Whoever said that laws had to be logical? In NSW however work safety laws seem to be going to extremes to prove that logical has no role to play. Take this example.
If you buy a microwave oven, as a consumer you are able to rely on consumer laws in the event the microwave blows up and injures someone. The microwave manufacture could face prosecution but you wouldn't.
But if you run a business, even a small one and you take the same microwave to work and it blows up and injures someone you will be prosecuted. Why? Simply because NSW work safety laws introduced in 2000 state that anyone running a business "must ensure" the safety of all workers.
The words "must ensure" are unique to NSW. They create a god-like responsibility on business owners and managers to never have a work safety incident. Plenty of people have been prosecuted under the laws. And the statistical chance of defending a prosecution is about 100 to 1 against you.
It's not surprising then that there are firms sending promotional flyers around NSW inviting you, to pay them, to check your business microwave ovens. Imagine the money spinner "checking" thousands of perfectly good microwaves every six months!
But here's the real problem. If you have received one of these flyers and ignore it, and a work microwave happens to blow up, the fact of receiving the flyer and ignoring it becomes evidence of your guilt.
As one Central Coast manager is now contemplating, it's probably safer to throw the canteen microwave away. But then you'll probably be prosecuted under NSW industrial relations laws for failing to provide worker amenities.
At least one thing is consistent in NSW this sort of "logic" is consistently illogical.
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