Parliament has now passed the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 which comes into force on 4 April 2016. The Act will replace the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and aims to better protect employees and other people against harm to their health, safety and welfare, by imposing duties on specific classes of individuals. Under the new regime, obligations will be imposed on:
- any person (including an individual, partnership, company, or association) conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU);
- officers of a PCBU; and
- workers
A PCBU’s primary duty under the Act is to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers, as well as other workers whose activities are influenced or directed by the PCBU. Officers of a PCBU, which include the directors of a company or the partners of a partnership, must exercise due diligence to ensure that the PCBU complies with its obligations under the Act. Workers, such as employees, contractors, or volunteers, also have obligations to ensure that they take reasonable care of their own health and safety, and ensure that they do not put their own health and safety at risk.
An exposure draft of the Health and Safety at Work (Worker Engagement, Participation, and Representation) Regulations 2016 has also recently been released. The Regulations prescribe which sectors or industries are, for the purposes of the Act, “high risk”, as well as setting out the requirements for the number of health and safety representatives a PCBU should have, and membership requirements for health and safety committees.
All PCBUs, and other people who have duties under the Act, will need to update and review their health and safety policies before the Act comes in to force.