Speakers at the NSW inquiry into workplace fatalities have claimed WorkCover takes too long to prosecute employers and suggested it split its regulatory and advisory roles, while a new approach to industrial manslaughter laws has also been canvassed.
The NSW Government has introduced a new regime covering truck crash investigations to ensure that WorkCover is notified when fatigue is suspected of being a cause.
Employers should focus on changing the culture in their workplace instead of simply implementing OHS policies, because compliance "does not work", according to Coles Myer.
Two recent SA prosecutions highlight the importance of guarding dangerous machinery and ensuring careful induction when new plant is installed. The employers had convictions recorded against them in both cases.
NSW employers must provide convincing evidence if they are to claim that an injured worker was dismissed for reasons other than injury, a case illustrates.
A NSW Court of Appeal judge has called for courts to help change the current culture of litigation by conducting "stop watch trials", after a worker's simple damages claim "blew up into a monster".
The AIRC has clarified the extent of an employer's obligations to incapacitated workers, saying they are not required to "continue indefinitely the employment of injured workers who are unable to perform their contractual duties".
Workers who develop psychological injuries are not entitled to compensation if their own perceptions have contributed to the onset of the condition, according to two decisions handed down in a WA court.
An employer has been fined for allowing a worker known to be careless to operate dangerous machinery, in one of several decision handed down recently in the NSW Chief Industrial Magistrate's Court.
