Formal Consultation Process for Petroleum and Major Hazard Facilities Safety Legislation Reform

The Department of Mines and Petroleum’s (DMP) Resources Safety Division is currently undertaking a review of Western Australia’s safety legislation for the mining, petroleum and major hazards facilities.

The review is considering the options for consolidating the safety provisions from the petroleum legislation (currently in three separate Acts), major hazard facilities provisions (currently in the Dangerous Goods Safety Act 2004) and the new mine safety provisions in the proposed Work Health and Safety (Resources) Bill.

DMP has been liaising with the Regulatory Gatekeeping Unit (RGU) at the Department of Finance, which screens all regulatory proposals. RGU have advised that this proposal requires consultation in the form of a concept Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS).

Five options are proposed, ranging from fully consolidating the safety provisions into one Act; partially consolidating into two separate Acts; to keeping the status quo. There are positives and negatives for each option, and this RIS process should identify the costs and benefits of each option.

A Consultation RIS describing the five options will need to be prepared for use in stakeholder consultation, followed by the Decision RIS identifying and justifying the preferred option.