Work health and safety roadmap 2022
The roadmap details our strategy from 2016 to 2022. It has been replaced by new regulatory priorities that focus our action on three strategic outcomes for workers, businesses and regulation. Click here to read the SafeWork NSW Regulatory Priorities 2023.
Scroll to next sectionIntroduction
The Work health and safety roadmap for NSW 2022 (roadmap) is aimed at everyone to enable the continued decline in fatalities and serious injuries and illnesses in NSW. It sets out agreed priorities to keep safety simple while focusing on the important risks that will reduce harm.
Ministers message
The Work Health and Safety Roadmap for NSW 2022 is a six-year strategy aligned to the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy, committed to by the NSW Government in 2012.
This important strategy commits NSW to nationally agreed targets of a 20 per cent reduction in work related fatalities and a 30 per cent reduction in the incidence of serious injuries, illnesses and musculoskeletal injuries and illnesses, by 2022.
I am pleased to say that for both fatalities and serious injuries and illnesses show NSW has already met and exceeded the targets in advance of 2022. In the last decade there has been a 28 per cent reduction in work related fatalities from 86 to 62 in 2017 and a 24.6 per
cent reduction in serious injury and illnesses. This is a great result.
As such, SafeWork NSW has now set higher state targets to achieve even greater reductions for fatalities and serious injuries. By 2022, the new NSW targets aim to achieve a 30 per cent decline in work related fatalities and a 50 per cent decline for serious injuries and illnesses.
Importantly, our stakeholders also agree the WHS Roadmap for NSW is on track and the identified harms remain the right areas for focus and attention. Equally, the NSW Government supports the approach of harm prevention through targeted risk initiatives, including mentally healthy workplaces.
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Ministers message - continued from previous page
In the last financial year, the Government made a $2.5 million investment in additional specialist construction infrastructure project inspectors, as well commencing a safety crackdown in the construction industry in response to a significant increase in government led infrastructure activity. To this end, SafeWork inspectors conducting a construction blitz have visited more than 460 construction sites across NSW focusing on workers at high risk of injuries related to falls.
This is just one example of the many initiatives that will achieve the Roadmap for NSW 2022 and will continue to build on NSW’s steady and sustained decline in fatality and serious injury rates.
Hon. Matt Kean MP,
Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation
Member for Hornsby
Let's talk safety
The Work Health and Safety Roadmap for NSW 2022 is a six year strategy for NSW. The Roadmap was launched in August 2016 and following a review to determine its continued relevance, it has been updated in August 2018.
Our aims are to protect against harm, reduce unnecessary compliance costs and secure safety standards. In our first 12 months, we have consulted widely with stakeholders to agree a path towards our shared vision of healthy, safe and productive lives.
Here we set out the ‘Roadmap’ that shows the way forward not only for SafeWork NSW, but for every stakeholder, employer and worker in NSW. This collaborative agreement, which keeps safety simple while focusing on the important issues, is a first for our state.
It calls out the critical elements at the heart of a Health and Safety Landscape:
- consultation
- committed leadership
- good safety practices
- safe design and supply chains
- skilled workers who look out for each other.
By establishing a clear vision, action areas and targets, the Roadmap is focusing on reducing harms that cause the greatest risk to health and safety while supporting ease to do and stay in business in NSW.