It's truly ironic that NSW may have ages ago been at the forefront of OHS but is now so backward and intransigent. OHS laws must be standardised otherwise further distortions of justice are inevitable.

The law need not be an ass in this regard.

As Mr Russell points out, the system as it is persecutes more than it prosecutes. Sad fact is, there is a lack of political will and/or courage to do anything to fix it from within. We'll all be quite happy for Ms. Gillard to bring the sanity back to OHS law. Even the ACTU, apart from the dinosaurs who still harbour Dickensian notions of worker exploitation by cruel and uncaring bosses, must see the sense in a system that recognises the true responsibilities of all participants in workplace safety.

The key element in the NSW OH&S laws is the requirement "to maintain a safe work place". Which sounds reasonable, but it has the following effect:

If there is an injury on your site, you are guilty of breaching the provisions, and the magistrate's duty is to measure the mitigating actions you followed in order to reduce the sentence.

An acquataince of mine had a fruit farm west of Canberra, and when the harvesting was due, he hired a team to do the harvesting. With them they hired some machinery and operators, one piece of which was malfunctioning. The operator removed the casing to see what was the matter, and a piece of metal flew out, pierced his lung and he died on the scene.

The farm owner was convicted of not providing a safe work place and while his penalty was far less severe the hire company, he still had a conviction recorded, an $80 000 fine (the minimum for a fatality), a legal bill of nearly $200k and the loss of a substantial portion of his harvest.

He lost his farm and livelyhood as a result, and had to return to employment in his late 50s.

While I understand the rational behind the assumption of guilt, the punishment of the innocent is the reason why the assumption of innocence is a foundation of the rest of the legal system.