Panel Speaker: Paul Newell

Director – Major Hazard Facilities, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland

Paul Newell FRACI CChem is Director – Major Hazard Facilities with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland and a senior regulatory, safety and enforcement executive with more than 25 years’ experience across State, Commonwealth and international jurisdictions.

Paul leads Queensland’s Major Hazard Facilities regulatory function, with delegated responsibility for safety-case assessment, licensing and regulatory intervention across high-consequence operations including LNG, chemical processing and explosives manufacture. He leads a multidisciplinary team of chemists, chemical engineers, process-safety engineers and inspectors focused on process safety, critical-risk assurance and risk-based regulation.

Previously, as Director Operations – Compliance & Enforcement with Western Australia’s Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, Paul led a statewide team of approximately 135 compliance and enforcement officers, assessment officers, technical and support staff working across mining, oil and gas, power generation, chemical manufacturing and other high-risk sectors. His career also spans environmental protection, major project facilitation and approvals, emergency response, forensic science, law enforcement and intelligence, including work with the former Australian Crime Commission and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Since 2010, Paul has worked internationally as a Subject Matter Expert and Special Advisor to the UNODC, chairing expert forums, developing global technical guidance and delivering operational programs across West Africa, Southeast Asia, Central and South America. He has authored and contributed to international guidance on synthetic opioids, officer safety, and the safe and environmentally sustainable management and improvised disposal of illicit drugs and hazardous chemicals in non-secure environments.

Paul is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and previously a Board Member of the National Chemistry Committee of the Australian Academy of Science.