Occupational Health and Safety Law will provide students with an understanding of the legal regulation of workplace safety, especially the employer's common-law duty to maintain a safe workplace and the employer's obligations under occupational health and safety statutes. The course will consider the problem of work-related injuries in the workplace, and the nature of workplace accidents. The course will consider briefly the history of workplace safety regulation, including the failure of the common law to reduce accidents in the workplace and the Robens reforms on which modern safety laws are based. The course will also consider the recent attempts to harmonise OHS laws. The focus of the course will then shift to an examination of the new model Work Health and Safety legislation enacted in 5 Australian jurisdictions. The course will provide students with the opportunity to be completely up-to-date with these important changes.

At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:

• understand and evaluate the causes of workplace accidents;
• critically evaluate past attempts to regulate safety at work;
• demonstrate familiarity with the main provisions of the model Work Health and Safety legislation; and
•  critically evaluate the functions, interests and limitations of the model Work Health and Safety laws.

This is a preliminary statement on the proposed assessment.

Class presentations on selected extracts from materials - 15%

Class participation - 10%

Research paper of approximately 6,000 words - 75%

LAWS8015 Fundamentals of Government and Commercial Law (non-lawyers).