The cornerstone for a safer industry

As many of us are aware, the electrical industry can be a high-risk work environment. This is why it is important to have appropriate work health and safety laws to protect electrical contractors and their workers.

While Master Electricians Australia (MEA) has always supported regulations to ensure the safety of all who work within our industry, it is important that this is conducted in a fair and reasonable way. MEA believes recent changes to workplace health and safety laws in Queensland will ensure genuine safety concerns are given the highest priority without being abused for industrial purposes.

These new laws, which were passed in parliament following the findings from a government review, will mean:

• At least 24 hours’ notice is required before WHS entry permit holders can enter a workplace to inquire into a suspected contravention. 
• Increased penalties for non-compliance with WHS entry permit conditions and penalties introduced for failure to comply with the entry notification requirements.
• Health and safety representatives will no longer be able to arbitrarily call a halt to work.
• Codes of safe work practice in Queensland can be approved or changed without requiring national consultation as currently required by the WHS Act.

These laws also increase the maximum penalties for breaches of the Electrical Safety Regulation.

In the past, our industry has sadly seen its safety regime turned into a tool for union bullying and industrial point scoring. Often, building unions have created significant delays to major projects by enforcing obscure parts of the law.

As we have witnessed in the past, these delays have significant flow-on effects for electrical contracting businesses and small subcontractors. It is important that industry remembers the main purpose of these laws - to keep our workers safe and ensure they get to go home to their families at the end of the day.

It is MEA’s belief that these new laws will create safer, more productive work sites, and it is a relief to finally see a practical, common-sense approach to workplace safety.

For more information on changes to the WHS laws, contact MEA’s Workplace Relations Team on 1300 889 198.

www.masterelectricians.com.au