After being renamed in 2014 as Victorian Work-cover Authority by Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips, it returned to the WorkSafe trading name after the election of the Labor Government in November 2014.
[5] Although being active in carrying out workplace safety inspections across the state and prosecuting breaches of workplace health, safety, and workers' compensation laws, a significant focus of WorkSafe's activity includes communication with internal and external stakeholders, media (including publishing details of significant incidents and prosecutions) and the wider community.
WorkSafe employs safety inspectors based at 12 offices in Melbourne (City, Narre Warren, Essendon Fields, Mulgrave) and regional Victoria (Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Mildura, Shepparton, Traralgon, Wangaratta, and Warrnambool) and conducts targeted visits based on identified high-risk industries and in response to calls where dangers are identified.
WorkSafe oversees Victoria's workers' compensation system which provides financial as well as health and related support to people who have been hurt in the course of their work.
WorkSafe promotes to employers, injured workers and the people who treat them, the idea of an early and sustainable return to work.
[6] Mr Krasnostein and Ms Cosgrove were appointed by the previous Liberal Government and were charged with the responsibility of restructuring the organisation.
Their sudden resignations on 3 March 2015 were announced in a State Government news release were said to have been due to the loss of confidence in WorkSafe's leadership and the handling of chemical contamination of the soil and a cancer cluster at the Country Fire Authority's Fiskville training facility near Ballarat, however there had been a number of other senior officials who had also resigned since the government's election including Country Fire Authority CEO Mick Bourke, and the board of Ambulance Victoria.
The Occupational Health and Safety Act was enacted in 1985 as a major reform of the Labor government of John Cain II.