Guidelines for employees, contractors and visitors

UAC has adopted the following WHS principles to fulfil its health and safety responsibilities:

• Develop, implement and maintain a work health and safety management system to systematically manage health and safety in the workplace.
• Comply with the health and safety legislation.
• Implement a health and safety risk management process to identify and manage risks.
• Allocate adequate resources to enable the effective implementation of the work health and safety management system.
• Provide safe equipment, structures and systems of work.
• Provide appropriate health and safety training and disseminate WHS information to employees and other stakeholders via the intranet and UAC website.
• Implement arrangements for the consultation of health and safety matters with employees and encourage employee participation.
• Establish objectives and measurable targets for health and safety aimed at the elimination and prevention of work-related injury and illness and to continually improve WHS performance.
• Report on WHS performance and matters of importance to the UAC Board.

UAC has implemented the legislative requirements pursuant to:

• the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)
• the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 (NSW)
• Codes of Practice approved under section 274 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW).

UAC’s WHS policy states the company's commitment to fulfilling its health and safety obligations under the WHS legislation. The policy also sets out the responsibilities of management and employees to ensure the health, safety and welfare of everyone in the workplace.

UAC is committed to:

• providing a safe and healthy working environment for the prevention of work-related injury and illness, including mental health and wellbeing
• eliminating hazards and reducing WHS risks
• continual improvement to the WHS management system
• consultation with and training of employees
• fulfilling legal and other requirements.

Section 27 of the NSW Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act) places the duty of care on an Officer to exercise due diligence to ensure that their organisation complies with the Act.

UAC Board members and the UAC Executive are Officers under the Act and provide leadership by ensuring ongoing health and safety success, compliance with the WHS legislation and accepting responsibility to establish, implement, maintain and improve the WHS management system.

UAC continues to perform the following due diligence activities to ensure that our obligations are fulfilled in accordance with the WHS Act:

• acquire and keep up-to-date knowledge of work health and safety matters
• gain an understanding of the nature of the operations of the business and of the hazards and risks associated with business operations
• ensure that there are appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise risks to health and safety in the workplace
• ensure that there are processes for receiving and considering information regarding incidents, hazards and risks and responding in a timely way to that information
• ensure that there are processes for effective consultation with employees in the development and review of work health and safety practices
• provide training and instruction to employees about work health and safety
• ensure that there are processes for reporting notifiable incidents.

The UAC Board has overall accountability for the safety of all activities conducted by the company and will provide adequate resources and authority to enforce actions considered necessary to protect the health and safety of UAC employees and other stakeholders.

The UAC Executive Group is responsible for providing a healthy and safe workplace and ensuring UAC has implemented processes for complying with the WHS legislation to deliver improvements towards eliminating work-related injury and illness.

Department Managers are responsible for implementing the WHS management system within their area of control and reporting identified hazards and risks to Human Resources.

Employees are responsible for following the WHS policy and procedures and ensuring their conduct does not endanger the health and safety of themselves and other persons. Section 84 of the WHS Act gives employees the right to remove themselves from unsafe work situations without undue consequence.

Managing WHS risks is a mandatory legislative requirement.

UAC uses the following risk management tools to identify and manage WHS risks:

• risk register – the register documents existing WHS risk assessment information and internal controls put in place to mitigate risks
• compliance register – the register documents UAC’s WHS compliance obligations, compliance strategies to ensure UAC is fully compliant with the WHS legislation, compliance results, compliance breaches and rectification of breaches. Compliance requirements are kept up to date by subscription to legislative services for WHS and regular review of WHS regulatory websites
• workplace inspections to note and report any exceptions or defects
• consultation and participation process
• first aid equipment, facilities and training
• emergency planning and crisis response procedure
• hazard/incident register
• change management process established for controlling changes that impact on the WHS performance, such as new products, new services and work conditions
• health and wellbeing initiatives around resilience and mental health
• corporate insurance policies.

UAC has a duty under section 47 of the WHS Act to consult employees who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by a matter relating to work health and safety.

UAC will consult employees when:

• identifying hazards and assessing risks arising from the work carried out or to be carried out
• making decisions about ways or control measures to eliminate or minimise those risks
• making decisions about the adequacy of facilities for their welfare
• proposing changes that may affect their health or safety
• making decisions about procedures for consultation; resolving health or safety issues; monitoring health of employees; monitoring the conditions at the workplace and providing information and training for employees.

Management review is undertaken by the Executive Group with the support of Human Resources at regular intervals. The aim is to critically evaluate the performance of the WHS management system against achievement of the objectives and compliance with the WHS legislation.

The review will enable management to decide on:

• the continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of the WHS management system in achieving its intended outcomes
• the extent to which the WHS Policy and the WHS objectives have been met
• any need for changes to the WHS management system
• the impact of changes in internal and external issues on WHS objectives and performance
• effectiveness of the risk management process
• continual improvement opportunities
• action planning to eliminate nonconformities, to prevent recurrence of incidents and to improve performance
• adequacy of resources for maintaining the WHS management system.

UAC will provide updates of the WHS performance at Board meetings.