Safety Bulletin - May 2025
New Zealand – Health and safety reform suite announced
The Workplace Relations and Safety Minister is proposing to amend the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 as part of a government platform for health and safety reform. Upcoming changes include:
- reducing the health and safety burden of small, low-risk businesses.
- addressing overcompliance and overlapping duties.
- reducing notification requirements to only significant workplace events.
- releasing land for recreational use and ensuring reasonable and proportionate health and safety duties for landowners and land managers.
- clarifying the distinction between governance and operational management health and safety responsibilities. More.
- changing the Approved Codes of Practice model. More.
More amendments are expected to be announced throughout the year.
Read more from the New Zealand government here.
Queensland – Amendments for psychosocial hazard obligations in resources industry proposed
Resources Health and Safety QLD has released a further discussion paper (see previous Bulletin here) on options to clarify obligations to manage psychosocial hazards in the resources industry, and is now seeking stakeholder feedback. The options would make legislative amendments such as capturing psychosocial risks within risk management systems, requiring consultation with workers, mandatory reporting of statistics and certain incidents, and changing definitions, among other things. Comments close 6 June 2025.
Read more from Resources, Safety & Health Queensland here.
Victoria – New campaign targeting work-related aggression and violence
WorkSafe Victoria has launched their new ‘Don’t Cross the Line‘ campaign aimed at reducing violent incidents against workers. Various guides and tools to outline the scale of aggression and violence and to help employers control the risks of work-related violence for different workplace scenarios are available.