The Western Australian State Government has demanded more time to analyse the impacts of the new harmonised occupational health and safety regulations.

 

The State Government has warned Canberra that the implementation of the new laws is not attainable by the January 1, 2012 deadline.

 

State Commerce Minister Simon O’Brien has written to Federal Minister for Workplace Relations, Senator Chris Evans, telling him that the state had not been given sufficient time to fully analyse the impacts of the Work Health and Safety Regulations.

 

“WA has been left with an impossibly short period of time in which to analyse the impact on businesses of introducing a new set of laws, and this could have a devastating impact on our small business sector in particular,” Mr O’Brien said.

 

“This is illustrated by the fact that only this morning the public comment period for the new mining regulations, due to end today, was extended by two weeks, further cutting down the time available to consider and incorporate the comments into the final set of regulations.