Chair of the ASCC calls for national consistency of OHS and workers compensation

Recruiters were asked to extend their roles and have greater influence over occupational health and safety and workers compensation issues to help reduce the rising cost of workplace injury across Australia at Tuesdayís Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (RCSA) luncheon in Melbourne.

During his speech at the RCSA Board Directorís lunch, Bill Scales AO, Chair of the Australian Safety and Compensation Council (ASCC), also said consistent legislation throughout the states was the answer to making workplace health and safety and workers compensation the solution and not the problem for Australian businesses.

ìThe cost to our society of poorly managed workplace health and safety is just too high,î Mr Scales said

ìThe recruitment industry, as well as employers and employees, have an important role to influence OHS in a changing work environment as one size does not fit all.

ìWith one third of the Australian workforce in non-traditional types of work, such as independent contracting, casual and on-hired employment, it is critical that OHS and workers compensation frameworks extend their focus beyond traditional types of work.

ìFor organisations operating in more than one state, having to operate under multiple workersí compensation and health and safety systems is inefficient, wasteful and undermines the ability of management to understand how to better practice OHS and workersí compensation arrangements.

ìBoth OHS and workersí compensation need to be looked at together at a national level.

ìIn the next year, about one in every 20 Australian workers will suffer some sort of work-related injury. Someone will be injured seriously enough to lodge a workersí compensation claim every few minutes, with 50 workers suffering compensable work-related injuries every day. Five of those will have a permanent incapacity,î he said.

Of major concern are the human cost and financial burden of injury, the cost of compliance and the loss of productivity that come from unsafe work practices. These are major barrier to business success.


However, for non-traditional employment service providers, balancing competing business needs with the requirement to ensure that work is carried out in the safest way remains a challenge.

While there is a strong political will to address inconsistencies in the OHS framework, it seems there is less willingness to address inconsistencies in workersí compensation arrangements.

ìIn Australia we face ten different workersí compensation schemes and the degree of inconsistency between them can have significant implications, particularly for the recruitment industry.

ìA wide discrepancy in the way that employees are defined for the purposes of workersí compensation can mean that a person can be a contractor in one jurisdiction, but across a border they can become an employee,î Mr Scales said.

Mr Scales believes that the RCSA can act as a major proponent of all workplace safety issues, and that its wide membership base highlights the fact that the nature of work in Australia is changing.

ìTogether, we have the capacity and the opportunity to make Australian workplaces the safest and the healthiest of their kind in the world,î he said.

Mr Scales congratulated the RCSA for showing leadership in such a critical area of Australiansí working lives.