Developments in work health and safety and anti-discrimination law affecting barristers, chambers and Bar Rule 123

Please join Bruce Hodgkinson AM SC (Chair of the IEHS Committee), Sera Mirzabegian SC (Chair of the DEC), IEHS Committee member Penny Thew and DEC member Matthew Minucci to discuss significant developments in anti-discrimination and work health and safety law that have direct application to the New South Wales Bar.  

Key developments to be examined include:

1. the 22 May 2024 SafeWork NSW Psychological Health and Safety Strategy 2024-2026, which:

• is applicable to persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) as defined under s5 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) (WHS Act). Barristers and barristers’ chambers are PCBUs and the obligations under the WHS Act apply to each separately.
•  named bullying and harassment as primary psychosocial hazards within the meaning of cl 55A and 55B of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 (NSW)

2. SafeWork NSW announcements:

• In 2021, declaring the legal profession a ‘high risk profession’, including because of the exposure of legal practitioners to bullying and harassment.
•   In May 2024, declaring SafeWork NSW would undertake compliance checks in respect of psychosocial hazards, primarily bullying and harassment.

​​​​​​​3. the positive duty enforceable from December 2023 under Part IIA of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (introduced in December 2022), applicable to PCBUs. In September 2023, the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner said that the legal profession could be ‘targeted’.

4. Legislative provisions of the SD Act, including amendments, that are capable of being absorbed into Rule 123(1)(a) of the Legal Profession Uniform Conduct (Barristers) Rules 2015.