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Everybody has a right to a safe and healthy workplace and to come home safely.
Workers at all levels at the University have specific responsibilities for ensuring health and safety. These responsibilities are in line with relevant legislation and the University’s Health and Safety Management Standards.
Health and safety responsibilities must be incorporated into workers position descriptions, and the associated performance criteria utilised in annual Career Conversations to determine workers performance with respect to these health and safety responsibilities.
Officers
Having the word ‘officer’ in your work title is not what makes someone an officer under work health and safety (WHS) laws.
An officer is a person who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the organisation’s activities.
Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 a worker is any person who carries out work for a PCBU, including work as an employee, contractor, subcontractor, self-employed person, outworker, apprentice or trainee, work experience student, employee of a labour hire company placed with a ‘host employer’ and volunteers.
As a worker, you have a ‘duty of care’ responsibility for safety and health at the workplace.
Health and Safety Representatives are Curtin staff elected by their colleagues to help identify, communicate and respond to health and safety issues in the workplace.
The role and influence a person has in a business determines if they are an officer under the WHS Act. Broadly, an officer is a person who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the organisation’s activities.
Due diligence in relation to WHS means ensuring the PCBU implements and maintains appropriate and safe systems of work. This includes monitoring and evaluating how WHS is managed within the organisation.
An officer may not be directly involved in day-to-day management, but must ensure the PCBU facilitates a safe work environment, through providing resources, creating and enforcing processes and procedures, and reviewing risks, incidents and controls.
Due diligence includes taking reasonable steps to:
acquire and keep up to date knowledge on work health and safety matters
understand the nature and operations of the work and associated hazards and risks
ensure the PCBU has, and uses, appropriate resources and processes to
eliminate or minimise risks to work health and safety ensure the PCBU has appropriate processes to receive and consider information about work-related incidents, hazards and risks, and to respond in a timely manner
ensure the PCBU has, and implements, processes for complying with their duties and obligations (for example, reports notifiable incidents, consults with workers, complies with notices, provides appropriate training and instruction and ensures HSRs receive training entitlements)
verify the provision and use of the relevant resources and processes.
The University must, so far as reasonably practicable, consult with workers who are likely to be directly affected by health and safety matters. This includes giving workers a reasonable opportunity to express their views or raise issues about work health and safety at the workplace.
