We therefore call upon the federal government and the Workplace Relations Minister to immediately:

1) Review the membership of the original panel and change it to a membership of no less than three persons from each state and territory with a balance of appropriate industry, professional and academic knowledge, skill and experience;

2) The key stakeholders and social partners from each state i.e. employers, trade unions and the government shall put forward nominations and agree upon those nominees to fill these positions;

3) In full consultation and consensus between the stakeholders and social partners, the panel shall be appointed to comprehensively review, research and reconfigure all of the original recommendations for a new model OHS Act in a realistic time frame of no less than four years;

4) Panel members must be made publically accountable for all their recommendations;

5) From that point, a panel of no less than seven members elected from the ‘new’ panel (founded upon the true tripartite principles of the ILO convention; to which Australia is a willing party and signature) and with a balance of appropriate industry, professional and academic knowledge, skill and experience, shall make the final recommendations into achieving the highest levels of OHS legislative standards taken from each state or territory. Each of the highest OHS standards shall unambiguously apply;

6) A further two years of deliberation and true tripartite consultation and debate consistent with ILO principles shall follow the drafting of the agreed highest standards of OHS legislation;

7) A public comment period of no less than six months (as opposed to six weeks) shall be allocated to enable full and proper discussion and debate to occur.