Melbourne – 16 March
8.30 Registration
9.00 Opening Remarks from the Chair
9.10 Achieving psychosocial safety compliance in line with evolving regulations
- Providing legislative updates relevant to psychosocial safety in your jurisdiction
- Troubleshooting common deficits in existing psychosocial safety frameworks
- Ensuring your psychosocial safety framework meets new compliance obligations
- Exploring case law, points of intervention and psychosocial injury claim outcomes
Anna Ly, Senior Associate, Mills Oakley
9.55 Uplifting workplace psychosocial safety and performance outcomes – case study
- Identifying psychosocial safety hazards across complex and diverse workforces
- Consulting with hazard-exposed workers to design meaningful interventions
- Conducting effective psychosocial risk assessments and mitigation strategies
- Implementing psychosocial safety initiatives and continually reviewing their effectiveness
Kimberley Norris, Clinical Psychologist for the Australian Antarctic Program, University of Tasmania
10.40 Morning Coffee
11.10 Aligning WHS strategies with evolving regulator priorities
- Highlighting current focus areas for regulators in policy, audits and investigations
- Defining clear expectations for compliance with new regulations
- Working productively with regulators when incidents or uncertainties arise
- Responding effectively to improvement notices and investigation outcomes
Speaker TBA
11.55 Developing safety culture beyond compliance on paper
- Ensuring safety compliance goes beyond policies, training and memos
- Leveraging existing safety frameworks to strengthen new compliance initiatives
- Developing a safety-first culture across diverse and dispersed workforces
- Negotiating effective safety and compliance practices with regulators
Andrew Douglas, Managing Director, FCW Lawyers
12.40 Lunch
1.40 Unpacking risks, opportunities, and the role of AI in WHS
- Understanding WHS and systems implications for the advent of AI
- Exploring how AI might improve and streamline effective safety practice
- Managing the safety risks associated with operational AI implementation
- Integrating ethical considerations of using AI into AI safety strategies
Catherine Dunlop, Partner, Maddocks
2.25 Conducting effective investigations into WHS incidents
- Investigating different types of complex WHS incidents
- Gathering and maintaining evidence in line with legal standards of admissibility
- Working with medical practitioners, witnesses and other stakeholders
- Ensuring safe investigations to mitigate further injury or delays in the process
Joanna Macchiesi, Special Counsel, Kingston Reid
3.10 Afternoon Tea
3.30 Meeting ‘reasonably practicable’ requirements for emerging safety risks
- Elucidating emerging safety risks and their implications for WHS strategies
- Defining reasonably practicable actions and decision-making for emerging risks
- Examining regulations and case law regarding reasonably practicable actions
- Demonstrating WHS strategies and safety decisions meet reasonably practicable requirements
Mairead O’Connor, Senior Associate, Corrs Chambers Westgarth
4.15 Understanding obligations and liabilities when engaging contractors
- Outlining where each party’s accountabilities for safety begin and end
- Getting contractors on board with safety with simple and efficient tools
- Utilising subject matter expert knowledge where required to ensure full coverage of safety requirements
- Consulting, reviewing and redesigning safety strategies for contractors and volunteers for continued compliance
Allison Shannon, Partner, and Victoria Walker, Senior Associate, Clayton Utz
5.00 Closing Remarks from the Chair
5.10 End of Congress