National Employers WHS Summit
I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and also to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today.
I would like to acknowledge Tony Maher, the Chair of Safe Work Australia and Marie Boland, the CEO.
And I would like to particularly acknowledge Rebecca Sostarko – from ACCI – and Tracey Browne – from the Ai Group – the employer members of Safe Work Australia.
Rebecca and Tracey have worked hard to bring together this National Employers Work Health and Safety Summit and I thank them, and you all, for the opportunity to be with you today.
We’re here today as part of an ongoing partnership between our Labor Government, my department—the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations—and industry groups.
This partnership is about a positive and constructive two-way conversation.
It’s about empowering organisations to connect with their members and share valuable insights on the important work being led by Safe Work Australia.
We want to hear from you—your experiences, your challenges, and your ideas.
By coming together in ways like today, we ensure our policies are well-informed and evidence-based and genuinely reflect the needs and concerns of everyone involved.
Thank you for having me here today to be part of this conversation.
As a former union official, I’ve had the experience of tackling workplace health and safety matters.
It’s fair to say that appreciation for this kind of work isn’t always universal within an organisation.
I suspect many of us share a common experience in this regard.
Specifically, that moment when eyes glaze over as you attempt to explain the finer points of occupational health and safety.
So, it's great for me to be among friends today.
Because at its heart, safe workplaces are a simple proposition—that workers go home safely at the end of their working day.
This is what matters.
If we don’t get it right, the consequences reverberate through workplaces, families and communities.
Therefore, to achieve the outcomes we all want to see requires strong leadership and effective communication.
While it demands the introduction of clear policy and procedures, we also see results when workplace leaders show the way, formally and informally.
Because it is leaders who must champion and lead the charge to ensure Australian workers are both physically and psychologically safe in inclusive workplace environments.
Work health and safety also requires a commitment to continuous learning—drawing upon one another’s experience and adopting proven approaches where we can.
But I also know everyone in this room is committed to working towards this goal.
It’s clear, we all share a responsibility in making and keeping workplaces safe.
I’ll talk more soon about some of the action our government has taken to lift workplace safety since coming into office.
Allow me to share with you a little bit about where my journey began.
My previous professions as a union official, health and safety trainer and a clinical psychologist have proved a foundation and grounding for my current career in Parliament.
As a health and safety trainer I was often brought face-to-face with the consequences of poor workplace health and safety practices.
I’ll never forget a young worker who was ordered to carry hot oil in a plastic bucket that ended in him suffering 3rd degree burns, leading to a Safe Work South Australia investigation and subsequent prosecution.
It was through these difficult situations supporting workers that I came to understand not just the regulatory or organisational aspects of WHS, but its real and immediate impact on people's lives.
Later, my work as a psychologist gave me a deeper understanding of how unsafe workplaces can contribute to psychological injury.
These experiences stay with me and continue to inform my perspective and decisions as in my role in government.
And focuses me working in a triparted way to deliver a framework that protects and promotes healthy workplaces and prevents harm while enabling work systems that workers and employers can rely on.
As the Minister responsible for Workplace Health and Safety in the Commonwealth jurisdiction, I am committed to building on the work done by my predecessors in our first term.
We’ll continue to act quickly when emerging health and safety issues demand it.
Since 2022, we have swiftly addressed emerging health, safety, and workplace psychosocial issues, including legislating the right to disconnect, introducing a national manslaughter offence and banning engineered stone.
An insidious lung disease, silicosis often progressed without obvious symptoms, that is why it was a priority of our Labor Government to ban engineered stone.
Modelling estimated that as many as 10,000 workers could have developed lung cancer and up to 103,000 workers diagnosed with silicosis if left unchecked.
That’s why all governments moved to act.
We joined with state and territory governments as well as industry and unions to ban the manufacture, supply, processing and installation of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs.
Our commitment doesn’t stop there. The Silica National Strategic Plan is a critical step in our collective commitment to eliminating silica related diseases across Australia.
Key Highlights include, workplace risk reduction, education and awareness, health monitoring and support and research and development to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
We are also continuing to support our Asia-Pacific neighbours with advice and leadership on managing the risks of asbestos and silica informed by our experience.
Building on this track record of collegiate and collaborative effort to achieve real outcomes for Australian workers we have introduced new penalties to deter unsafe work practices and ensure justice for the families of loved ones lost in a workplace incident.
In 2023, work health and safety ministers agreed to introduce an industrial manslaughter offence into the model work health and safety laws by agreeing model penalties.
The offence applies higher penalties to the most flagrant breaches of work health and safety duties—those which cause death due to a duty holder’s negligence or recklessness.
The offence came into effect in July 2024 in the Commonwealth jurisdiction.
It attracts penalties of $18 million for a body corporate and up to 25 years’ jail for an individual – someone whose negligence or recklessness leads to the death of someone else in a workplace.
We don’t and won’t accept clear breaches of the law.
Managing psychosocial risks is a rapidly emerging issue and present a significant and complex challenge for policy makers.
In our ongoing efforts to ensure safer work environments since taking office in 2022, we have made it a top priority to address psychosocial hazards in our workplaces — including, but not limited to, bullying and sexual harassment.
Back in 2020, the Australian Human Rights Commission released its landmark Respect@Work report. The findings were sobering: one in three employees had experienced sexual harassment.
It found that that our laws placed the burden on victims to come forward and seek justice.
I’m proud to say we are acting on every recommendation from the Respect@Work report.
In 2022, we began by passing a law that creates a positive duty for employers and businesses.
What does this mean?
It means that employers are now legally required to take proactive and meaningful steps to prevent sexual harassment and other unlawful behaviour in the workplace before it happens.
We have also adopted Safe Work Australia’s model codes of practice on psychosocial hazards and sexual and gender-based harassment in the Commonwealth.
These model codes provide practical guidance for all jurisdictions on how to manage their WHS obligations.
A positive impact of workplace relations changes we have introduced to support workers wellbeing is legislating the Right to Disconnect.
Many employers have noted a reduction in employee stress and an improvement in work-life balance, along with more than half of employers reporting increased employee engagement and productivity.
Of course, when there is a workplace injury or death it is like a ripple on a lake, it gathers momentum, affecting partners, children and loved ones, and has a devastating impact on their future potential.
In 2018, a Senate inquiry recommended that when we talk about work health and safety, it’s essential to include the voices of seriously injured workers and their families as a vital part of the conversation.
It was with families and injured workers in mind that, in January this year, we established the Family and Injured Workers Advisory Committee.
The committee’s six members all have lived experience dealing with serious workplace injuries or fatalities.
They have already met twice this year, and will provide advice to me, and Commonwealth regulators about how we can improve support for those affected by serious workplace incidents.
This lived experience is so important - and ensures reforms keep up with the times, are responsive to our ever-changing workplaces and communities and listens to all voices in the conversation.
Over the last three years, we’ve achieved a lot together.
None of these achievements would have been possible without the partnership with states and territories, unions and workers and importantly, with you as leaders of industry.
Looking ahead, the next three years are full of potential. We have the opportunity to keep building on what we have started.
Working together, I’m excited about continuing our focus on better work health and safety outcomes for everyone.
So, where to from here?
Firstly, we are reviewing the legislation underpinning the Comcare scheme to ensure it is fit for purpose in constantly evolving workplaces.
About half a million workers are covered by the Comcare scheme.
This includes Australian Government employees, the ACT Government and 39 private corporations who self-insure their workers’ compensation obligations under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act (the SRC Act).
About 60% of employees covered by Comcare work in the private sector.
During the last term, we appointed an independent panel to review the Act and make recommendations to modernise the legislation.
The panel has been asked to consider how the scheme can respond to current and future workplace challenges.
These include the steep rise in psychological injuries and illness, an ageing workforce, and changes to working arrangements.
The panel has undertaken extensive consultation to understand the experience of injured workers and other scheme stakeholders.
The panel will deliver its recommendations to Government in September.
I will carefully consider these findings with a view to ensuring an effective person-focussed scheme that is sustainable and future-proofed for years to come as workplaces and society in general continue to evolve.
Over a decade ago Governments across the nation signed up to the ambitious goal of harmonising work health and safety laws.
Anyone who has been involved in Australian political life, public administration or workers compensation policy knows this move was a substantial achievement and a great leap forward.
Securing the principle of harmonisation was a major achievement and the work undertaken since has produced many benefits for workers and employers across the country.
But the policy area of work health and safety never stands still.
Different jurisdictions have made changes over time that can diverge.
I am resolved to advancing harmonisation while ensuring we continue to make workplaces as safe as they can be.
Last September ministers responsible for work health and safety asked Safe Work Australia to conduct a best practice review.
Importantly the review will be about capturing what is working and genuinely pursuing best practice becoming the norm.
This will need the input from people in this room and elsewhere.
It will be vital those with real world experience provide their thoughts and observations.
It is vital we continue to be ambitious, and we collectively pursue best practice in a harmonised way.
I am eager to work closely with other governments, regulators and agencies to improve the way we communicate WHS obligations across industry.
We need to make new efforts to translate the complexity of policy into more digestible and practical measures people can take into their workplaces, understand and implement.
By doing so, we can foster greater understanding, boost compliance and achieve better outcomes for everyone.
I am committed to continuing our efforts to create straightforward, practical guidance that can be understood and put into practice in workplaces both big and small, right across the country.
Why do safe workplaces matter?
When we make workplaces safer, we cut down the risk of injuries, illness and even fatalities.
And it’s not just about personal safety. Strong effective health and safety practices are actually great for businesses too.
When people feel safe at work they’re more productive, we see better wages, and we all benefit from a higher standard of living.
Every single community has a stake in making sure workplaces are safe.
Because when something does go wrong at work, it doesn’t just affect the worker, it ripples out to their friends, families and the wider community.
Now, here is something to be proud of. In the last year, our national work-related injury rate was just 3.5%, roughly one-third the global rate of 12.1 per cent.
That’s a fantastic result, but of course, no statistic can ease the pain for someone who’s been impacted by a workplace injury or worse.
We can and we must do better.
That’s why today is so important. As leaders in workplace health and safety, you have the chance to work together, share insights, and learn from each other.
I encourage you to speak openly, exchange ideas and really reflect on what we can do, collectively, to improve.
Your discussions today will feed directly into policy conversations at Safe Work Australia and the Asbestos and Silica Eradication Agency.
That means the work you do here will have a real impact on shaping better, more effective and achievable policies.
So, in the spirit of respect and collaboration, I look forward to hearing what comes out of this summit.
Thank you for being part of this partnership and contributing to the important conversation on safer, healthier workplaces.
Thank you.