The Australian Framework for Worker Participation in Occupational Health and Safety

Abstract

This chapter examines the provisions governing worker participation in occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia. Australian OHS regulation has been significantly influenced by the UK Robens model, though in some aspects some of the Australian OHS statutes have gone further than Robens and have adopted Scandinavian approaches to OHS regulation — most particularly in relation to the powers of health and safety representatives. On the other hand, although some of the Australian OHS statutes gave a central place to trade unions in the implementation of the health and safety representative provisions, since the early 1990s these provisions have been gradually removed, so that none of the Australian OHS statutes now gives trade unions a privileged role in worker participation in OHS. The chapter also discusses another approach to worker participation in Australian OHS law — statutory rights of entry vested in trade union officials to investigate (and in one state to prosecute) contraventions of OHS statutes duties by employers.