Speakers

The Hon. Sophie Cotsis MP is the New South Wales Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Work Health and Safety and Member for Canterbury.

A proud advocate for better, safer & productive workplaces,

Before entering Parliament, Minister Cotsis worked in the hospitality industry, as well as representing working people, worked in the private & public sector, where she developed a deep commitment to community wellbeing.

Minister Cotsis served in the Legislative Council before being elected as the Member for Canterbury in a Byelection.

Since her appointment as Minister in 2023, she has re-established the NSW Industrial Court and sought to modernise the state’s industrial relations and work health and safety frameworks.

This has included making the biggest amendments to the state’s industrial relations and work health and safety frameworks in more than 30 years.

Minister Cotsis has also led the reformation of icare into a fit for purpose organisation to manage the state’s insurance schemes. Minister Cotsis has made significant strides to protect workers from deadly dust diseases, including NSW leading the nationwide ban on engineered stone, establishing a Silica Worker Register, implemented a Tunnelling Dust Safety Taskforce and securing $5 million in critical funding for silicosis research and $2.5 million for a state-of-the-art Lung Bus which travels around NSW.

On July 1, 2025, she established Safe Work NSW as an independent regulator with an accompanying $127.7 million investment over four years, which includes creating 51 new Safe Work NSW inspector positions specialising in psychosocial harms and expanding the inspectorate.