Change’s to Victoria’s Incident Notification Classification
A new legislation amendment has come into effect on the 16th March 2022, which include changes to prohibition notices and incident notification. With the following changes being made to the OHS Act 2004:
1. The threshold for issuing prohibition notices and giving directions by Inspectors has been amended, to better capture serious-risk activities. The directions will now have the potential for an instantaneous effect and are generally used to immediately cease dangerous activity pending processing of a prohibition notice. It is likely that, under the new threshold, some activities for which an inspector may have issued an improvement notice will now become subject to a prohibition notice until the activity is rendered safe.
2. Three changes to incident notifications requirements:
I. Under section 37(2) of the OHS Act, relating to incident notification where a person is not seriously injured, the definition is changing from incidents exposing a person 'in the immediate vicinity to an immediate risk', to incidents exposing a person 'to a serious risk to the person's health or safety emanating from an immediate or imminent exposure to a hazard'.
II. Regulations can now prescribe certain illnesses to be incidents for the purposes of incident notification. Prescribed illnesses could include large-scale, infectious diseases posing a serious health risk, like COVID-19, serious illnesses acquired in workplaces, like silicosis, and, potentially, work-related transmissible diseases.
III. Incidents relating to the collapse, overturning, failure or malfunction of, or damage to, plant will become notifiable if that plant is prescribed under regulations.
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