Industrial manslaughter is being written into workplace health and safety legislation. Serious consequences—including fines and gaol time—may arise when a senior decision-maker fails to put reasonable precautions in place and someone dies.

Delivered by experienced due diligence engineers, this course explains how the new provisions in WHS legislation require engineers and organisations to move from hazard-based risk management to a precautionary approach. 

Using practicable examples and relevant court decisions you’ll cover: 

• how to demonstrate safety due diligence under the WHS/OHS legislation
• how the SFAIRP (so far as is reasonably practicable) concept is built into legislation
• the difference between statute and common law and how this benefits defensibility
• the hierarchy of control as understood and used in court: elimination, precautions, mitigations
• the legal loss-of-control point (aligning the laws of man and nature)
• how to demonstrate the management of the laws of nature in a way that satisfies the laws of man.

The course is held as a four-hour interactive session. You'll have access to expert advisers, so you can bring your questions to the Q&A part of each session.

By the end of the course, you'll understand the critical importance of safety due diligence—not just compliance—to avoid criminal negligence. You'll also learn how to make defensible decisions using recognised legal terminology and processes.

Learning outcomes

• Legal duties of directors to show due diligence under WHS and other legislation
• Due diligence under common law
• Risk management techniques to establish due diligence, and when to use them
• Why regulatory compliance does not equal due diligence, especially for safety matters
• How to demonstrate the laws of nature prior to the laws of man
• How to use threat-barrier diagrams to demonstrate safety due diligence

Engineers Australia: 4 hours CPD.