New Industrial Manslaughter Laws Introduced in NSW in a Bid to Reduce Workplace Fatalities

Since 2013, a worker has died every week in New South Wales. To address this troubling statistic, the NSW parliament has introduced strict new industrial manslaughter laws. Under this legislation, individuals responsible for workplace deaths through gross negligence could face up to 25 years in prison, while corporations could be fined up to $20 million. These penalties are the harshest in Australia.

The legislation, introduced on Tuesday, aligns with the maximum prison term in Victoria but imposes slightly higher fines in NSW. With this move, NSW becomes the last mainland state or territory to implement industrial manslaughter laws.

The new laws do not introduce additional health and safety obligations but highlight the need to strictly adhere to existing safety compliance regulations to ensure every person on site is as safe as possible.

A startling number of NSW based construction businesses admit to not maintaining current and site-specific Safe Work Method Statements or enforcing regular safety inspections of equipment and best work practices.

If you believe that your business may be at risk due to lax safety standards, it's never too late to bring yourself up to standard. Luckily, Trak can help you with this.

With Trak you can create SWMS templates that can cover all of the needed PPE, codes and standards, tasks and actions. Once this is done, you can instantly create a SWMS, edit it or add any site-specific lines and then share with your team to read and sign off on so that they're aware of all risks and you can stay covered in the event of an accident.

You can also create custom reports in Trak to keep track of your equipment and ensure that they're up to date with their inspections so no faulty items are being used on site.

Finally, you can also add compliance documentation against users with notifications sent when a license or certificate is approaching it's expiry date. With this feature, you can ensure that everyone on site is qualified and able.

If you'd like to find out more about these features and how they can keep your workers safe and ensure your trade business is covered, please reach out to us at contact@trak.co.