THE state government has told the federal government that implementation of the new national occupational safety and health laws is not attainable by the target of January 2012.
Commerce Minister Simon O’Brien has written to Workplace Relations Minister Senator Chris Evans to inform him Western Australia had not been given enough time to analyse the full impact of the proposed Work Health and Safety Regulations.
“WA has been left with an impossibly short period of time in which to analyse the impact on businesses of introducing a new set of laws,” Mr O’Brien said in a statement. “This is illustrated by the fact that only this morning the public comment period for the new mining regulations, due to end today, was extended by two weeks, further cutting down the time available.”
Mr O’Brien said small businesses that operated only in WA would incur significant costs in implementing the new laws without the benefits purportedly associated with national legislation.
