An employer has been cleared of WHS breaches relating to an incident where defective plant was left in service and caught fire, forcing workers to seek refuge and survive on stored air until they could be evacuated.
An employer charged with WHS breaches after a blast hurled rocks at workers inside an exclusion zone has escaped conviction, with a regulator failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that appointing a supervisor with less than "optimal" experience was a breach of the employer's duty.
Researchers have identified a string of occupations and chemical agents linked to a certain type of cancer, and warned that efforts to identify occupational causes of cancer in females are lagging, resulting in missed opportunities for prevention.
A company has been fined nearly $3 million for workplace safety and environmental breaches, in relation to chemical stockpiling and fire incidents that contributed to the Victorian Government's decision to introduce new recklessness offences attracting jail time.
Nearly nine out of 10 workers in a notoriously dangerous industry have been exposed to a highly hazardous process, and many of them have a life-threatening disease, Australian researchers have found.