This Member Advice provides important information about:

• Safe Work Australia (SWA) work on airborne contaminants. Ai Group needs to engage with Members who use or produce these substances to ensure impacts are well understood before decisions are made:
- Impact assessment in relation to proposed changes to the workplace exposure standards for respirable crystalline silica, benzene, chlorine, copper, formaldehyde, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen dioxide, titanium dioxide and hydrogen cyanide.
- Regulation of 33 chemicals that are described as non-threshold genotoxic chemicals (NTGCs). A full list of these chemicals is included in the Advice.

• Legislative Changes:
- New South Wales – Industrial Manslaughter Bill passed.
- Queensland – Resources Safety and Health Amendment Bill 2024 makes changes to multiple pieces of legislation relevant to the resources sector.

• New WHS and Workers’ Compensation provisions commenced on 1 July 2024:
- Industrial Manslaughter offences in the Commonwealth and South Australia.
- Ban on engineered stone benchtops, slabs and panels.
- New Incident Notification requirements in Victoria.
- New licensing option for non-slewing telehandlers in Victoria.
- New on-the-spot fines and increased penalties in New South Wales.
- Workers’ compensation changes in Western Australia.

• Bills before Parliament:
- Tasmania – Work Health and Safety Amendment (Safer Workplaces) Bill 2024

• Inquiries and public comment
- Review of the Commonwealth Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988

• Publications of interest:
- European Agency for Safety and Health at Work: Automation of cognitive and physical tasks in the health and social care sector: implications for safety and health.

• Opportunities to engage in policy discussions that are not public comment processes.