Legislation

What are the current legal arrangements?

Under existing constitutional arrangements in Australia, the Australian Parliament and each of the state & territory Parliaments have enacted OHS legislation.

Some legislation is general in nature and applies across multiple industries in a jurisdiction whilst other legislation applies just to specific industries, for example the maritime industry or the offshore petroleum industry.

In other cases, some legislation, like that applying to rail and heavy vehicles applies in addition to general legislation.

What is OHS harmonisation?

Model Work Health and Safety laws were developed for the purpose of introducing a balanced nationally consistent set of laws across Australia.

OHS harmonisation means a uniform OHS legislative framework.

The following jurisdictions have adopted a version of the Model OHS laws:

• Australian Parliament (Australian Public Sector & some Comcare licensees)
• Australian Capital Territory
• New South Wales
• Northern Territory
• Queensland
• South Australia
• Tasmania

Each OHS regulator has responsibility for enforcing particular OHS laws.

OHS legislation can be found here: