Safe Work Australia releases report, outlining trends in work health and safety

Safe Work Australia has released the latest Comparative Performance Monitoring report, providing trend analyses on the work health and safety (WHS) and workers’ compensation schemes operating in Australia and New Zealand.

 

This report facilitates the improvement of work health and safety, workers’ compensation and related service outcomes in Australia and New Zealand by monitoring the comparative performance of jurisdictions over time, and enabling benchmarking across jurisdictions and the identification of best practice to support policy making.

 

The report will be of interest to those working in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector, and those within supporting roles in the sector who have overarching responsibility for workplace health and safety, and analyses data from 2018–19.

 

Complementing the Comparison of workers’ compensation arrangements in Australia and New Zealand  which provides detailed information about workers’ compensation arrangements and the differences between schemes in Australia and New Zealand, the report is divided into three parts: 

 

Part One focuses on work health and safety performance, including comparing serious claim rates and work-related fatalities across states and territories, and shows that over the past five years, the incident rate of serious workers’ compensation claims has decreased (down 9 per cent) across Australia (from 10.3 claims per 1,000 employees in 2013–14 to 9.4 in 2017–18). 

 

Part Two focuses on WHS compliance and enforcement activities, and shows that in 2018–19, WHS authorities across Australia undertook 229,236 workplace interventions; issued 55,568 notices with respect to WHS breaches; and finalised 264 legal proceedings, resulting in $18.6 million in fines ordered by the courts. 

 

Part Three compares the workers’ compensation premium rates, entitlements and scheme performance of jurisdictions across Australia.  It shows that total expenditure for workers’ compensation schemes across Australia was $8.908 billion in 2018–19, of which 77 per cent went to claimants through either direct payments or services. 

 

Additionally, average workers’ compensation premium rates, funding ratios and disputation rates across Australia in 2018–19 have decreased since 2014–15.