InMotion April 2021 – Work Health and Safety Duty of Care

Is your organisation meeting its Duty of Care obligations to provide a safe working environment for employees and other persons as required under Work Health and Safety (WHS) Laws?

In most cases, organisations that may not be meeting their duty of care obligations are doing so because of a lack of knowledge rather than intentionally ignoring their responsibilities, however, ignorance of duty of care obligations is not a defence. The officers of an organisation must exercise due diligence to ensure that their organisation complies with their duty of care obligations, as far as reasonably practicable.

In this InMotion, at a high level, we will cover the definitions and meanings of key terms relating to duty of care and explore the primary duty of care legislative provisions. We will also discuss how to go about demonstrating due diligence in meeting duty of care. Finally, we will consider other key duties including incident notification, consultation, general workplace management and briefly touch on the potential consequences of not meeting WHS duties.