The Queensland Labor Government has passed an amendment to the law regulating right of entry and powers of elected health and safety representatives, reversing changes made by the state’s former LNP government in April last year, writes AREEA employee relations lawyer, Lindsay Carroll.

ON 14 October 2015, the Work Health and Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 was passed by the Queensland Parliament with changes to commence on a date to be fixed by proclamation. The key changes include:

• reinstating the power of representatives to instruct workers to cease work they deem to be “unsafe”;
• removing the requirement that work health and safety (WHS) permit holders give 24 hours’ notice to employers before entering a workplace; and
• removing the requirement that health and safety representatives (HSRs) to give 24 hours’ notice before a person – such as a technical expert or a union official – can enter the workplace to assist them.

In June, AREEA told the Queensland parliament’s Inquiry into the Work Health and Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 that the 2014 amendments, implemented by the former LNP Government, must be maintained.

At the time the 2014 amendments were made, then-State Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie asserted that those changes were necessary for the protection of employers from ‘militant industrial activity’.

Of concern is that back-and-forth legislative amendments based on the government of the day will create confusion around employers’ compliance obligations, and will fail to address widespread ‘abuse of right of entry permits by some union officials’ evidenced at the ongoing Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

AREEA submitted to the Queensland parliamentary inquiry into Labor’s amendments that removing the 24-hour notice requirement could pave the way for these provisions to be misused for other purposes, such as the avoidance of union entry requirements for consultation and discussion with workers.

While AREEA supports the goals of national harmonisation of Australia’s work health and safety laws, it believes that an employee’s right to cease work where there is an imminent risk to health or safety provides more than adequate protection from the harm these changes seek to prevent.

Encouragingly, the government’s attempt to alter the definition of ‘serious injury or illness’ was defeated. This change would have, in effect, required employers of workers who suffer the effects of work-related injury or illness more than four days to report these incidents twice—immediately and after four days.

Click here to read AREEA’s full submission to inquiry.

If you are seeking guidance on workplace relations matters, including right of entry issues, legal advice, information or representation, please don’t hesitate to contact the Legal Services team at your local AREEA office.