New bill to prevent occupational respiratory disease

Workplace exposure to occupational hazards substantially contributes to the burden of respiratory diseases in Australia, write Ross Sottile and Jane Garnett.

Occupational exposures are an important determinant of respiratory health. International estimates note that about 15 per cent of adult-onset asthma, 15 per cent of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and 10 to 30 per cent of lung cancers may be attributable to hazardous occupational exposures.

Having assisted many workers and families affected by occupational respiratory diseases such as silicosis in seeking compensation, we see firsthand the devastating impact these preventable diseases have on workers, loved ones and coworkers.

The re-emergence of silicosis in Australia has highlighted the severity of occupational respiratory diseases and the significant consequences that can occur due to insufficient workplace health and safety (WHS) frameworks, poor health surveillance, under-recognition of respiratory hazards at work and lack of information/collection for early intervention and rapid response.

In fact, currently, very little information is collected regarding actual cases of occupational respiratory diseases in Australia. This lack of information is a major impediment to the identification of new hazardous exposures and targeted interventions by WHS regulators.

However, a new bill introduced into Federal Parliament on 21 June 2023, the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 (“the bill”), is a welcome attempt to support the early detection and monitoring of new cases of occupational respiratory diseases and identify workplaces and industries that require greater scrutiny.

If passed into law, the bill will establish a National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry for reporting all occupational respiratory diseases.

The purpose of the national registry is to capture and share data on the incidences of occupational respiratory diseases and causative exposures to aid in the detection of new and emerging threats to workers’ respiratory health, inform incidence trends and assist in targeting and monitoring the effectiveness of intervention and prevention strategies.

The bill will require medical specialists in the fields of respiratory and sleep medicine and occupational and environmental medicine who diagnose certain occupational respiratory diseases to notify the diagnosis, the patient and the exposure details to the national registry via an online portal.

The bill will also provide the Minister for Health with the power to make rules prescribing which occupational respiratory diseases require notification. Consistent with the recommendations of the National Disease Taskforce, initially, only silicosis will be prescribed as mandatory. However, this power will enable the registry to respond to other threats to workers’ respiratory health in the future. Respiratory specialists and occupational physicians will also be able to notify the national registry of information about an individual who has been diagnosed with other occupational respiratory diseases where consent is provided.

The information from the national registry will be disclosed to relevant workplace safety authorities with the responsibility of protecting workers from respiratory diseases. The information will increase awareness and enable actions to be taken to reduce further exposure to respiratory hazards and the development of respiratory diseases.

While we welcome the implementation of the Dust Diseases Registry Bill that will assist in targeting emerging threats to workers’ respiratory health, we need stronger laws to reduce the harm caused to miners, tunnellers and workers exposed to respiratory hazards.

Unfortunately, we still have a growing cohort of occupationally exposed workers with entirely preventable diseases.

Immediate action is required to better protect Australian workers from hazardous exposures to reduce the burden of disease, including a total ban on imports and manufacturing of engineered stone and effective support for ill workers under the workers’ compensation schemes.

By Ross Sottile and Jane Garnett, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers