Last December, WRL informed members and fishers that the release of WA’s new Work Health and Safety (WHS) regulations had been delayed and the new laws were expected to come into effect in March 2022.

Recently, the Minister for Industrial Relations, the Honourable Bill Johnston MLA, announced that the Work and Safety Act 2020 and accompanying regulations will be coming into effect on 31 March 2022. 

Click here to access a useful document prepared by Government that provides an overview of Western Australia’s Work Health and Safety Act 2020. You can also watch the video here.

Copies of the regulations can be found in the Government Gazettes dated 11 March at www.legislation.wa.gov.au

Relevant laws are:

• Work Health and Safety Act 2020 Commencement Proclamation 2022 and consequential regulatory amendments.
• Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations 2022

We also advised that WorkSafe has been running both face-to-face and webinar information sessions during January and February to provide an update on the WHS laws. Webinar recordings and videos on WHS implementation are now available here.

To assist you in preparing for the introduction of the new legislation the department also has a number of Interpretive guidelines to the WHS available.

Please visit the Work Health and Safety page for more information designed to help you prepare for the new Work Health and Safety laws.

WRL encourage our members and fishers who hold leadership roles and have responsibilities for workplace health and safety to make sure you are familiar with your responsibilities under the new WHS laws that apply in WA. There are some significant changes to what is required by a business/employer/company to meet the WHS requirements and due diligence. The penalties for not having these processes in place have been significantly increased.

WRL is in the process of preparing information that will assist members to understand what the new legislation means for them and how best to implement the requirements.