Health and Safety Consultation

Consultation is a legal requirement of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 and an essential part of managing health and safety risks.

A safe workplace is more easily achieved when everyone involved in the work communicates with each other to identify hazards and risks, talks about health and safety concerns and works together to find solutions.

You are encouraged to identify, review, discuss and recommend safety initiatives. Your supervisor should be the first point of contact for reporting health and safety incidents, hazards or issues. In addition, all workers are encouraged to report health and safety incidents, hazards or concerns in the workplace using the University's online reporting system - AIMS.

There are both formal and informal consultation mechanism at the University of Newcastle.

Informal mechanisms include :

  • Team meetings
  • Emails
  • Discussions with your manager or supervisor

The University's formal consultation structure is outlined below :

1. Workgroups

Workgroups have been established for each Unit/School and feed into the College/Division Health and Safety Committees. This is the first level where resolution of issues and implementation of solutions is attempted. If issues are unresolved at the unit/school level they are referred to the College/Division Health and Safety Committees.

2. College/Division/Location Health and Safety Committees (HSC)

Are responsible for resolving and communicating College or Division wide WHS issues. Any issues that cannot be resolved at this level can be passed on to the University Health and Safety Committee.

3. University Health and Safety Committee (UHSC)

This is the overarching HSC at the University of Newcastle and is responsible for communicating about University wide issues. If issues cannot be resolved at the College/Division level they can be addressed by the UHSC. This group is a decision-maker only,  recommendations are fed back down to the College/Division level for implementation.