WorkSafe Victoria

WorkSafe Victoria is the trading name of the Victorian WorkCover Authority, a statutory authority of the state government of Victoria, Australia.

After being renamed in 2014 as Victorian Workcover Authority - its official name - by then Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips, it returned to the WorkSafe trading name after the election of the Labor Government in November 2014. Previous to this it has had a number of different names including VWA, WorkCare and the Department of Labour. The name WorkSafe became the trading name for the workplace health and safety and workers compensation divisions in mid-2008 as it reflected its objective of encouraging people to work safely and reduce the personal and commercial effect of workplace injuries.

The organisation reports to a Minister, Robin Scott (since November 2014) and has a Board of Management (Chairperson John Walter - acting since his predecessor, David Krasnostein, resigned in March 2015 along with CEO Denise Cosgrove who had only joined the organisation in 2012.) The Acting Chief Executive is Clare Amies, the head of the workers compensation side of the Victorian Workcover Authority.

A review of WorkSafe and the Geelong-based Transport Accident Commission was announced in February 2015 by the Victorian Government. It is being carried out by a former WorkSafe and TAC Chair, businessman James MacKenzie. In announcing the review, the government confirmed its commitment to moving WorkSafe to Geelong.

Sudden departure Mr Krasnostein and Ms Cosgrove were appointed by the previous Liberal Government and were charged with the responsibility of restructuring the organisation. This led to substantial job losses which resulted in the loss of many senior managers and experienced staff. Ms Cosgrove announced the start of the restructure program in June 2012 after the Queens Birthday long weekend in an email to staff which describes how she had had a pleasant weekend at the spa town of Daylesford in regional Victoria and that job losses would be the product of restructuring that would begin immediately. It took some weeks for the story to be reported. Their sudden resignations on 3 March 2015 were announced in a State Government news release were said to have been due to the loss of confidence in WorkSafe's leadership and the handling of chemical contamination of the soil and a cancer cluster at the Country Fire Authority's Fiskville training facility near Ballarat, however there had been a number of other senior officials who had also resigned since the government's election including Country Fire Authority CEO Mick Bourke, and the board of Ambulance Victoria. In an unusual move after the resignations of Ms Cosgrove and Mr Krasnostein, Minister Robin Scott spoke to staff at WorkSafe's headquarters and re-affirmed the government's support for WorkSafe's health and safety priorities which was widely seen as having been undermined under by the previous government.

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