Introduction
Two recent prosecutions by the UK Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) shed light on the way in which the new Australia work health
and safety legislation may be interpreted. In this article, we
discuss cases that explore what is reasonably practicable and how
work health and safety legislation, typically used to protect
employees, is being expanded globally to cover a far wider class of
persons.
Recent Australian developments
On 1 January 2012, largely harmonised work health and safety
legislation was introduced in the Commonwealth, New South Wales,
Queensland and the Territories. The remainder of the States are
expected to introduce similar legislation in 2012.
One of the key changes introduced by the work health and safety
legislation was the inclusion of the definition of 'reasonably
practicable' into the legislation. In addition, the scope of
the legislation is broad, imposing duties on a person that conducts
a business or undertaking (PCBU) to
