Securing Health and Safety at Major Sporting Events

Abstract

This article examines the duties and responsibilities owed by persons involved with organising and staging major sporting events under Australian workplace health and safety (WHS) laws. While WHS laws focus primarily on the health and safety of workers, they also have a very broad public safety component. This examination reveals multiple actors involved with major sporting events owe broad, concurrent, overlapping and non-delegable WHS duties. The duties appear to impose onerous obligations on event organisers to ensure the safety of work undertaken by expert contractors they engage. On closer examination, however, the duties form part of a larger legislative scheme that allocates risk management responsibilities amongst persons involved with major sporting events.

Keywords: Occupational Health and Safety, OHS, Sport, Health, Safety, Events

JEL Classification: K32, I12, I18, G20