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.
A PCBU has been convicted and fined $255,000 for exposing two "spotters" to the risk of serious injury or death, in a case highlighting that duty holders can be prosecuted and handed hefty fines where injuries have not occurred.
A PCBU with "significant" WHS systems has been fined $525,000 over a fatality, involving its failure to implement a specific documented system of work for a task a worker was performing when he was killed.
A company has been fined $1.2 million for dozens of breaches of the Heavy Vehicle National Law, after it was found to have "encouraged" drivers, through its remuneration structure, to disregard their fatigue obligations nearly 200 times in a five-week period.
A court has affirmed that lump sum death benefits must be paid to the wife of a killed worker, rejecting the employer's claim the couple had been separated for two years and she was no longer dependent on his income.
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.