TED McNabb had a theory about how to deal with government regulations.

"Because they are very busy people and we live a long way from their office, it would be extremely inconsiderate of me to bother them about such trivial matters."

This rule applied to any body he happened to be dealing with.

No doubt Ted would have applied the same rule to the Fair Work Act and what he calls OH and flamin' S.

Sally takes the opposite view and believes it is good business practice to comply.

In particular, Sally takes OHS laws seriously, first to try to make the place as safe as possible and second to be in a defendable position if an accident happens.

And because the penalties have been increased, Sally wants to ensure their team is safe.

She is aware agriculture kills more people annually than any industry.

Sally discovered the key changes under the new work health and safety laws were wide ranging.

The duties of care were not defined by the nature of employment relationship.

This means the term "employer" was replaced with the term "person conducting a business or undertaking" and "employee" with a broadly defined term of "worker", to cover employees, volunteers, contractors, sub-contractors, apprentices, work experience students and outworkers.

The term "workplace" would be broadened to include any place where a worker went or was likely to go while at work.

There were positive duties for "officers" to exercise "due diligence" to ensure the person conducting a business or undertaking complied with its duty of care.

Currently some OHS Acts attribute liability to officers where a corporation is in breach of a duty and they have a reverse onus of proof to show they did what was reasonably practicable or that they had no influence in relation to the breach.

Under the new laws there is no attributed liability.

A new duty to consult, co-operate and co-ordinate activities with other duty holders has been introduced to ensure duty holders work together to control work health and safety risk.

The new act means Sally will need to do a complete review of the farm policy, but she won't tell Ted.