The Victorian Government this week responded to the recommendations of the Independent Review into Employee Representation. The Review examined the effectiveness of current Health and Safety Representative (HSR) and Authorised Representatives of Registered Employee Organisation (ARREO) frameworks, powers, supports and functions, and considered submissions from a range of employee and employer representatives, and other interested stakeholders.
Earlier this year an interim report was released that summarised what the reviewer had heard from employee and employer representatives and people with lived experience, and identifying areas for further exploration by the reviewer.
Yesterday the Victorian Government released the final report along with their response. Of the report’s 17 recommendations, the Government:
- Supports 6 recommendations in full
- Supports 5 recommendations in-principle
- Supports 5 recommendations in part; and
- Notes a review of 1 recommendation
Coinciding with the release of the report the Government have announced the first stage of their proposed legislative amendments contained in the Workplace Legislation Amendment (Accident Compensation and Other Matters) Bill 2026.
The six recommendations partly or fully addressed in the Government’s first stage response are:
- Rec. 5 – Empower WorkSafe inspectors to resolve disputes at the request of designated work groups covering multiple employers.
- Rec. 6 – Explicitly prevent photos or videos taken by HSRs and ARREOs from being live streamed or published in a public forum and prevent HSRs from intentionally using, disclosing or providing to another person photos or recordings for any purpose not connected with the exercise of their HSR powers.
- Rec. 7 – Require HSRs to issue Provisional Improvement Notices (PINs) in a WorkSafe-approved format that provides for sufficient detail about a contravention or likely contravention – this will be achieved by offering a digitised version of the PIN form whilst keeping a hard copy form available.
- Rec. 8 - Enable ARREOs to investigate a new suspected OHS contravention identified during an entry without leaving the workplace saving time and allow identified issues to be addressed promptly.
- Rec. 9 – Clarify the ability to ARREOs and HSRs to access information and make copies of documents relevant to a suspected contravention and prohibit the use of that information other than for genuine health and safety reasons and within their existing powers under Part 7 of the OHS Act.
- Rec. 14 - Prohibit coercion in relation to matters under Part 7 and Part 8 of the OHS Act, including an increase in monetary penalty units compared to the existing coercion offence that is limited to DWG matters.
Whilst the new Minister for WorkSafe and TAC, Steve Dimopoulos said the proposed “reforms will deliver health and safety improvements for workers, and ensure Victoria has effective workplace systems in place to protect workers into the future” unions have expressed concerns that these priorities represent an underwhelming and disappointing beginning to addressing the serious issues identified in the independent review and covered by the remaining eleven recommendations, amongst them better protections for HSRs against discrimination for raising OHS issues in the workplace, providing all employees with information about their OHS rights and give HSRs and Deputy HSRs more rights to training.
The delay in responding to the remaining eleven recommendations risks leaving workers feeling under-served by the Governments response to what was a long overdue and detailed review of key objectives and principles of our OHS Act.
Read more: 270812 Media Release - Labor Making Workplaces Safer For All Victorians