In an extremely rare development, a judge has found the WHS offences of a reckless PCBU and a "worker" deserved the highest available penalties, totalling $3.15 million. They were charged over the grisly death of a man who was dragged into a woodchipper, and whose disappearance went unnoticed because the PCBU's systems were "so haphazard".
PCBUs have been reminded of their WHS duties to children, after one entity was fined over a drowning death and another over a forklift joyride. Meanwhile, the ACT has launched a campaign against workplace violence, and reminded employers of the new WHS duty to report "actual or suspected" incidents of workplace s-xual assault.
Two PCBUs have been handed pre-discount fines totalling $460,000 for their involvement in the death of a delivery driver. One of the PCBUs failed to comply with its consultation duties, which could have been satisfied through a simple email enquiry, a judge ruled.
An alarming "first of its kind" WHS survey has found that burnout rates are surging, with isolated environments partly to blame, while a new "WHS Radar" has warned of the "emergence of complacency" around critical safety issues.
A PCBU that failed to prevent workers from taking contaminated clothing home, or tell a labourer he needed to be clean-shaven when wearing a mask, has been convicted and fined for category-3 WHS breaches.
A WHS regulator should be "excised" from a government department, in a move that could improve its public image and ensure it targets more PCBUs, a retired judge has hinted, after receiving complaints around the regulator's independence and prosecutorial decisions.
