On 16 May the Australian Safety and Compensation Council (the ASCC) voted to declare the Manual Tasks National Standard and Code of Practice. Although industry, through ACCI and some of the state jurisdictions opposed these documents, the majority of the members voted to declare both documents in their current form.
The ARA played a key role in securing key changes to both documents before they were declared, including the removal of excessive obligations regarding consultation with employees in the Standard as well as removal of highly onerous and excessive provisions related to risk management. The ARA secured these changes through extensive lobbying of Federal Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey as well as lobbying of many of the jurisdictional WorkCover chiefs. We would like to thank those members who assisted us in this lobbying.
Despite these changes the ARA remains disappointed that these documents were approved. The National Standard and Code of Practice remain problematic in that they are inconsistent and inferior to legislation and other material related to manual handling in most other states and territories.
One of the purposes of the ASCC is to attempt to harmonise OHS and workers’ compensation arrangements across Australia. The ASCC, by declaring inconsistent and inferior documents has created a situation whereby the National Standard and Code of Practice for Manual Tasks will be adopted unevenly across the different jurisdictions, resulting potentially in more inconsistency for retailers in this key OHS area.
Good manual handling legislation and guidance material are viewed by the ARA as playing an important role in continuing to reduce the incidence of manual handling related injuries in retail. Part of this process must reduce the red tape burden placed upon retailers. The National Standard and Code of Practice for Manual Tasks appear to increase the red tape burden upon retailers which will only serve to increase the cost of OHS in retail without necessarily increasing safety levels.
At this point it is unclear as to how each jurisdiction intends to apply these documents. The ARA will keep you updated on further announcements by the jurisdictions regarding both the new National Standard and Code of Practice for Manual Handling.
