Up to 25 Years Jail for Owners and $20 Million Fine for Companies if Negligence Kills a Worker
Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024
Legislative Assembly
Legislative Council
Assent
Topics
corporate liability court procedures criminal justice criminal penalties industrial manslaughter industrial relations occupational health workplace health and safety
Introduced by: The Hon Sophie Cotsis MP (ALP); The Hon Daniel Mookhey MLC (ALP)
Links to official parliament websites
Effects of this bill
If this bill passes, it means that:
The Debate
What different members said when this bill was debated:
Aileen MacDonald LIB
“On behalf of the Opposition, I speak on the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. The Liberals and The Nationals support the proposed amendments to introduce industrial manslaughter to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.”
Abigail Boyd GRN
“On behalf of The Greens, I indicate our strongest support and endorsement for the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. The Greens have long supported the criminalisation of industrial manslaughter. The fundamental principle is that there should be no distinction between killing somebody at work and killing somebody in a non‑work‑related place.”
Rod Roberts IND
“I indicate my support for the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. I commend Minister Cotsis for introducing the bill in the Legislative Assembly. It is good to see her present in the Chamber. She is one of the only Ministers who consistently turns up to see her bills progress through this House.”
Mark Buttigieg ALP
“I contribute to debate on the Work Health and Safety (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. This extremely important bill is another bedrock Labor reform brought before the House by our Minister for Industrial Relations, Ms Sophie Cotsis.”
“On behalf of the Legalise Cannabis Party, I associate myself with and speak in full support of the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. This incredibly important bill will strengthen legislation on industrial manslaughter, and it is entirely overdue.”
Emily Suvaal ALP
“I too support the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. The bill has been a long time coming, as we have heard. I commend, obviously, my colleague the wonderful Minister Sophie Cotsis for her work in introducing it to Parliament, but I also commend the work of the union movement and Unions NSW. I acknowledge its secretary, Mark Morey, is in the public gallery today.”
Anthony D'Adam ALP
“It is days like these when you realise the difference that a change of government actually makes. The Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024 is an excellent piece of legislation. It is the fruition of decades of campaigning by unions and by the families of those who have lost loved ones to industrial deaths.”
Bob Nanva ALP
“I support the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. At the outset I acknowledge the hard, methodical work of Unions NSW, the CFMEU, the Injured Workers Support Network and particularly Minister Cotsis for getting us to this point. In the limited time available, I will not go into the substantive aspects of the bill and its critical policy underpinnings.”
Cameron Murphy ALP
“I support this most important of bills, the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. I start by acknowledging the presence in the gallery of Unions NSW, including its secretary Mark Morey and other union officials, as well as representatives of the many families who have been campaigning for so long on this most important of issues.”
Peter Primrose ALP
“Briefly, I add my support for the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. I do not include all or even most employers when I say that I have met some employers who are real scum. They really do not care about their employees. On a number of occasions I have raised that during adjournment and other debates in this place.”
Tara Moriarty ALP
“There is no bill more important than the one that we are debating today, the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024. As the Minister in the other place said, "This is what it means to have a Labor government." We have made it very clear that we never want to see this law used, because it would mean another worker had died at work.”
News articles and press releases
Work Health and Safety Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2024
Ms SOPHIE COTSIS, Minister for Industrial Relations — 2024-06-04
The bill will see the establishment of part 2A within the Work Health and Safety Act, which will establish an industrial manslaughter offence. In certain circumstances, workplace deaths in New South Wales may be prosecuted as an offence of common-law manslaughter under the Crimes Act 1900, but this has rarely happened and has plainly been insufficient in dealing with workplace deaths, both for individuals and where there is a duty owed by a person who is conducting a business or undertaking and who is a larger corporation. Under existing provisions of the criminal law, the prosecution of large corporations for manslaughter is difficult. This is because it requires proof of criminal negligence on the part of a particular individual who can be identified as the directing mind and will of the company.