Push for tougher work safety laws in WA

The West Australian government is being pressured to swap the state's 33-year-old occupational health and safety laws with tougher national legislation.

WA signed an inter-governmental agreement in 2009 to use tougher national laws as the basis for its workplace safety legislation but progress stalled.

Greens upper house MP Alison Xamon sought a commitment in parliament last week that the laws would be pursued as a matter of urgency and was told they were a priority.

No timeframes were given but Minister Bill Johnston said departments in his portfolio, commerce and mines and petroleum, were now co-operating after previously being directed to work on the nationally-consistent laws separately.

Ms Xamon said penalties under the current system were "appallingly inadequate".

"In eight years, nothing has happened," she told AAP.

"We really are in a diabolical state at the moment in terms of the penalties available for breaches, even when it results in death."

The only other state that hasn't implemented the national WHS laws is Victoria.

Separately, Ms Xamon and the CFMEU are also calling for tough new industrial manslaughter laws that include jail time for the worst offences.

She said the laws should apply where it could be demonstrated that executives made decisions that they reasonably knew could result in a worker's death.

An example was if a potentially deadly risk was brought to their attention then ignored, Ms Xamon said.

"People are dying on work sites too often," she said.

In October, 27-year-old German backpacker Marianka Heumann died after falling 13 floors through an open shaft at a the Concerto apartment complex in East Perth.

Less than three months later, a 17-year-old boy fell 12 metres to his death while working on a glass ceiling at the General Post Office building in Perth's Forrest Chase.