About the 2002 Amendment
The Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act (the HSE Amendment Act) was passed in December 2002 and comes into force on 5 May 2003. It makes a number of changes to the Health and Safety in Employment Act. These changes are summarised below.
Comprehensive coverage
The HSE Amendment Act improves the coverage of the Act in order to achieve comprehensive coverage of all workplaces. This is done by:
- bringing crew working aboard shipsand in aircraft within the coverage of the Act
- removing the previous limitation on cover of the rail sector
- confirming that mobile workers(pdf file [size: 28KB]) are at work wherever they are working
- providing coverage for employees who are loaned by one employer to another
- providing coverage under the Act for some volunteers
- placing duties on those who sell or supply equipment to ensure that it is safe
- highlighting stress(pdf file [size: 148KB]) and fatigue so that it is clear these are hazards that need to be managed.
Employee participation
The HSE Amendment Act contains amendments to ensure that employee knowledge on health and safety matters is effectively harnessed by employers. It does this by:
- requiring all employers to provide reasonable opportunities to participate in the ongoing improvement of health and safety
- requiring some employers, together with employees and any unions, to develop an employee participation system
- empowering trained employee health and safety representatives to issue hazard notices to employers
- confirming employees' right to refuse to do dangerous work.
Effective enforcement
The HSE Amendment Act introduces a range of enhanced enforcement tools to provide greater incentives for compliance and to allow the Department to apply the Act more effectively. The Act does this by:
- allowing inspectors to issue infringement notices for breaches of the Act
- prohibiting insurance against fines under the Act (although insurance for legal costs and reparation is still allowed)
- increasing maximum fine levels (pdf file [size: 28KB])
- allowing people other than The Department to prosecute for breaches of the Act in some limited circumstances
- introducing some flexibility into the limitation period for prosecutions.
