Posted April 24, 2020 16:50:15

Photo: The Prime Minister said working from home was especially difficult for office workers with children. (Supplied: Unsplash)

Australian businesses have been given a new set of rules on how to manage workplaces during the coronavirus pandemic.

The national workplace principles released by Prime Minister Scott Morrison were developed in consultation with union representatives, the COVID-19 Commission and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter.

"This is all about getting Australians back to work and ensuring that when they go back to work, that they and their families can feel safe in going back to work, and to ensure that there are important principles in place," Mr Morrison said.

He said National Cabinet would be developing industry-specific workplace health and safety guidelines around COVID-19.

Breaking down the latest news and research to understand how the world is living through an epidemic, this is the ABC's Coronacast podcast.

The guidelines will be available to businesses on a revamped Safe Work Australia website.

Mr Morrison said he would "love to see a return to work across the board", including workers physically returning to offices.

"There are some people who can work from home, and for whom this period of time has been less of an inconvenience to them than it has to many others," he said.

"But I'm sure you'd know that if you're a parent at home, trying to work from home … it's not working too well for you.

"So when we can get back to the point where we can have kids back at school, and we can get people back at work, then I think we're going to see that lift our economy in ways that we very much need."

National COVID-19 safe workplace principles

This is what the principles document says:

Recognising that the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency, that all actions in respect of COVID-19 should be founded in expert health advice and that the following principles operate subject to the measures agreed and implemented by governments through the National Cabinet process:

1. All workers, regardless of their occupation or how they are engaged, have the right to a healthy and safe working environment.
2. The COVID-19 pandemic requires a uniquely focused approach to work health and safety (WHS) as it applies to businesses, workers and others in the workplace.
3. To keep our workplaces healthy and safe, businesses must, in consultation with workers and their representatives, assess the way they work to identify, understand and quantify risks and to implement and review control measures to address those risks.
4. As COVID-19 restrictions are gradually relaxed, businesses, workers and other duty holders must work together to adapt and promote safe work practices, consistent with advice from health authorities, to ensure their workplaces are ready for the social distancing and exemplary hygiene measures that will be an important part of the transition.
5. Businesses and workers must actively control against the transmission of COVID-19 while at work, consistent with the latest advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), including considering the application of a hierarchy of appropriate controls where relevant.
6. Businesses and workers must prepare for the possibility that there will be cases of COVID-19 in the workplace and be ready to respond immediately, appropriately, effectively and efficiently, and consistent with advice from health authorities.
7. Existing state and territory jurisdiction of WHS compliance and enforcement remains critical. While acknowledging individual variations across WHS laws mean approaches in different parts of the country may vary, to ensure business and worker confidence, a commitment to a consistent national approach is key, including a commitment to communicating that constitutes best practice in prevention, mitigation and response to the risks presented by COVID-19.
8. Safe Work Australia (SWA), through its tripartite membership, will provide a central hub of WHS guidance and tools that Australian workplaces can use to successfully form the basis of their management of health and safety risks posed by COVID-19.
9. States and Territories ultimately have the role of providing advice, education, compliance and enforcement of WHS and will leverage the use of the SWA central hub in fulfilling their statutory functions.
10. The work of the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission will complement the work of SWA, jurisdictions and health authorities to support industries more broadly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic appropriately, effectively and safely.

Topics: infectious-diseases-other, respiratory-diseases, covid-19, small-business, industry, business-economics-and-finance, industrial-relations