11 / 76
www.buildingconnection.com.au
1 1
Well, that is precisely what Australia’s
various State and Territory jurisdictions
decided to do over a decade ago,
resulting in the establishment of Safe
Work Australia in 2009. This national
agency quickly set about creating a
suite of harmonised WHS ‘model laws’
which could be adopted uniformly by all
States and Territories.
Alas, Western Australia and Victoria
have never adopted these harmonised
WHS model laws, preferring to maintain
their own independently defined and
managed health and safety laws and
downstream regulations. NB: WorkSafe
WA, a spokesperson has told us, has
just begun the process of creating its
own version of the national WHS model
laws. However, Victoria remains a firm
separatist.
Connection Magazines
asked
WorkSafe Victoria if it might adopt
the national model laws any time soon
– no response. One can only assume
that Victoria’s stance has more to do
with justifying its own existence than
finding flaw in the national model laws,
which are very close to its own. After
all, if Victoria were to ‘rubber stamp’
its federal overlord’s statutes, then it
(like all State and Territory jurisdictions)
would be an obvious target for
redundancy. After all, what is the point
of myriad State or Territory authorities
creating and managing their own
versions of quintessentially national
WHS laws and regulations? Isn’t the
entire current process just a wasteful
duplication of services?
Most importantly, in an era of high
population movement, wouldn’t a
single set of laws and regulations
enhance workers’ understanding of safe
scaffolding practices?
We don’t have to
travel far to see an
uncluttered national
WHS regulatory regime
in action – just visit
New Zealand, which
has only two levels of
government compared
to Australia’s three,
and therefore
maintains a far more
straightforward
link between WHS
requirements and
Australian/NZ
Standards.
HAZARDS AND ACCIDENTS
There is no consistency in the way
scaffolding accidents are recorded
or measured across all States and
Territories, as there is a great deal
of subjectivity involved in such
assessments.
The picture is clearer, however,
in relation to fatalities; Work Safe
Australia statistics show that four
workers died from falls from scaffolds
nationally between 2013–17. Obviously,
these figures predate the well-
publicised death of a worker in NSW in
April this year. Another three workers
died between 2013-17 following falls
from elevating work platforms. Scores
of additional workers
were injured to
varying degrees over
the same period.
So, what’s going
wrong in the field?
Clearly, regulatory
complexity has not
led to an eradication
of non-compliant
behaviour.
We asked each
State/Territory
regulator to define
the main kinds of
scaffolding non-
compliance issues
encountered by their inspectors (See
Table 2).
Each State and Territory has its own
inspection, enforcement and penalty
methodologies to address scaffolding
safety breaches, and there is a wide
variety of approaches.
TABLE 1: BUREAUCRATIC PATHWAYS TO SCAFFOLDING SAFETY (STATES & TERRITORIES)
STATE/
TERRITORY
RELEVANT LEGISLATIVE
ACT
BASED ON NATIONAL WORK HEALTH
& SAFETY (WHS) ‘MODEL LAWS’
REGULATOR
REGULATION
CODE OF
PRACTICE
ACT
Work Health & Safety Act
2011 (ACT)
3
WorkSafe ACT
Work Health & Safety
Regulation 2011 (ACT)
ACT Codes of
Practice
NSW Work Health & Safety Act
2011 (NSW)
3
SafeWork
NSW
Work Health & Safety
Regulation 2017 (NSW)
NSW Codes of
Practice
NT
Work Health & Safety
(National Uniform
Legislation) Act 2011 (ACT)
3
NT WorkSafe
Work Health & Safety
(National Uniform
Legislation) Regulations (NT)
NT Codes of
Practice
QLD
Work Health & Safety Act
2011 (Qld)
3
Workplace
Health &
Safety
Queensland
Work Health & Safety
Regulation 2011 (Qld)
Qld Codes of
Practice
SA
Work Health & Safety Act
2012 (SA)
3
SafeWork SA
Work Health & Safety
Regulation 2012 (SA)
SA Codes of
Practice
TAS
Work Health & Safety Act
2012 (Tas)
3
WorkSafe
Tasmania
Work Health & Safety
Regulation 2012 (Tas)
Tas Codes of
Practice
VIC
Occupational Health &
Safety Act 2004 (Vic)
2
WorkSafe
Victoria
Occupational Health & Safety
Regulations 2017 (Vic)
Vic
Compliance
Codes
WA
Occupational Safety &
Health Act 1984 (WA)
2
WorkSafe WA Occupational Safety & Health
Regulations 1996 (WA)
WA Codes of
Practice
“… Inspectors will
continue to be the
unsung heroes of
VFDɣROGLQJ VDIHW\
in Australia,
serving as
observers, teachers
DQG PHQWRUV WR
contractors.”
COVER STORY
SCAFFOLDING