWork NSW
Website: https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/legal-obligations/legislation

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6. What are the Titles of four (4) other laws (in addition to the WHS/OHS Act &
Regulations) that exist in your State/Territory that create a WHS/OHS obligation
on duty holders?

Return to Work Act

Return to Work Regulations
Dangerous Goods Act
Dangerous Goods Regulations
Electricity Reform Act
Electricity Reform (Safety and Technical) Regulations
Work Health Administration Act
Work Health Court Rules

7. List five (5) of the many Codes of Practice applicable in your State or Territory
that are relevant to your workplace.

First Aid in the work place

Labelling of workplace hazardous chemicals
How to manage work health and safety risks
Hazardous Manual task
Managing Risks in Construction Work

8. List five (5) of the many Guidelines that your State/Territory WHS/OHS
Regulator has published that are relevant to your workplace and/or work
activities.

Cranes guidance material

Working safely in Australia information sheets
Guide for Major Hazard Facilities – Emergency plans
Understanding Safety Data Sheets for Hazardous Chemicals
Hazardous Chemicals Register Fact Sheet

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Maung Maung SOE BSBWHS402 Assignment 1

9. Under your State/Territory WHS/OHS legislation:

a) Who has ‘primary’ duty of care responsibility to protect the health, safety and
welfare of workers/em0ployees and others in the workplace?

PCBUs
Under the WHS Act, a PCBU has a primary duty of care to ensure workplace health and
safety. A PCBU must meet its obligations, so far as it reasonably practicable, to provide a
safe and healthy workplace for workers or other persons by ensuring:
 Safe systems of work
 A safe work environment
 Safe use of facilities
 Notifying and recording incidents
 Giving information, training and supervision
 Compliance with WHS Act, and regulations

b) What are the duties of the Officer under the WHS Act or Director/Manager of the
OHS Act?

Officers, including company directors, are individuals who have high level obligations for
work health and safety. Under the WHS Act, officers are defined as a person who makes
decisions, or participates in making decisions which affect the whole of business.
It is an officer’s duty to exercise due diligence to ensure their business or undertaking fulfils
its health and safety obligations under the Act.
 To acquire and keep up to date knowledge of work health and safety matters
 To gain an understanding of the operations of the business and the hazards and risks
involved
 Ensure appropriate resources and processes are provided to enable hazards to be
identified and risk be eliminating or minimising
 Ensure information regarding incidents, hazards and risks is received and the
information is responded to in a timely way
 Ensure the PCBU has, and implements processes for complying with any legal duty or
obligation
 Ensure processes are verified, monitor and reviewed

c) What is meant by ‘duty of care’ and what must PCBUs/employers,

workers/employees, and other duty holders do to comply with the WHS/OHS
Act?

Employers have a duty to take all reasonably practicable steps to:

 protect the health and safety at work of their employees (and contractors to the extent
of the employer’s control)

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Maung Maung SOE BSBWHS402 Assignment 1

 ensure that persons at or near a workplace under their control who are not their
employees or contractors are not exposed to risk to their health or safety arising from
the conduct of their undertaking
Employers are required to provide:
 safe access to and from the workplace
 safe buildings, equipment and ways of working
 information training and supervision for employees
 protection for the health and safety of others
 checks on workers’ health
 keeping of health and safety records
 qualified occupational health and safety staff.
For example, employers must train and supervise their employees in wearing personal
protective equipment. They have the power to force their employees to wear this equipment.
The employers must make sure workers wear the proper equipment and discipline any worker
who does not.

d) What are the training needs of workers/employees and parties? How might you
identify training options to assist with compliance?

All employees need some OH&S training to carry out their work without risk to their health
and safety. The training will vary depending on the legal requirements and the types of
hazards likely to be found in that particular workplace.
The following principles are applied when providing training.
 to learn new skills or reinforce good work practices
 addresses many work issues
 employee to think about health and safety throughout daily routine
 training need analysis to find out the types of training need
This included but not limited to
• What was the training
• Who attended
• When it was delivered
• Who delivered it
• What the trainer’s qualification were
• If a refresher is needed and when
• Copies of certificate or licenses.

e) Define the term ‘Worker’ or ‘Employee’ and their duties.

Worker means any person who carries out work in any capacity for the company, including
but not limited to, Company’s staff members, contractors, subcontractors and their

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employees, apprentices or trainees, students gaining work experience, and volunteers. Their
duties are:
 Take reasonable care for their own health and safety
 Take reasonable care for the health and safety of others
 Comply with any reasonable instruction from the company
 Cooperate with any reasonable policies and procedures of the company
 Not interfere with anything provided foe health safety and welfare
 Ensure that notifications and licencing are adhered to prior to undertaking any work
 Complete any training required to perform their job safely
 Comply with all rick control measures
 Report any WHS hazards, incidents, accidents
 Take part in WHS consultative arrangements
 Follow emergency and evacuation procedures.

f) List who are ‘Others’ under the Act?

Others mean people who are at the workplace but do not carry out work for PCBUs such as
authorised visitors, customer and clients.

g) Define the term ‘Health and Safety Representative (HSR)’ or ‘Occupational

Health and Safety Representative’. Who do they represent?

Health & Safety Representative means a worker representative elected for a term of three (3)
years by the members of a Designated Work Group to represent their health and safety
interests. Health and safety representative (HSR) is a worker who has been elected by a work
group to represent them on health and safety issues.

h) Define the term ‘Health and Safety Committee (HSC)’ or ‘Occupational Health
and Safety Committee (OHSC)’ as it applies to the Act. Who should attend this
Committee?

Health and safety committee (HSC) is a group including workers, HSRs and PCBUs (see
definition below) that facilitates cooperation between a PCBU and workers to provide a safe
place of work. Also, HCS is a representative of employees and management regularly meet
to discuss and recommend WH&S action

i) What is a work group (define the term please)?

A work group means a group of staff made up of particular work area, department, sections or
centre and a group of workers who share similar work conditions. For example: all the
electricians in a factory; all people on night shift; all people who work in the loading bay of a
retail storage facility.

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j) What is a ‘workplace’ under the provisions of the Act?

A workplace is any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes
any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work. This may include, but is not
limited to, offices, factories, shops, construction sites, vehicles, ships, aircraft or other mobile
structures on land or water such as offshore units and platforms.

k) Define the term ‘Reasonably Practicable’?

The guiding principle of the WHS Act is that all people are given the highest level of health
and safety protection from hazards arising from work, so far as is reasonably practicable. The
term ‘reasonably practicable’ means what could reasonably be done at a particular time to
ensure health and safety measures were in place.
In determining what is reasonably practicable, there is a requirement to weigh up all relevant
matters including:
a. the likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring; and
b. the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk; and
c. what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about the hazard or
risk, and about the ways of eliminating or minimising the risk; and
d. the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk; and
e. after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or
minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or
minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk

l) What Section of the Act and/or Clause of the Regulation stipulates ‘mandatory
reporting of workplace incidents’?

Notifiable incident means an incident involving the death, serious injury or illness of a person,
or a dangerous incident that is notifiable under Part 3 of the WHS Act.
WHS Act 2011 Sections 35-39
A PCBU must notify SafeWork NSW as soon as they become aware of a death, or a serious
injury or illness that results in: immediate hospital treatment as an in-patient, immediate
medical treatment for injuries (e.g. amputation, scalping, a spinal injury, loss of a bodily
function or a serious laceration, burn, head or eye injury), or medical treatment within 48
hours of exposure to a substance.
WHS Regulation 2017 Clause 669
A serious illness is any infection to which the carrying out of work is a significant
contributing factor, including any infection that is reliably attributable to carrying out work:
(i) with micro-organisms (ii) that involves providing treatment to a person (iii) that involves
contact with human blood or body substances.

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m) What are the four (4) types of ‘Notices’ that can be issued to a PCBU/ employer
or other duty holder under the Act?

Provision improvement notice

Improvement notice or prohibition notice
Prosecution
Enforceable undertaking
Remedial action

n) Breaches under WHS/OHS legislation can constitute offences and penalties can
be issued through the regulatory body or courts within your State/Territory.
What types of Penalties can be imposed under your State/Territory’s health and
safety legislation? Provide three examples.

WHA Act Part 2 Division 5 Offences and Penalties

The WHS Act provides for three categories of criminal offences for breach of health and
safety duties. The maximum penalties are different depending on the category of the offence
and whether the offender is an individual (e.g. a worker, or a PCBU), an officer (as defined)
or a body corporate.
Category 1 – a duty holder, without reasonable excuse, engages in conduct that recklessly
exposes a person to a risk of death or serious injury or illness.
Category 2 – a duty holder fails to comply with a health and safety duty that exposes a person
to risk of death or serious injury or illness.
Category 3 – a duty holder fails to comply with a health and safety duty.

Penalties for breach of Health and Safety duty Offences

Information
Type of
Order Individual as PCBU or Individual as worker or
Corporation
officer other

Category 1 $ 3 million $600,000, five years in jail or $300,000, five years in jail or
both both

Category 2 $ 1.5 million $ 300,000 $ 150,000

Category 3 $ 500,000 $ 100,000 $ 50,000

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Task 2
Outline a WHS/OHS information session for your organisation’s managers/supervisors,
outlining the key legislative requirements under the Act. You may wish to use some of the
responses from Task 1 to help you.

a) You need to discuss the key elements or components of the relevant WHS/OHS
legislation, and what that means for your organisation.

b) You may wish to do this via PowerPoint (in no more than ten slides). Alternatively you
may wish to prepare and submit presentation notes (in Word), that you would use in
your presentation.

Note: For both WHS and OHS students

If your state has not moved to harmonising WHS legislation, use your present state’s
OHS legislation.
WHS students need to answer all the questions using WHS Act & Regulations.

Bibliography

Archer, R, Borthwick, K, Travers, M, Ruschena, L (2012) WHS: A management Guide

Cengage Learning, Melb.

CCH Australia, 2003, CCH Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental; Master
Guide CCH Australia Limited

CCH Australia, 6th Ed, 2004, Planning Occupational Health and Safety, CCH Australia
Limited.

Dunn, C (2011) Planning Work Health and Safety, CCH, Sydney

Dunn, C, Chennell, S (2012) Master Work Health Safety & Environment Guide CCH, Sydney

MBC, 2006, Participant Guide: Manage OHS in the workplace, Pearson Education
Australia

NSW WorkCover Website, http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au

Safe Work Australia Website, https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au

Toohey, J.,Borthwick, K., & Archer, R. 2005, OH&S in Australia a Management Guide
Thomson

Work health and Safety Act 2011, Website: https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au

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Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017, Website, https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au

Checklist
I have:
 Completed ALL questions in this research assessment
 Referred to health and safety legislation operating in my State/Territory
 Included a bibliography and used Harvard referencing
 Included my name, student number, unit number, assessment number
 Reviewed and spell checked my document
 Saved a copy on my own computer.