Government introduces workplace restart guidelines

Guidelines for workplaces have been handed down by the Government as leaders map out a return to “business as usual”.

Recognising returning to work after the COVID-19 pandemic as a public health priority, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a new set of “national principles” after today’s National Cabinet meeting.

The guidelines will be put in place before workplaces are deemed safe enough to reopen.

“This is all about getting Australians back to work and ensuring that, when they go back to work, that they and their families can feel safe,” Scott Morrison said.

“It’s to ensure that there are important principles in place, there are protocols and procedures that, should a COVID-19 case present in a workplace, then the rules that people need to follow.”

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With federal and state leaders trying to map a safe road to reopening businesses, the Cabinet has agreed on a set of guidelines that will govern the process. Picture: Lucas Coch/AAP

The new guidelines include:

1. All workers, regardless of their occupation or how they are engaged, have the right to a healthy and safe working environment.
2. The COVID-19 pandemic requires a uniquely focused approach to work health and safety (WHS) as it applies to businesses, workers and others in the workplace.
3. Businesses must, in consultation with workers and their representatives, assess the way they work to identify, understand and quantify risks and to implement and review control measures to address those risks.
4. As COVID-19 restrictions are gradually relaxed, businesses, workers and other duty holders must work together to adapt and promote safe work practices, consistent with advice from health authorities, to ensure their workplaces are ready for the social distancing and exemplary hygiene measures that will be an important part of the transition.
5. Businesses and workers must actively control against the transmission of COVID-19 while at work, consistent with the latest advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), including considering the application of a hierarchy of appropriate controls where relevant.
6. Businesses and workers must prepare for the possibility that there will be cases of COVID-19 in the workplace and be ready to respond immediately, appropriately, effectively and efficiently, and consistent with advice from health authorities.
7. Existing state and territory jurisdiction of WHS compliance and enforcement remains critical. While acknowledging individual variations across WHS laws mean approaches in different parts of the country may vary, to ensure business and worker confidence, a commitment to a consistent national approach is key, including a commitment to communicating what constitutes best practice in prevention, mitigation and response to the risks presented by COVID-19.
8. Safe Work Australia (SWA), through its tripartite membership, will provide a central hub of WHS guidance and tools that Australian workplaces can use to successfully form the basis of their management of health and safety risks posed by COVID-19.
9. States and Territories ultimately have the role of providing advice, education, compliance and enforcement of WHS and will leverage the use of the SWA central hub in fulfilling their statutory functions.
10. The work of the National COVID-19 co-ordination Commission will complement the work of SWA, jurisdictions and health authorities to support industries more broadly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic appropriately, effectively and safely.

The Prime Minister reassured Australians that his Government is working tirelessly to keep the numbers suppressed. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

And that’s not all.

Elite sport will soon have restart guidelines as well, with federal and state leaders navigating the return of major codes post-pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said competitive local sport and passive activities like surfing and walking would also be covered under the principles, which National Cabinet has agreed to develop.

“That is such an important part of our way of life here in Australia,” he told reporters in Canberra on Friday.

Mr Morrison said he wanted to see as much consistency between states and territories as possible, adding that people would welcome a return to local sport and recreation.

“We want to get back to a place where that can happen and we can have the confidence to do it safely and we want to do that as soon as we can,” he said.

With AAP