Page 807 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 6 April 2022
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In December 2021 the ACT Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Steering Committee delivered its final report. The steering committee was established by the ACT government to make recommendations for future work to improve the ACT’s response to sexual violence. The steering committee made wide-ranging recommendations to address and prevent sexual violence across our community, including in workplaces. The ACT government is developing a response to the steering committee’s report. As part of this response we will also be considering how we support the broader implementation of the Respect@Work report’s recommendations.
The ACT government is also committed to working with the commonwealth and other jurisdictions to respond to the recommendations of the Respect@Work report and to collectively progress shared actions that contribute to preventing and reducing workplace sexual harassment.
Members of the Assembly may recall that I have previously discussed the independent review undertaken in 2018 of the national model work health and safety laws, known as the Boland review. Following this review, work health and safety ministers determined to implement a recommendation made to amend the nationally agreed model work health and safety regulations to make work safety duties in relation to psychosocial hazards clear within the WHS framework.
Work continues at the national level to develop these amendments, which include the development of associated supporting materials such as a model code of practice and guidance material. The ACT government will continue to advocate for changes to the model regulations as recommended in the Boland review to improve the focus on psychosocial hazards in the workplace.
The government is also consulting with members of the tripartite ACT Work Health and Safety Council in the consideration of these issues and any proposed changes to the model WHS laws. The ACT’s Work Health and Safety Council has recently established the Work-Related Violence Advisory Committee as a dedicated subcommittee to the council to advise it on matters specific to work-related violence, including matters arising in relation to psychological health. The advisory committee is anticipated to provide the council with its advice in the second half of this year, and brings together representative members to consider the effectiveness of the regulatory framework when dealing with work-related violence, and identifying industries that are significantly impacted by work-related violence, with a view to addressing those impacts.
Our work safety regulator, WorkSafe ACT, continues to focus on strengthening its capacity and capability to address this issue, having established a dedicated psychosocial inspectorate team with specific resources and specialised training. The WorkSafe psychosocial inspectorate team has completed 560 workplace visits during the financial year to March 2022.
The team has a planned schedule of proactive campaigns targeting priority industries, in line with the Strategy for Managing Work-Related Psychosocial Hazards 2021-23
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