Occupational Health and Safety Lawyers Penrith Area

The provisions of the Work Health & Safety Act 2011 are wide-ranging and create obligations for employers, officers of companies, managers and employees. The Act also creates obligations for organisations involved in the management, control, design, manufacture, import, supply, installation, construction or commission of fixtures, fittings, plant, substances or structures at workplaces.

Under the Work Health & Safety Act 2011 (NSW), employers must, so far as reasonably practicable, ensure the health and safety of their workers and anyone affected by their business. This includes providing safe workplaces, systems, equipment, and welfare facilities, as well as training, supervision, and ongoing monitoring of risks – including physical and psychological hazards. Employers must also consult with workers about safety matters, and SafeWork NSW enforces these duties.

The Work Health & Safety Act 2011 provides that what is reasonably practicable in ensuring health and safety means that which is, or was at a particular time, reasonably able to be done in relation to ensuring health and safety, taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:-

• The likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring.
• The degree of harm that might result from the hazard of the risk.
• What the person concerned knows or ought reasonably to know about the hazard or the risk and the ways of eliminating or minimizing the risk.
• The availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimize the risk.
• After assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimizing the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimizing the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.

Under the Work Health & Safety Act 2011 workers while at work must:-

• Take reasonable care for their own health and safety.
• Take reasonable care that their acts or omissions do not adversely affect the health and safety of other people.
• Comply, so far as the worker is reasonably able, with any reasonable instruction that is given by the person conducting the business to allow the person to comply with the Act.
• Co-operate with any reasonable policy or procedure of the person conducting the business relating to health or safety at the workplace that has been notified to you.

The Work Health & Safety Act 2011 requires that self-employed people must ensure, so far as it is reasonably practical, their own health and safety while at work. Self-employed people must also ensure that their work activities do not expose other people to risks to their health and safety.