An employer that obtains a special "benefit" from an employee's otherwise routine journey from home to work isn't necessarily liable if the employee is injured in an accident along the way, a tribunal has found.
A tribunal president has warned that "intolerable" wait times for specialist medical appointments are having a major adverse impact on workers' compensation disputes and systems, and referred the matter to a government minister.
A PCBU has been fined $134,000, and it two directors $33,000 each, for failing to "comply with their basic obligations", after a young worker was pinned under 1.2 tonnes of steel sheets when parts of a structure collapsed.
A PCBU failed to take straightforward measures that would have protected a worker from being attacked by a client known to be violent, a tribunal has found in convicting the duty holder.
A worker's noise-induced hearing loss resulted from duties requiring her to regularly leave her laboratory and walk past noisy equipment, a tribunal has found.
Proposed industrial manslaughter provisions released for feedback in South Australia will, according to unions, cover suicides attributable to workplace bullying and harassment, as with Victoria's version of the offence.
Two PCBUs have been convicted and fined a total of nearly half a million dollars after a labour-hire worker died of traumatic head injuries, with a court stressing that consultation failings represented a lost opportunity for identifying safety deficiencies.
Employers have been reminded of their WHS duty to protect their staff from violence, with more than 50 organisations, including major companies and safety regulators, signing an industry statement supporting the eradication of customer disrespect, abuse and violence from workplaces.