For 40 years Richard has contributed substantially to knowledge about the design and operation of WHS regulation, principally through legal, empirical and policy research. He has been awarded six Australian Research Council grants; has carried out many research consultancies (most recently for the ILO and EU-OSHA); and has completed at least ten major empirical studies, eight of which focused on WHS regulation. His research publications have focused on WHS standard setting, worker representation and participation in WHS, and compliance monitoring and enforcement of the WHS statutes, and include 10 books on WHS regulation. His most recent books are Creighton and Stewart’s Labour Law (2025, 7th ed, with Andrew Stewart, Anthony Forsyth, Mark Irving and Shae McCrystal), Work Health and Safety Regulation in Australia (2022, with Michael Tooma); and Strike Ballots, Democracy, and Law (2020, with Shae McCrystal, Breen Creighton, Catrina Denvir and Alice Orchiston).
Richard is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne Law School (principally in the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law). His previous appointments include as Director of Research in the QUT School of Law (2014-2017; Director of the Socio-legal Research Centre in the Griffith Law School (2003 to 2009), the foundation Director of the National Research Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Regulation in the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) in the Research School for the Social Sciences at the Australian National University (2001-2004), and Deputy-Director of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law from 1994–1999 (and Acting Director in 1997). From 2021 to 2024 he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Work Health and Safety Regulation; and from 2012 to 2019 an Editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Law.