Browsing: Authority/inspectorate news | Page 7

• Police enter WHS undertaking after speed-trap death;
  
• Judges sought for restored WHS jurisdiction; and
  
• PCBUs reminded of WHS duties around domestic violence.

The fine imposed on an employer that failed to fully implement a mandatory safety measure, because it ran out of the required materials, has been increased more than five-fold on appeal, with a judge stressing penalties must be significant enough to dissuade others from "cutting corners".

A WHS regulator will step up its enforcement activities against workplace psychosocial hazards, like excessive workloads, with more specialist inspectors and better engagement with stakeholders, under two of 46 accepted recommendations from a highly anticipated review.

Employers must apply the hierarchy of controls to the hazards associated with height work, which starts with not performing any such work where reasonably practicable, a regulator has advised in launching a major blitz.

A coronial inquest into a young worker's death in a forklift crash has found his employer didn't have any written safety policies or enforce critical WHS rules, before appearing to defy WHS caselaw by concluding the business was not obligated to instruct the worker to wear his seatbelt or not perform unloading work on slopes.

A PCBU should have ensured the safety procedures in its paper systems were put into practice and checked and maintained, to prevent a worker being pinned between a wall and a crane load, a court has found.

A WHS regulator has been allowed to continue prosecuting an employer over two silicosis cases, including one causing a worker's death, after defeating claims it had been aware of the alleged offences for many years and laid the charges too late.

A company has been convicted and fined $1.3 million in Victoria's first finalised workplace manslaughter case. Its director was also charged with manslaughter, but pleaded guilty to a less serious offence.

• WHS notices reach $1m after judge's referral;
  
• Employers charged over deaths at mental health unit and nursery; and
  
• Right-to-disconnect laws tweaked to avoid criminal proceedings.

The powers of elected health and safety representatives and protections against safety discrimination in the offshore sector have been stepped up and aligned with those in WHS laws, in a Bill introduced some six years after a parliamentary inquiry warned the changes were needed to combat a "culture of fear and reprisal".