ACT workers are making more claims for injuries than employees interstate as the work safety authority makes fewer visits to businesses.
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While the ACT had the second-highest rate of serious work injury claims, its workplace inspectors made fewer visits to businesses and gave fewer notices to those ignoring employee safety, a Safe Work Australia report has found.
The ACT's rate of serious injury claims dropped from 12.7 per 1000 employees in 2010-11 to 11.3 in 2014-15, the most recent year data was collected in the report.
But the figure was well above the Australian average of 9.8, equalled by Tasmania and surpassed only by Queensland on 11.5, prompting calls for WorkSafe ACT to enforce laws and hold bosses to account.
Despite more ACT government-funded inspector positions for WorkSafe ACT in 2013-14, its inspectors visited workplaces less the next year, recording 10 per cent fewer visits aimed at preventing incidents.
The ACT also had the largest drop in infringement notices issued during 2014-15, down 70 per cent on the previous year.
Unions ACT secretary Alex White said Canberra businesses needed to take workplace safety more seriously.
"We need WorkSafe ACT focused on enforcing workplace safety laws, and holding unscrupulous, unsafe employers to account," he said.
The work safety authority's declining workplace visits showed it couldn't control its own decisions, despite the ACT having 3000 serious workplace injuries a year, Mr White said.
"That's 3000 examples of why we need stronger enforcement and compliance."
The Safe Work report comes after Unions ACT passed a motion claiming there was increasing evidence that workers were "not well served" by the absorption of WorkSafe ACT into Access Canberra, an agency which takes in all of the government's regulatory authorities.
An ACT government spokeswoman said the report statistics dated back to 2014-2015 and reflected a period before and during the transition of WorkSafe ACT into Access Canberra.
Workplace visits aiming to prevent injuries had increased since then, she said.
Early data in the Safe Work report also indicated the ACT was alone among states and territories in recording a rise in rates of long term claims for 12 or more weeks of compensation in the three years to 2013-14, reaching 5.1 claims per 1000 employees, compared to the national average of 2.8.
Mr White said the drop in shorter-term compensation claims and the rise in the ACT's longer-term ones showed workers were avoiding more injuries in situations they could control.
The Safe Work report, reissued after data errors forced revisions to another version released earlier in 2017, showed the ACT compensation claim rates had improved for electricity, gas, water and waste workers (13.7 claims per 1000 employees), teachers (16.1), healthcare and social work employees (28.3), and in services industries.
But workers made more claims during 2014-15 in construction (22.6), manufacturing (19.1), retail (10.4), transport, postal and warehousing (17.9) and ICT and media sectors (3.7).
